Social Media Social Credit - Your Primer on Big Government by By Numbers

Welcome to the New World Order - once we initiate the Great Reset, that is.  The big reveal will be, that you all already have your place in the system.  We know each and every one of you by name.  We know where you belong, and we have tailored everything just to your liking.  Since we already knew everything about you, it wasn't hard.

We all know that social media is fake - we know they use algorithms to influence and divide us.  But did you know there is something much more sinister going on behind the scenes?  Very few people have talked about this - they are classifying us.  That means, everything you do is being monitored, not just to determine your preferences, but to determine your CLASS.  Where you will fit in the new society.

It also means that they are testing, scoring and gate-keeping your digital experience.  As you engage with certain communities online, you may find yourself feeling as though you've been ushered into a new dimension, a 'higher level.'  That means, when the AI determines that you are getting the right responses from your chosen circle, it will unlock new content for you, new conversations.  It may appear as though the quality of online discourse has suddenly improved, or that people are waking up.  No, it's just that you've been identified with a certain group, and perhaps moved up a rank within that group.

I've peered behind the curtain, and what I saw disturbed me to the core.  People have strange ideas about AI - that it will surpass humanity, that artificial consciousness is just around the corner.  Well, as a professional software engineer and AI enthusiast, I am about to ruin your sci-fi fantasy: AI is just statistical modeling.  It's nothing more than a giant, complex spreadsheet.  No matter how big, or how complex your spreadsheet gets, subjective consciousness will not emerge.  It will always just be probabilities. A sentient project budget-tracker would be a hilarious premise for a Dilbert comic strip, however.

As I explained here, statistics are not the be all and end all of decision making.  They should only be one factor of decision making.  First of all, YOU are not a statistic, you are an individual who doesn't fit neatly into any mathematical model.

Secondly, data doesn't tell us the whole picture.  Some things are just subjective - such as values.  Even if we both agree on the data and even if we both agree on the statistical outcome of a given course of action, that doesn't mean we both want to take that path.  Your values, subjective experience and judgment are all unique, and cannot be predicted, replicated or controlled on an individual basis with any certainty.  Life happens in the cracks between the data.  It just so happens that those cracks are a vast reality, while the data is more like a thin venetian blind.

I suspect we are all about to be 'saved' by the data on COVID and vaccines.  We are going to love it, and we are going to demand our leaders to follow the data next time. But remember - this was all just part of the plan.

Running the numbers

 As promised in my earlier post on making your own choice, I have run the numbers on myself, and the most vulnerable person I know - my 85 year old, seriously ill grandmother.

I used this research-backed calculator from Oxford University.

My own risk profile came in at 1 in 111111 chance of death from COVID.  I'm pretty sure I've come closer to death from coffee consumption since lockdown started...

My grandmother, who's health issues I obviously won't disclose, but they are myriad - she came in at 1 in 203.  So her odds of survival are still massively in her favor.   

We should also consider the risk/benefit trade-off for the vaccine for our respective demographics.  My grandmother has already had the vaccine, so it's a moot point for her.  I'm glad too, because her group need it more, and seem to suffer less side-effects to boot.  I'll look into my own risk/reward in a follow up post.

Strangely, there was one key question missing from this calculator - vaccination status.  I wonder when they will update it.

In the end, I was astounded at how low the risks really are.  We are basically on house-arrest for two years and have shutdown the global economy, to avoid my grandma having to curl up at home with some chicken broth for a few days.

Anti-Propaganda

I wrote a list of items that we should be teaching people to inoculate them against this shit ever happening again:

I grew up with my grandparents who were fairly well read, and whose parents and grandparents fought overseas, having immigrated from Europe. I remember many things they spoke of, but most relevant would be otherwise unimaginable concepts such as police states, martial law, curfews, famine, hyperinflation, genocide.

