Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Authored by Jake Johnson via TheAntiMedia.org,
In addition to warning that U.S. President Donald Trump represents an immense "danger" to civilization, billionaire George Soros used the spotlight of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday to urge the international community to take seriously the threats posed by Facebook and Google, which he said could ultimately spawn "a web of totalitarian control" if they are not reined in.
Particularly alarming, Soros said, is the prospect of Facebook and Google - which he scathingly deemed a "menace" to society - teaming up with "authoritarian states" to "bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance."
Such "unholy marriages" could result in a strain of authoritarianism "the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined," the billionaire investor cautioned.
Soros went on to compare the tech giants' impact on the internet - and social media in particular - to the effects of fossil fuel giants on the environment.
"Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment," Soros said, warning that ** the days of internet monopolies like Facebook and Google "are numbered."**
"They claim they are merely distributing information," Soros added of the tech giants that are frequently denounced by critics of corporate power for abusing their market dominance.
"But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access."
If tech companies are permitted to retain overwhelming control over information,_ "far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy" could result,_ Soros concluded.
"The power to shape people's attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies," Soros said.
"It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called 'the freedom of mind.' There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it."
Below is a short clip of Soros's speech.
Full Transcript of his speech below:
_The current moment in history _
Good evening. It has become something of an annual Davos tradition for me to give an overview of the current state of the world. I was planning half an hour for my remarks and half an hour for questions, but my speech has turned out to be closer to an hour. I attribute this to the severity of the problems confronting us. After I've finished, I'll open it up for your comments and questions. So prepare yourselves.
I find the current moment in history rather painful. Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Putin's Russia, are on the rise. In the United States, President Trump would like to establish a mafia state but he can't, because the Constitution, other institutions, and a vibrant civil society won't allow it.
Whether we like it or not, my foundations, most of our grantees and myself personally are fighting an uphill battle, protecting the democratic achievements of the past. My foundations used to focus on the so-called developing world, but now that the open society is also endangered in the United States and Europe, we are spending more than half our budget closer to home because what is happening here is having a negative impact on the whole world.
But protecting the democratic achievements of the past is not enough; we must also safeguard the values of open society so that they will better withstand future onslaughts. Open society will always have its enemies, and each generation has to reaffirm its commitment to open society for it to survive.
The best defense is a principled counterattack. The enemies of open society feel victorious and this induces them to push their repressive efforts too far, this generates resentment and offers opportunities to push back. That is what is happening in places like Hungary today.
I used to define the goals of my foundations as "defending open societies from their enemies, making governments accountable and fostering a critical mode of thinking". But the situation has deteriorated. Not only the survival of open society, but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake. The rise of leaders such as Kim Jong-Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the US have much to do with this. Both seem willing to risk a nuclear war in order to keep themselves in power. But the root cause goes even deeper.
Mankind's ability to harness the forces of nature, both for constructive and destructive purposes, continues to grow while our ability to govern ourselves properly fluctuates, and it is now at a low ebb.
The threat of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are inclined to ignore it. But it is real. Indeed, the United States is set on a course toward nuclear war by refusing to accept that North Korea has become a nuclear power. This creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority preemptively; in effect to start a nuclear war in order to prevent nuclear war – an obviously self-contradictory strategy.
The fact is, North Korea has become a nuclear power and there is no military action that can prevent what has already happened. The only sensible strategy is to accept reality, however unpleasant it is, and to come to terms with North Korea as a nuclear power. This requires the United States to cooperate with all the interested parties, China foremost among them. Beijing holds most of the levers of power against North Korea, but is reluctant to use them. If it came down on Pyongyang too hard, the regime could collapse and China would be flooded by North Korean refugees. What is more, Beijing is reluctant to do any favors for the United States, South Korea or Japan– against each of which it harbors a variety of grudges. Achieving cooperation will require extensive negotiations, but once it is attained, the alliance would be able to confront North Korea with both carrots and sticks. The sticks could be used to force it to enter into good faith negotiations and the carrots to reward it for verifiably suspending further development of nuclear weapons. The sooner a so-called freeze-for-freeze agreement can be reached, the more successful the policy will be. Success can be measured by the amount of time it would take for North Korea to make its nuclear arsenal fully operational. I'd like to draw your attention to two seminal reports just published by Crisis Group on the prospects of nuclear war in North Korea.
