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Book cover for The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements—transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic ...more
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Ben Burgis
“Some leftists like to talk about “fighting the good fight.” I hate that phrase. Life is short. There are mountains to climb and philosophical texts to grapple with and sexual relationships to pursue and friends to spend time with and music to listen to and whiskey to drink. These things are all a lot more fun than marching through the streets shouting about police violence and hoping the cops don’t decide to give you an in-person demonstration of the problem. Why bother with the “good fight” if you aren’t going to fight to win?”
Ben Burgis, Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left

“I used to believe that the systems we have broadly work. I used to think that there was someone waiting with a plan who could solve a problem like Cambridge Analytica. I was wrong. Our system is broken, our laws don’t work, our regulators are weak, our governments don’t understand what’s happening, and our technology is usurping our democracy.”
Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America

“It turns out cheating is a pretty good strategy to win, as there are very few consequences. The Electoral Commission later conceded that even if the vote was won with the benefit of illegal data or illegal financing, the result still stands.”
Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America

Ben Burgis
“Inside the walls of the VC, everyone tends to avoid talking about how much fun they’re having when they denounce and shame allegedly deserving victims. After all, once you’ve admitted that, you pretty much have to concede that there’s a tremendous psychological incentive to nurture and exaggerate small grievances (so you have a justification for throwing stones), to search for and emphasize subtle respects in which you’re oppressed (so you have standing to throw stones), and to ignore anything that might complicate your understanding of the victim’s alleged transgression (so you aren’t talked out of throwing stones).”
Ben Burgis, Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left

“But in this next iteration of capitalism, the raw materials are no longer oil or minerals but rather commodified attention and behavior. In this new economy of surveillance capitalism, we are the raw materials. What this means is that there is a new economic incentive to create substantial informational asymmetries between platforms and users. In order to be able to convert user behavior into profit, platforms need to know everything about their users’ behavior, while their users know nothing of the platform’s behavior. As Cambridge Analytica discovered, this becomes the perfect environment to incubate propaganda.”
Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America

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