Mum completed her psychology degree while homeschooling us - she taught us many fascinating phenomena such as: peer pressure, by-stander effect, the Milgram experiment, Stanford Prison experiment, paranoia, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders, and cognitive biases (there are many - an entire taxonomy, if you're interested)

My degree is in computer science, which includes some math, logic and philosophy. One key aspect of logic is understanding the logical fallacies - one very relevant example is argument by authority.

My studies also lead me to further reading in cynicism and skepticism, but also to understand that all models and abstractions are inherently limited and flawed (see Goedel, and also 'The Law of Leaky Abstractions'), and that all man-made systems are prone to failure (with 100% predictability - it's a matter of when, not if), and that one of the most common causes of failure is human factors.

The above points lead me to maintain an appreciation of both the limits of, and the beautiful practicality of human intuitive reasoning - essentially all human thought is intuitive, even when formalized, at which point it is necessarily corrupted by abstraction (eg Newtonian physics vs relativity vs quantum)

I attended a number of marketing lectures, and also studied cults like The People’s Temple, which impressed me with the malleability of social opinions, the tools and techniques applied to that end, and the human cognitive biases they leverage. One fascinating example is the principle of selective attention (single focus), which pickpockets and magicians heavily rely on. Another great one is 'negative space', ie our predisposition to overlook what is NOT there. A wonderful kiwi author wrote a great story illustrating this one beautifully - "Schnitzel von Krumm - forget me not", haha

Since 2014, I became interested in hypnosis (not in the sense of a trance, but rather the persuasive power of words), and I began to learn about the tools and techniques of persuasion and propaganda at both the individual and societal level, and how they were applied by those very regimes my grandparents taught me about.

As a systems designer, I recognize the importance of resilience, redundancy, checks and balances. Its amazing to me how often such systems show up in nature, such as ecology and biology. I believe people such as myself are a natural example of such systems existing in human societies. Its not something I set out to do, I'm just like this. Maybe it's the ADHD?

Vaccine Choices

This decision isn't just about the numbers - even if the statistical probabilities point one way, we can't measure everything statistically, such as the terrible shitty political climate surrounding the vaccines. That stuff justifiably sways our opinions, is highly relevant and raises understandable doubts about whether we can even trust the data, the doctors, the experts, the manufacturers and so on.  People fall into group-think, and with the numbers in my country being so low, I have no idea how our medical professionals can be so powerfully under the spell of this disease. 

There's also something to be said for probability vs certainty.  The data may give us a 99.999% certainty.  That still leaves open the possibility that reality fits in the .001%.  It happens all the time - in fact YOU are .001% in thousands of statistical outcomes - hair/skin/eye color combination perhaps.  So mere numeric probability is not good enough for life-changing decisions that involve values, subjective judgement and hedging our bets.

Hedging our bets you ask?  Yes - nature always hedges her bets.  That's why we are all so different from one another.  That's why we don't all run in the same direction - in case there is a cliff at the end, some of us will have gone the other way.  We always need those people in any healthy society - we can't demand the same course of action even if we're all looking at the same data.

That said, I've reached a turning point. I'm over all the noise. I'm over all the politics. I'm sitting down and doing the math, for myself.

I'm done rebelling for the sake of rebelling. But - to all you rabid pro-vaxxers out there - your rhetoric, your callous disregard for human rights, disrespect for individual autonomy and hatred of independent thinkers - you couldn't have done a better job of putting smart and insightful people off the jabs.  To all the unvaccinated - go you.  I fully support your rights, and you should not cave to the pressure, no matter how bad it gets.  They are in the wrong - you need your time and space to figure this thing out for yourself and make your own decision.  I get it - you are your own person, with individual rights and medical agency.

I've decided to ignore all the noise surrounding the pro- and anti-vax debate - including the disgusting politics (mandates, passports, law changes, manipulative propaganda, peer-pressure), in order to investigate the stats, mechanism of action, risk/reward for myself.  It feels great.  I feel calm, clear, rational.  Let's do this.  Not for the politicians, not for grandma.  For ourselves.  I'm making a decision for myself, to support your right to make a decision for yourself.