Before the Industrial Revolution, economists saw land and agriculture as the fundamental source of wealth. When feudalism gave way to mass production and the increased power of manufacturing, labor and capital became the chief measures of economic might. With the coming of the information age, however, power has shifted away from large factories and massive payrolls towards platforms for collecting, analyzing and leveraging data on human behavior. The prism in which we now interact captures our every move, thought, and increasingly anticipates our desires. Breaking free has never been more difficult.
Myth of the 20th Century – Episode 178 – Pirates of Silicon Valley – Digital Panopticon
— References —
– The Mother of All Demos, Engelbart (1966) – https://vimeo.com/32381658
– Pirates of Silicon Valley, Burke (1999)
– Young Elon Musk, McLaren F1 delivery before he was famous! funny interview (1999) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3tlVE_QXm4
– My First BillG Review, Spolsky (2006) – https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/
– When Google Met WikiLeaks, Assange (2014) – https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/when-google-met-wikileaks/?utm_source=newsweek&utm_medium=serial&utm_campaign=google_met_wikileaks
– AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, Lee (2018)
– Microsoft’s Pentagon cloud computing win comes at a cost, legal and internal, Bloomberg (2019) – https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/28/business/microsofts-pentagon-cloud-computing-win-comes-cost-legal-internal/
– Elon Musk is now worth more than Warren Buffett as Tesla stock continues to break records, Burssztynsky (2020) – https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/elon-musk-now-worth-more-warren-buffett-tesla-stock-continues-n1233681
– The TikTok War, Thompson (2020) – https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. -Francis Parker Yockey
