soc net sil vly Big 4
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">premature? silly 12/17</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see GAFA FANG
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://onezero.medium.com/tech-platforms-love-moving-fast-except-when-their-users-are-in-trouble-e8496c3a268">https://onezero.medium.com/tech-platforms-love-moving-fast-except-when-their-users-are-in-trouble-e8496c3a268</a></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A two-page document that Definers distributed about Freedom From Facebook noted that “at least four of the groups in the coalition receive funding or are aligned with George Soros, who has publicly criticized Facebook.” The four groups named in the document do appear to have received funding from Mr. Soros’s Open Society Foundations.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A second, 12-page document sought to link Freedom From Facebook to Mr. Soros and to David Brock, a Democratic operative who is widely portrayed in conservative circles as a master of political dirty tricks. While pushing the connection to Mr. Soros, the document highlighted that protesters from Freedom From Facebook held up signs with images reminiscent of old, anti-Semitic propaganda.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Definers said in a statement that the document was “entirely factual and based on public records.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eddie Vale, a Freedom From Facebook spokesman, said the coalition’s primary funder was the computer scientist David Magerman but he declined to disclose other funders. Mr. Vale said the coalition did not receive money from corporations. Open Society Foundations said it did not fund the coalition.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for Open Society Foundations, said the philanthropy’s president spoke with Ms. Sandberg on Thursday and requested that Facebook commission an independent review of the company’s relationship with Definers, with results made public within three months.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The recent work by Definers was not the first time Facebook has tried to smear its rivals. In 2011, Facebook hired the public-relations firm <b>Burson-Marsteller</b> to urge reporters to investigate Google for invading people’s privacy. The move backfired when reporters revealed the plan</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">mazon may have been expecting lots of public attention when it announced where it would establish its new headquarters – but like many technology companies recently, it probably didn’t anticipate how negative the response would be. In Amazon’s chosen territories of <b>New York and Virginia,</b></span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/13/amazons-hq-split-between-nycarlington-sparks-backlash-locals-politicians/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">local politicians balked</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">at</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.yonkerstribune.com/2018/11/statement-from-senator-michael-gianais-and-new-york-city-council-member-jimmy-van-bramer-regarding-long-island-dicty-amazon-deal" style="text-decoration-line: none;">taxpayer-funded enticements</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">promised to the company. Journalists across the political spectrum</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-like-others-was-played-by-amazon-in-the-hq2-sweepstakes/500229032/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">panned the deals</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">– and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.westword.com/news/twitter-reaction-to-amazon-hq2-bypassing-denver-bullet-dodged-11000743" style="text-decoration-line: none;">social media filled up</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">with the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-furious-about-amazon-hq2-reported-selection-2018-11" style="text-decoration-line: none;">voices of New Yorkers and Virginians</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">pledging resistance.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></b></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Similarly, revelations that <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook exploited anti-Semitic conspiracy theories</a> to undermine its critics’ legitimacy indicate that instead of changing, Facebook would rather go on the offensive.</b> Even as Amazon and Apple saw their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/amazon-stock-price-1-trillion-value.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stock-market values briefly top US$1 trillion</a>, technology executives were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/mark-zuckerbergs-testimony-to-congress-the-key-moments" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dragged before Congress</a>, struggled to coherently take a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-dehumanizing-speech-policy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stance on hate speech</a>, got caught <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/technology/google-walkout-sexual-harassment.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">covering up sexual misconduct</a> and saw their own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">employees protesting business deals</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In some circles this is being seen as a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/4/10/17220060/facebook-trust-major-tech-company" style="text-decoration-line: none;">loss of public trust</a> in the technology <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-other-tech-bubble/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">firms that promised to remake the world</a> – <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/146924/silicon-valleys-origin-story" style="text-decoration-line: none;">socially, environmentally and politically</a> – or at least as frustration with the way these companies have changed the world.<b> But the technology companies need to do much more than regain the public’s trust; they need to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/sundar-pichai-google-corner-office.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">prove that they deserved it</a> in the first place – which, when placed in the context of the <a href="https://hss.sas.upenn.edu/people/zachary-loeb" style="text-decoration-line: none;">history of technology criticism and skepticism</a>, they didn’t.</b></font></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Looking away from the problems</font></span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Big technology companies used to frame their projects in vaguely utopian, positive-sounding lingo that obscures politics and public policy, transcending partisanship and – conveniently – avoiding scrutiny. Google used to remind its workers “<a href="https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Don’t be evil</a>.” Facebook worked to “<a href="https://qz.com/1012461/facebook-changes-its-mission-statement-from-ing-its-mission-statement-from-sharing-making-the-world-more-open-and-connected-to-build-community-and-bring-the-world-closer-together/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">make the world more open and connected</a>.” Who could object to those ideals?