Tag: Petite Singularity

Eyes Wide Shut: Big Tech’s Digital Telepathy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s think about this. Why, specifically, have I come to the conclusion that Digital Telepathy is being used rather widely right now. Given that they’re using the Internet to do this, I guess maybe you might call it Internet Digital ESP? I feel like Big Tech has some sort of buzzy cooperate speak that they use when they’re talking about this technology in a meeting.

Tik-Tok can read our minds.

Anyway, back to the point.

I’m know for not only being wrong all the time, but occasionally thinking up some pretty weird ideas. And, I guess this could be another instance of that. I mean, just because Facebook has a patent for Digital Telepathy, doesn’t mean that Tik-Tok has it and is using it.

So, what has me so convinced?

I would have to say Tik-Tok’s abuse of its For You Page is what did it. When they have narrowed down the specific phenotypes of women who have been important to me over the years to the point that I find myself saying, “Hey, that girl looks like Annie Shapiro!” something is going on.

I’m on to you Big Tech.

Let’s talk about that.

There are two female phenotypes that have made a big impression on me over the years. One of them is that of the late Annie Shapiro. That they would find a young lady that looks soooooooo much like Annie Shapiro Means Something. Our choices are that they’re using AI along with some significant rooting around on my phone so make some pretty astonishing inferences about the type of women I like, or, more directly, they are rooting around in my wetware, if you will.

I feel ya, Martha.

When you start to think that it’s not even Google or Facebook, but fucking Tik-Tok that is rooting around in my mind, the implications can make you sick to your stomach. You definitely get a sense of mental rape. Is Annie Shapiro still so important to my mind that they are able to figure out that for emotional and sentimental reasons I like girls who look like Annie Shapiro? Or even more ominous — to what extent have they hacked into my subconscious!

The implications of that alone would be staggering.

Because if Tik-Tok can peer into the subconscious minds of its uses, what’s to stop them (the Chinese government) from at some point using that information and / or selling it to the highest bidder?

I have no idea if my suspicious are in any way based in reality. I’m sure someone at Vox has it all figured out and I’m just pulling this out of my butt like usual. But….it definitely seems as though something…odd is going on.

The Implications Of ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Talk about future shock.

If Big Tech is secretly using the Internet to read our minds, the implications are massive. One question I have is are they storing what they know about us somewhere, or is it some sort of ephemeral point-to-point thing? I think if my fears are real, then what’s happening is there’s a massive amount of processing power being used that is being hidden from us.

Or, to put it another way, while we were all being “entertained” by the Trump Show, some pretty massive technological changes were being slipped past us without us realizing it.

We can read your mind…

If Facebook, Google and Tik-Tok aren’t storing what they know about our minds, they probably are working towards it. Even more interesting is who knows this stuff? What if someone goes rouge and starts to use what they know about our most personal thoughts to make money? I guess if you had the information of enough minds in aggregate at your disposal, you could predictively play the stock market quite effectively.

I guess what I’m trying to say is — what if the Singularity happened an The Powers That Be didn’t tell us? If they’re hiding Digital Telepathy from us, would they even tell us if hard AI came into existence? What the fuck is Silcom Valley up to? What’s their vision?

Now, let me be clear — it’s not like I think they’re out to get ME. I’m a random no body that no one listens to me. I’m just a crank. They have absolutely nothing to worry about — no one is listening to me, no one cares what I have to say and I can pretty much just rant about this obvious scandal and nothing will happen other than people will just roll their eyes and think I’m crazy.

My only response is the Martha Mitchell Syndrome — I know the truth and everyone thinks I’m crazy just like how she knew about Watergate just about when it happened.

To me, it’s not so much that they can read my mind it’s that they’re hiding it from us. If they were to slowly let the cat out of the bag, to let our minds get used to the idea that they can be read…then, lulz. But Big Tech is setting itself up for it’s own “disruption” if they start to use Digital Telepathy not only as a crutch, but as a secret money making opportunity.

Not cool, guys, not cool.

The ‘Soft Singularity’ Is Here: Big Tech’s Brazen Implementation of ‘Digital Telepathy’ is Alarming


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The old Arthur C. Clarke quote when it comes to such matters is, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I think of this quote as I use Tik-Tok and realize it’s reading my mind. I don’t know the specifics and I don’t know the extent, but it’s happening.

I’m not saying that Tik-Tok, Facebook and Google aren’t monitoring every aspect of my Internet use in other ways — they obviously are — but there is absolutely no way I’m getting some of the For You Page suggestions I’m getting on Tik-Tok unless they have figured out a way to literally read my fucking mind.

If these eerie things happened once or twice, then, yes, I probably could think of any of different ways they might have figured out that I like a certain female phenotype or that this or that thing was important to me in my internal monologue.

But it happens all the fucking time!

Me, 2020.

So, I can only come to the conclusion that the Singularity isn’t just near, it’s here! And if there is now commercial application of such Singularity technology as digital telepathy, then just imagine what the NSA, CIA or MI5 are now using on a regular basis.

It just seems very possible that Tik-Tok is going to screw up in some way. Or Facebook. Either one of those two I could see deciding to sell what they know about our minds to some nefarious group that turns around and uses it to do something we learn about later.

Imagine if the average person was presented with absolute proof that Facebook or Tik-Tok sold their innermost secrets to the 2024 Trump Campaign. Or the Russians. And, remember, Tik-Tok is tight with the Chinese government. That’s a clusterfuck just waiting to happen.