The other major threat to the survival of our civilization is climate change, which is also a growing cause of forced migration. I have dealt with the problems of migration at great length elsewhere, but I must emphasize how severe and intractable those problems are. I don't want to go into details on climate change either because it is well known what needs to be done. We have the scientific knowledge; it is the political will that is missing, particularly in the Trump administration.
Clearly, I consider the Trump administration a danger to the world. But I regard it as a purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020, or even sooner. I give President Trump credit for motivating his core supporters brilliantly, but for every core supporter, he has created a greater number of core opponents who are equally strongly motivated. That is why I expect a Democratic landslide in 2018.
My personal goal in the United States is to help reestablish a functioning two-party system. This will require not only a landslide in 2018 but also a Democratic Party that will aim at non-partisan redistricting, the appointment of well-qualified judges, a properly conducted census and other measures that a functioning two-party system requires.
The IT monopolies_ _
I want to spend the bulk of my remaining time on another global problem: the rise and monopolistic behavior of the giant IT platform companies. These companies have often played an innovative and liberating role. But as Facebook and Google have grown into ever more powerful monopolies, they have become obstacles to innovation, and they have caused a variety of problems of which we are only now beginning to become aware.
Companies earn their profits by exploiting their environment. Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment. This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it. This has far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.
The distinguishing feature of internet platform companies is that they are networks and they enjoy rising marginal returns; that accounts for their phenomenal growth. The network effect is truly unprecedented and transformative, but it is also unsustainable. It took Facebook eight and a half years to reach a billion users and half that time to reach the second billion. At this rate, Facebook will run out of people to convert in less than 3 years.
Facebook and Google effectively control over half of all internet advertising revenue. To maintain their dominance, they need to expand their networks and increase their share of users' attention. Currently they do this by providing users with a convenient platform. The more time users spend on the platform, the more valuable they become to the companies.
Content providers also contribute to the profitability of social media companies because they cannot avoid using the platforms and they have to accept whatever terms they are offered.
The exceptional profitability of these companies is largely a function of their avoiding responsibility for– and avoiding paying for– the content on their platforms.
They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near- monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access.
The business model of social media companies is based on advertising. Their true customers are the advertisers. But gradually a new business model is emerging, based not only on advertising but on selling products and services directly to users. They exploit the data they control, bundle the services they offer and use discriminatory pricing to keep for themselves more of the benefits that otherwise they would have to share with consumers.This enhances their profitability even further – but the bundling of services and discriminatory pricing undermine the efficiency of the market economy.
Social media companies deceive their users by manipulating their attention and directing it towards _their _own commercial purposes. They deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide. This can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents. There is a similarity between internet platforms and gambling companies. Casinos have developed techniques to hook gamblers to the point where they gamble away all their money, even money they don't have.
Something very harmful and maybe irreversible is happening to human attention in our digital age. Not just distraction or addiction; social media companies are inducing people to give up their autonomy. The power to shape people's attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies. It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called "the freedom of mind." There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it. This may have far-reaching political consequences. People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated. This danger does not loom only in the future; it already played an important role in the 2016 US presidential elections.
But there is an even more alarming prospect on the horizon. There could be an alliance between authoritarian states and these large, data-rich IT monopolies that would bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance.__ This may well result in a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined.__
The countries in which such unholy marriages are likely to occur first are Russia and China. The Chinese IT companies in particular are fully equal to the American ones. They also enjoy the full support and protection of the Xi Jingping regime. The government of China is strong enough to protect its national champions, at least within its borders.
US-based IT monopolies are already tempted to compromise themselves in order to gain entrance to these vast and fast growing markets. The dictatorial leaders in these countries may be only too happy to collaborate with them since they want to improve their methods of control over their own populations and expand their power and influence in the United States and the rest of the world.
The owners of the platform giants consider themselves the masters of the universe, but in fact they are slaves to preserving their dominant position.** It is only a matter of time before the global dominance of the US IT monopolies is broken. Davos is a good place to announce that their days are numbered.** Regulation and taxation will be their undoing and EU Competition Commissioner Vestager will be their nemesis.