</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scholars warned about the dangers of platforms like these, long before many of their founders were even born. In 1970, social critic and historian of technology <b>Lewis Mumford </b>predicted that the goal of what he termed “computerdom” would be “<a href="https://www.boundary2.org/2018/07/loeb/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">to furnish and process an endless quantity of data</a>, in order to expand the role and ensure the domination of the power system.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That same year a </span><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-tyranny-of-structurelessness/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">seminal essay by feminist thinker Jo Freeman</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> warned about the </span><a href="https://jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">inherent power imbalances</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that remained in systems that appeared to make everyone equal.</span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, in 1976, the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum predicted that in the decades ahead people would find themselves in a state of distress as they became <a href="https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/an-island-of-reason-in-the-cyberstream-on-the-life-and-thought-of-joseph-weizenbaum/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">increasingly reliant on opaque technical systems</a>. Countless similar warnings have been issued ever since, including important recent scholarship such as information scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2VnIbO4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Safiya Noble</a>’s exploration of how <a href="https://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/if_then/2018/09/if_then_talks_to_professor_safiya_noble_on_her_book_algorithms_of_oppression.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Google searches replicate racial and gender biases</a> and media scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_FlYDU4AAAAJ&hl=en" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Siva Vaidhyanthan</a>’s declaration that “<a href="https://logicmag.io/05-the-problem-with-facebook-is-facebook/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the problem with Facebook is Facebook</a>.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The technology companies are powerful and wealthy, but their days of avoiding scrutiny may be ending. The American public seems to be starting to suspect that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-tech-isnt-one-big-monopoly-its-5-companies-all-in-different-businesses-92791" style="text-decoration-line: none;">technology giants were unprepared</a>, and perhaps unwilling, to assume responsibility for the tools they unleashed upon the world.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, concern remains high that Russian and other foreign governments are using any available social media platform to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/doj-says-russian-trolls-interfering-midterm-elections/573526/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sow discord and discontent</a> in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-government-sponsored-cyber-militia-cookbook/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">societies around the globe</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">still not solved the problems</a> in <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17986992/facebook-portal-privacy-claims-ad-targeting" style="text-decoration-line: none;">data privacy and transparency</a> that caused the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>. Twitter is the preferred <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/trump-tweets/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">megaphone for President Donald Trump</a> and home to <a href="https://theconversation.com/hate-speech-is-still-easy-to-find-on-social-media-106020" style="text-decoration-line: none;">disturbing quantities of violent hate speech</a>. The future of Amazon’s corporate offices is shaping up to be a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-hq2-search-backfired/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">multi-sided brawl</a> among elected officials and the people they supposedly represent.</font></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is it ignorance or naivete?</font></span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Viewing the present situation with the history of critiques of technology in mind, it’s hard not to conclude that the technology companies deserve the crises they are facing. These companies ask people to entrust them with their emails, personal data, online search histories and financial information, to the point that many of these companies proudly tout that they know individuals <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/internet-can-tell-us-really/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">better than they know themselves</a>. They promote their latest systems, including “smart speakers” and “smart cameras,” seeking to ensure that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/10/spy-christmas-smart-home-facebook-portal-google-home-hub-amazon-show-alexa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">users’ every waking moment</a> – and sleeping moments too – can be monitored, feeding more data into their money-making algorithms.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet seemingly inevitably these companies go on to demonstrate how <a href="https://theconversation.com/silicon-valley-from-hearts-delight-to-toxic-wasteland-86983" style="text-decoration-line: none;">unworthy of trust</a> they actually are, leaking data, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/online-ad-targeting-does-work-as-long-as-its-not-creepy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sharing personal information</a> and failing to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-data-breach.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">prevent hacking</a>, as they slowly fill the world with a disturbing techno-paranoia worthy of an episode of “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/70264888" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Black Mirror</a>.”</font></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Selected ‘Black Mirror’ highlights.