With the outing of Google’s latest AI fiasco, people are finally starting to realize what I’ve been saying for years:
Big Data is not your friend.
In fact, 99% of tech companies are not your friend.
Let me explain why.
Every single tech company that’s data-driven (Facebook, Google, TikTok, and others) generate money by selling your personal information to third parties.
To sell data that is useful, they collect as much data as possible, most of the time without your knowledge. They track everything that is personally identifiable. What you click on before, after, how long you hover on something, what you say, what you buy, who you know, what other services you use, what kind of computer you use, what browser you use, how often you visit which pages… you name it, they track it.
They take all of this information and compile a “user profile” on you to sell to people. With Google or Apple, they can literally track your location and sell that- they can track your speech and sell that (for targeted ads), they can track what your camera sees, what music you listen to, who you call, who you text, what you see and do every single day. It’s all recorded.
But not only can they sell this data to unscrupulous companies (and they certainly do)- it’s all stored on their servers where the government has free access to it all.
Every single thing you do, online or not, the Federal government knows about, and can (and will) use it against you if they want to.
If this doesn’t already make your skin crawl, it gets worse. Much worse.
The real problem
“I have nothing to hide!” you might say. And even if you’re right, and you’re not bothered by the government knowing everything about you, that’s only the half of it.
The real problem is that the government actively feeds back into the system. They don’t just observe it- they actively manipulate it. Those targeted ads? The government has sway over that. Whose posts you see on Facebook? The government influences that. The search results Google gives you? The government determines the answers you can receive.
Not directly, of course.. no, they wouldn’t be that obvious. They have the parent companies do it for them. So that when Facebook gets caught manipulating public opinion on something like, say, a Presidential election, they can claim plausible deniability. “We didn’t make Facebook do that!” Except that- yes, they did. Just because Facebook went along with it doesn’t mean the government didn’t threaten them or coerce them into doing it. And if you know anything about the Federal government, you know this is how they operate.
Manipulation
When you realize that everything you see online is being used to manipulate you- and I mean everything– you start to understand what it means when I say none of these companies are your friend. They’re double agents. They spy on your life, sell your secrets, sell your very online existence. None of it is yours. If you’re digital, they own you.
Any app that isn’t strictly peer-to-peer has to store your data somewhere. “Oh, but we have protocols! Our servers are secure!” No, they’re not. The government has backdoors into every major messaging and social media platform on the planet. This has been proven over and over again. Things like Signal, WhatsApp, and others can be (and have been) compromised when needed.
They use this power over you to change how you think. They pump information into your brain to the point where you just accept it, instead of process it to see if it’s true. They break people’s minds. They ruin people’s ability to reason. They turn us into slaves, willing to think whatever the algorithm tells us to think, and therefore do what they want us to do.
Big Data has sucked up every possible corner of our consciousness, to the point where you can’t really survive without it- and this is all by design. They collectively control what you think, what you believe, what you eat, what you love, what you hate, who you vote for, how much money you have, and more.
They control everything.
“Why would you tell us these things? Aren’t you trying to manipulate us, too?”
No- I have nothing to sell, nothing to lose, nothing to gain- other than knowing maybe someone woke up and did something about it.
What Can We Do?
We can’t stop the monstrosity that is Big Data. And sadly, trying to remain untouched by it in such a place is not a possibility any more.
The only other option is to understand how it works, and keep ourselves from tying our identities into it. We must not lose ourselves to the algorithm. We have to nurture and cherish everything in us that is unique, that identifies us. We have to be strong enough to think for ourselves. We have to be spiritually diligent to remain pure in a world that wants to force us into degeneracy. We must fight depravity in ourselves, and in the lives of those we love.
I know that sounds like an easy answer for a difficult problem, but it really is the key to it all. The more we love the world, the more we’ll be drawn into it- become more like it. Big Data, for all intents and purposes, is the World being forced into your brain like a fire hose. Eventually, you’ll drown.
We must be in the world, but not of it.
Intentionality
The key to fighting the attraction of the World is to, quite simply, have less of it in your life. Joshua Milburn says “Minimalism is the practice of intentional living.” And having a heart that’s not attracted to the World works the same way- you have to intentionally choose what you’re going to allow into your life.
The vast majority of us just use whatever’s convenient, whatever’s popular. “Why are you on Facebook?” You’ll probably hear “Because everybody else is using it.” But what if you didn’t use it? What if you just told people “Yeah, I don’t really use Facebook. Can I give you my number? You can text me.”
It’s just that simple. One by one, you eliminate the things in your life that aren’t producing the kind of spiritual fruit you desire. And once you’ve done that, you can intentionally add back in only the things you want.