There is also a growing recognition of a connection between the dominance of the platform monopolies and the rising level of inequality. The concentration of share ownership in the hands of a few private individuals plays some role but the peculiar position occupied by the IT giants is even more important. They have achieved monopoly power but at the same time they are also competing against each other. They are big enough to swallow start-ups that could develop into competitors, but only the giants have the resources to invade each other's territory. They are poised to dominate the new growth areas that artificial intelligence is opening up, like driverless cars.
The impact of innovations on unemployment depends on government policies. The European Union and particularly the Nordic countries are much more farsighted in their social policies than the United States. They protect the workers, not the jobs. They are willing to pay for re-training or retiring displaced workers. This gives workers in Nordic countries a greater sense of security and makes them more supportive of technological innovations than workers in the US.
The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions. That turns them into a menace and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them. In the US, the regulators are not strong enough to stand up against their political influence. The European Union is better situated because it doesn't have any platform giants of its own.
The European Union uses a different definition of monopoly power from the United States. US law enforcement focuses primarily on monopolies created by acquisitions, whereas EU law prohibits the abuse of monopoly power irrespective of how it is achieved. Europe has much stronger privacy and data protection laws than America. Moreover, US law has adopted a strange doctrine: it measures harm as an increase in the price paid by customers for services received – and that is almost impossible to prove when most services are provided for free. This leaves out of consideration the valuable data platform companies collect from their users.
Commissioner Vestager is the champion of the European approach. It took the EU seven years to build a case against Google, but as a result of her success the process has been greatly accelerated. Due to her proselytizing, the European approach has begun to affect attitudes in the United States as well.
The rise of nationalism and how to reverse it
I have mentioned some of the most pressing and important problems confronting us today. In conclusion, let me point out that we are living in a revolutionary period. All our established institutions are in a state of flux and in these circumstances both fallibility and reflexivity are operating at full force.
I lived through similar conditions in my life, most recently some thirty years ago. That is when I set up my network of foundations in the former Soviet empire. The main difference between the two periods is that thirty years ago the dominant creed was international governance and cooperation. The European Union was the rising power and the Soviet Union the declining one. Today, however, the motivating force is nationalism. Russia is resurgent and the European Union is in danger of abandoning its values.
As you will recall, the previous experience didn't turn out well for the Soviet Union. The Soviet empire collapsed and Russia has become a mafia state that has adopted a nationalist ideology. My foundations did quite well: the more advanced members of the Soviet empire joined the European Union.
Now our aim is to help save the European Union in order to radically reinvent it. The EU used to enjoy the enthusiastic support of the people of my generation, but that changed after the financial crisis of 2008. The EU lost its way because it was governed by outdated treaties and a mistaken belief in austerity policies. What had been a voluntary association of equal states was converted into a relationship between creditors and debtors where the debtors couldn't meet their obligations and the creditors set the conditions that the debtors had to meet. That association was neither voluntary nor equal.
As a consequence, a large proportion of the current generation has come to regard the European Union as its enemy. One important country, Britain, is in the process of leaving the EU and at least two countries, Poland and Hungary, are ruled by governments that are adamantly opposed to the values on which the European Union is based. They are in acute conflict with various European institutions and those institutions are trying to discipline them. In several other countries anti-European parties are on the rise. In Austria, they are in the governing coalition and the fate of Italy will be decided by the elections in March.
How can we prevent the European Union from abandoning its values? We need to reform it at every level: at the level of the Union itself, at the level of the member states and the level of the electorate. We are in a revolutionary period; everything is subject to change. The decisions taken now will determine the shape of the future.
At the Union level, the main question is what to do about the euro. Should every member state be required to eventually adopt the euro or should the current situation be allowed to continue indefinitely? The Maastricht Treaty prescribed the first alternative but the euro has developed some defects that the Maastricht Treaty didn't foresee and still await resolution.
Should the problems of the euro be allowed to endanger the future of the European Union? I would strongly argue against it. The fact is that the countries that don't qualify, are eager to join, but those that do qualify have decided against it, with the exception of Bulgaria. In addition, I would like to see Britain remain a member of the EU or eventually rejoin it and that couldn't happen if it meant adopting the euro.
