Billionaires seek unchallenged power over who knows, deciding, and behavior modification

Evidence

Irrespective of Cambridge Analytica’s actual competence and its ultimate political impact, the plotting and planning behind its ambitions are testament to the pivotal role of rendition from the depths in the prediction and modification of behavior, always in pursuit of certainty. Billionaires such as Zuckerberg and Mercer have discovered that they can muscle their way to dominance of the division of learning in society by setting their sights on these rendition operations and the fortunes they tell. They aim to be unchallenged in their power to know, to decide who knows, and to decide who decides. The rendition of “personality” was an important milestone in this quest: a frontier, yes, but not the final frontier. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 877

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Conspiracy theories function as attention displacement devices for billionaires — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 743; Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust; Power inequalities block trust because the strong lack encapsulated interest (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Conspiracy theories function as attention displacement devices for billionaires #complicates (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 743
• Undifferentiated power conflates truth with decision-making authority #expands (0.78)
• An ultimate power to decide generates its own norms and cannot be trusted #corroborates (0.75)
• Enraged public attention and billionaire waste form a mutually reinforcing symbiosis #corroborates (0.75) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 373
• Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust #expands (0.72)
• Power inequalities block trust because the strong lack encapsulated interest #qualifies (0.72)
• Mechanized knowledge creates monopolies that endanger freedom of thought #complicates (0.70) — Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, 1123