Over the years I have spent a good deal of time trying to explain how information and data manipulation through social media has impacted our decision making, especially in the political world. Access to data is just one of the reasons why data surpassed oil in value in 2017, and is now the most valuable asset on earth. If you can access, stockpile and read data - which is effectively information about people and markets - and know how to manipulate it you can literally change history. This Netflix documentary/film - The Great Hack - makes this point and explains how the manipulation happens.
Data manipulation manipulation is a far cry from economist John Maynard Keynes' observation that we are all manipulated by the teachings and writings of long dead philosophers (specifically, Keynes said: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist”).
The follow up question to all of this in the 21st century is the following: Does your personal information (the "data points") belong to you, or does it belong to the web environment where you expose it?
- Mark
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