</font></span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Technology firms’ responses to each new revelation fit a standard pattern:</b> After a scandal emerges, the company involved expresses alarm that anything went wrong, promises to investigate, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/21/mark-zuckerberg-response-facebook-cambridge-analytica" style="text-decoration-line: none;">and pledges to do better in the future</a>. Some time – days, weeks or even months – later, the company reveals that the scandal was a direct result of how the system was designed, and trots out a dismayed executive to express outrage at the destructive uses bad people found for their system, without admitting that the problem is the system itself.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zuckerberg himself told the U.S. Senate in April 2018 that the Cambridge Analytica scandal had taught him “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/transcript-of-mark-zuckerbergs-senate-hearing/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">we have a responsibility</a> to not just give people tools, but to make sure that those tools are used for good.” That’s a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RubesCartoons/photos/a.477074597360/10154718644957361/?type=3&theater" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pretty fundamental lesson</a> to have missed out on while creating a multi-billion-dollar company.</font></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rebuilding from what’s left</font></span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Using any technology – from a knife to a computer – carries risks, but as technological systems increase in size and complexity <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/477404a.pdf?origin=ppub" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the scale of these risks tends to increase as well</a></b>. A technology is only useful if people can use it safely, in ways where the benefits outweigh the dangers, and if they can feel confident that they understand, and accept, the potential risks. A couple of years ago, Facebook, Twitter and Google may have appeared to most people as benign communication methods that brought more to society than they took away. But with every new scandal, and bungled response, more and more people are seeing that these companies pose serious dangers to society.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As tempting as it may be to point to the “off” button, there’s not an easy solution. Technology giants have made themselves part of the <a href="https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fabric of daily life for hundreds of millions of people</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/facebook-is-it-time-we-all-deleted-our-accounts" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Suggesting that people just quit is simple</a>, but fails to recognize how reliant many people have become on these platforms – and how trapped they may feel in an increasingly intolerable situation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a result, people <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Store-James-Patterson-ebook/dp/B01MYGCHSG" style="text-decoration-line: none;">buy books about how bad Amazon</a> is – by ordering them on Amazon. They conduct Google searches for articles about <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=google%20data%20collection&geo=US" style="text-decoration-line: none;">how much information Google knows</a> about each individual user. They tweet about how much they hate Twitter and post on Facebook articles about Facebook’s latest scandal.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The technology companies may find themselves ruling over an increasingly aggravated user base, as their platforms spread the discontent farther and wider than possible in the past. Or they might choose to change themselves dramatically, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/5/18/17366868/scott-galloway-google-apple-facebook-amazon-regulation-privacy-power-dictators-kara-swisher-podcast" style="text-decoration-line: none;">breaking themselves up</a>, turning some controls over to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/technology/social-media-privacy.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">democratic decisions of their users</a> and taking responsibility for the harm their platforms and products have done to the world. So far, though, it seems the industry hasn’t gone beyond offering half-baked apologies while continuing to go about business as usual. Hopefully that will change. But if the past is any guide, it probably won’t.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/zachary-loeb-595766" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Zachary Loeb</a>, Ph.D. Student in History and Sociology of Science, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-pennsylvania-1017" style="text-decoration-line: none;">University of Pennsylvania</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/technology-giants-didnt-deserve-public-trust-in-the-first-place-106989" style="text-decoration-line: none;">original article</a>.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN 10/18</font></div><div><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States, like other great powers, does not pursue humanitarian objectives. It pursues objectives determined by power considerations, and they lead to different positions with regard to the Kurds or others at different times.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On the imminent dangers of Big Tech</b></font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If you read a major newspaper, say the New York Times, you get a certain range of opinion. It’s narrow. It’s basically centrist to far right, but at least it’s a range of opinion. Those who are more addicted to social media tend to turn directly to what supports their own views, not to hear other things, that’s not a good thing. Google, Facebook and the rest, those are commercial institutions. Their constituency is basically advertisers, and they would like to establish the kinds of controls over their consumers that will be beneficial to [a] business model that <b>enabled them to get advertising. That has very serious distorting effects. And we know that they provide massive information to the corporate system, which they use in their own efforts to try to shape and control behavior and opinion. All of these are dangerous developments. The power of these private corporations to direct people in particular [is] a serious problem which requires considerable thought and attention.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Listen to the interview on the <a href="https://theintercept.com/podcasts/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Intercepted podcast</a> or read a copy of its transcript <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/09/26/trump-united-nations-noam-chomsky/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">here</a>.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$15/hr employees whole food, what about contractors? bernie BEZOS bill</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amazon just hit 1 trillion value?