Or, put another way, if digital telepathy is being used as much as I believe it is, someone, somewhere is going to screw up. Knowledge is power. And if Big Tech wants to keep Digital Telepathy a secret instead of slowly letting people know of its existence, there’s going to be a massive scandal that could destroy companies that abuse it like Google, Facebook and Tik-Tok.

I know this sounds nuts. But I’m simply using cold hard facts and putting logic to use. And, remember, this is coming from someone who generally hates conspiracy theories.

Political Grift Opportunity: Neuluds


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went to a MAGA rally in DC recently — which was not only a case of zemblanity, but may have given me COVID19 — and my big take away was what a fucking grift the whole thing is.

The entire rally was based on a racist, misogynistic lie. The lie that at some magical, mystical moment in the past America was “greater” than it is now. We all know what that’s code for — whatever moment in the past when white men without a college education could get laid. So, it’s a time before #MeToo and #BLM. Or something.

Anyway, I have long thought that I missed a golden opportunity to make a lot of hard cash by faking to be MAGA and working my way up the MAGA delusion to the very top. I could have been a regular MAGA Chauncy Gardner before it was over with. I could have been standing next to Trump in the Oval Office if I had just given things some thought in, say, 2015.

So, if you want to know what I think the next big political grift is going to be, it’s Neo-Luddism. If you wanted to rebrand it something like NeuLudism, you could, I guess.

But we’re one Elon Musk announcement away from about 3 million hard working truckers losing their jobs virtually overnight. All those people might be receptive to a political message that wanted to destroy technology. Don’t quite know how you would convey that idea without…technology, but who would have thought that deranged ding-dong Donald Trump would get as far as he did?

But the Neulud grift isn’t going to be as easy as the MAGA grift. You’re going to have to work harder for no other reason than Neulud requires leadership to gently move MAGA people (who love Facebook, Twitter and now Parler) towards the idea of hating all technology that kills jobs.

So, in a sense, if, say, Tom Cotton adopted this political gambit, you would see a total realignment of American politics for no other reason than wealthy MAGA has gotten their plutocrat tax cut and they like Elon Musk too much to go along with such an idea.

If such an idea got any traction, you might everything thrown up in the air politically in the United States for a few years as things sorted themselves out. You might see a huge portion of the Republican Party fuse with a huge portion of the Democrat Party, while some Far Left and Far Right elements of both parties fused into an anti-technology party.

The only reason why I even suggest this is possible is Elon Musk and how overdue we are for a major lurch forward in technology. We’re about 10 years away from the last big burst of technology that changed the lives of every day people.

When it happens again, it might be so dramatic (in a way) as to be something of a “Soft Singularity.”

Anyway. No one listens to me.

MegaTrend: ‘Humans First’ –The Rise Of The Luddites


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s been about a decade since smart phones came out and began to change the lives of everyday people. The next big technological shift may be when Elon Musk disrupts the trucking industry — kills it, really — when he perfects an automated semi without the need for a driver.

If this happens really fast, it’s not difficult to imagine today’s MAGA turning into tomorrows Luddites. And, really, all you need for this transformation is someone a Trump like character who isn’t simply an avatar for the rage of the common man, but someone who takes their rage and leads them in a specific direction.

So, it’s possible it could go Tea Party — > MAGA –> Luddites. Now, for this to happen, you probably would have to cleave off a big chunk of the Republican Party. It’s difficult to imagine rich, educated MAGA going along with such a radical agenda. It’s easy to imagine a situation where this happens and the Republican Party finally dies.

Or there’s a massive re-alignment of American politics with the wealthy tech-friendly people going to one party and the Luddites soaking up extremists from the far Left and far Right who have a common enemy — technology (or, the Singularity.)

I’m wrong all the time, though. But it is something to think about.

Trump & The ‘Petite Singularity’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

I have struggled for some time to articulate the significance of technology in aiding and abetting the the rise of Trump. I thought maybe one might called it a “Creeping Singularity,” but Singularities, by definition, are not something that happen over time. But having said that, it definitely seems we’re feeling the influence of a “Petite Singularity,” if nothing else.

A series of long term technological trends are crashing into each other. Things like VR, AR, crypto, AI and automation are all going to come to a head probably within the next, say, 5 years. Of course, it’s something much more prosaic than that which has given rise to Trump — social media. But social media is definitely a precursor to the Petite Singularity. It’s a forerunner to a world that is likely to be transformed dramatically in ways we can barely begin to comprehend.

When all those low training, high wage jobs transportation jobs like semi truck driver vanish in the coming age of automation, that is likely to cause any number of significant political shifts that we can only barely begin to comprehend. One of the central issues of the day is while Trump is making a mockery of our political traditions, he’s pulling a huge fast one on us. He’s pretty much fucking ruining everything we hold dear while we’re running around struggling to understand how such an asshat as he is could be our “leader.”

And, honestly, there simply isn’t anything we can do. Trump is an avatar for some titanic, tectonic shifts in the American political system and he — or someone like him — was obviously inevitable. Really, his only saving grace at this point is he’s really old, really bad at his job and completely devoid of an ideology. As such, I am more worried about what happens when someone who doesn’t have those problems is president than I am Trump, no matter how completely horrible everything about him is.

But back to the Petite Singularity. It’s likely being the asshole demagogue that he is, Trump will exploit the social displacement of the Petite Singularity rather than see any political harm from it. I’m not feeling very optimistic at this point. Makes me want to leave the States as quickly as possible and never fucking come back.