</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?449535-1/communicators-scott-galloway"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.c-span.org/video/?449535-1/communicators-scott-galloway</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7/18</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/person/?scottgalloway" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">New York University Professor Scott Galloway </a>talks about his book </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.</i> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He discussed what he calls the four most powerful companies in the world and their impact on our lives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">soccer 3 bill vs fb 2 billion, most successful thing in history;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">combines luxury appeal with mass production</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">query is more likely to grant wish/protection than god? jobs as JC?!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">corps will not take care of our soul, will do anything to increase profit, not benificent.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">addictive</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyu biz school<b> The Four</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-july-2-2018/">https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-july-2-2018/</a> alexa agent AI</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a15895746/bust-big-tech-silicon-valley/">https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a15895746/bust-big-tech-silicon-valley/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The Four, the only way to build a company with the dominance and mass influence of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple is to appeal to a core human organ that makes adoption of the platform instinctive.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOOGLE: MIND-ALTERING</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our brains are sophisticated enough to ask very complex questions but not sophisticated enough to answer them. Since Homo sapiens emerged from caves, we’ve relied on prayer to address that gap: We lift our gaze to the heavens, send up a question, and wait for a response from a more intelligent being. “Will my kid be all right?” “Who might attack us?”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Western nations become wealthier, organized religion plays a smaller role in our lives. But the void between questions and answers remains, creating an opportunity. As more and more people become alienated from traditional religion, we look to Google as our immediate, all-knowing oracle of answers from trivial to profound. Google is our modern-day god. Google appeals to the brain, offering knowledge to everyone, regardless of background or education level.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACEBOOK: THE HEART OF THE MATTER</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook appeals to the heart. Feeling loved is the key to well-being. Studies of kids in Romanian orphanages who had stunted physical and mental development found that the delay was due not to poor nutrition, as suspected, but to lack of human affection. Yet one of the traits of our species is that we need to love nearly as much as we need to be loved. Susan Pinker, a developmental psychologist, studied the Italian island of Sardinia, where centenarians are six times as common as they are on mainland Italy and ten times as common as in North America. Pinker discovered that among genetic and lifestyle factors, the Sardinians’ emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions is the key to their superlongevity</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMAZON: ALWAYS CONSUMING</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What sight is to the eyes and sound is to the ears, the feeling of more, of insatiety, is to the gut. We crave more stuff psychologically just as the stomach craves more sugar, more carbs, after an indulgent meal. Originally this instinct operated in the service of self-preservation: Having too little meant starvation and certain death, whereas too much was rare, a bloat or a hangover. But open your closets or your cupboards right now, and you’ll probably find you have ten to a hundred times as much as you need. Rationally, we know this makes no sense, but society and our higher brain haven’t caught up to the instinct of always feeling like we need more.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon is the large intestine of the consumptive self. It stores nutrients and distributes them to the cardiovascular system of the 64 percent of American households who are Prime members. It has adopted the best strategy in the history of business—“more for less”—and deployed it more effectively and efficiently than any other firm in history.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">APPLE: SET TO VIBRATE</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second-most-powerful instinct after survival is procreation. As sexual creatures, we want to signal how elegant, smart, and creative we are. We want to signal power. Sex is irrational, luxury is irrational, and Apple learned very early on that it could appeal to our need to be desirable—and in turn increase its profit margins—by placing print ads in Vogue, having supermodels at product launches, and building physical stores as glass temples to the brand.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now comes the Republican campaign to justify the killing of net neutrality by the FCC. Rep. Marsh Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has introduced legislation that allegedly “aims to ultimately <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/19/rep-blackburn-introduces-bill-to-codify-net-neutrality/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">end the heated debate</a> around so-called 'net neutrality' regulations.” </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Breitbart News explained in its “<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/18/exclusive-rep-marsha-blackburn-will-propose-legislation-to-codify-the-rules-of-a-free-and-open-internet/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">exclusive interview</a>” with Blackburn:</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FCC’s Obama-era net neutrality regulations controlled the Internet as a public monopoly, which conservatives argued diminished the freedom of the Internet and led to rampant censorship of conservative and alternative voices by content providers such as <b>Facebook, Google, and Twitter.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The notion of “net neutrality” as a thwarted liberal conspiracy doesn’t have anything to do with Mueller and bears little relation to reality. But it nicely corroborates the master narrative that Trump is protecting the country from demonic liberals, from Silicon Valley to Washington, who won’t let America be America.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div>