The choice confronting the EU could be better formulated as one between a multi-speed and a multi-track approach. In a multi-speed approach, member states have to agree in advance on the ultimate outcome; in a multi-track approach, member states are free to form coalitions of the willing to pursue particular goals on which they agree. The multi-track approach is obviously more flexible but the European bureaucracy favored the multi-speed approach. That was an important contributor to the rigidity of the EU's structure.
At the level of the member states, their political parties are largely outdated. The old distinction between left and right is overshadowed by being either pro or anti-European. This manifests itself differently in different countries.
In Germany, the Siamese twin arrangement between the CDU and the CSU has been rendered unsustainable by the results of the recent elections. There is another party, the AfD further to the right than the CSU in Bavaria. This has forced the CSU to move further to the right in anticipation of next year's local elections in Bavaria so that the gap between the CSU and the CDU has become too great. This has rendered the German party system largely dysfunctional until the CDU and CSU break up.
In Britain, the Conservatives are clearly the party of the right and Labor the party of the left, but each party is internally divided in its attitude toward Brexit. This complicates the Brexit negotiations immensely, and makes it extremely difficult for Britain as a country to decide and modify its position towards Europe.
Other European countries can be expected to undergo similar realignments with the exception of France, which has already undergone its internal revolution.
At the level of the electorate the top-down initiative started by a small group of visionaries led by Jean Monnet carried the process of integration a long way but it has lost its momentum. Now we need a combination of the top-down approach of the European authorities with the bottom-up initiatives started by an engaged electorate. Fortunately, there are many such bottom-up initiatives; it remains to be seen how the authorities will respond to them. So far President Macron has shown himself most responsive. He campaigned for the French presidency on a pro-European platform and his current strategy focuses on the elections for the European Parliament in 2019 – and that requires engaging the electorate.
While I have analyzed Europe in greater detail, from a historical perspective what happens in Asia is ultimately much more important. China is the rising power. There were many fervent believers in the open society in China who were sent to be re-educated in rural areas during Mao's Revolution. Those who survived returned to occupy positions of power in the government. So the future direction of China used to be open-ended; but no more.
The promoters of open society have reached retirement age and Xi Jinping, who has more in common with Putin than with the so-called West, has begun to establish a new system of party patronage. I'm afraid that the outlook for the next twenty years is rather bleak. Nevertheless, it is important to embed China in institutions of global governance. This may help to avoid a world war that would destroy our entire civilization.
That leaves the local battlegrounds in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. My foundations are actively engaged in all of them. We are particularly focused on Africa, where would-be dictators in Kenya, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo have perpetrated electoral fraud on an unprecedented scale and citizens are literally risking their lives to resist the slide into dictatorship. Our goal is to empower local people to deal with their own problems, assist the disadvantaged and reduce human suffering to the greatest extent possible. This will leave us plenty to do well beyond my lifetime.
THE old cybernetic dying dung crusading for the freedom of the world in his private jet and singing us about the malevolence of big money (I guess it takes one to know one) can no longer hide that he's in serious condition, potentially on a Darth Vader like kind of life support.
First he loses his denture and can't pronounce words correctly.
Then he has tremendous problems reading his already rehearsed text which shows that his eyesight is dramatically low, and also that his memory is failing him before he can even reach the end of his simplest 19 words long sentences.
Sadly this short video didn't hint at whether he's got incontinence problems, but just like assassin Hillary who seems in much better shape we can safely assume he's also endowed with his little backpack sack to accommodate for his constantly dribbling anus.
Given the seriousness of his symptoms, it is highly unlikely that this being be autonomous, both in terms of physical but also mental abilities. One has then to forcibly conclude that he's used by some behind the scenes puppet master. The question is: who is pulling the strings?
In short if money can buy you a lot of things like dominos on pizzas and walnut sauce, it cannot buy you eternal life. That's the problem with Faustian pacts: you have to give your soul back to Satan, therefore you have to die knowing this, and this is certainly why the candidates for eternal damnation cling on to life that desperately. Nobody knows this kind of fear besides them, which is already a reward in itself for the simple but honest and hard working citizen.
Armageddon is going to be a fight until death between all the damned of this planet, and it already started last night.
And no amount of children's blood and organs can change that.
What is cybernetic bro??
Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory systems—theirstructures, constraints, and possibilities.Norbert Wiener defined cybernetics in 1948 as "the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine." In the 21st century, the term is often used in a rather loose way to imply "control of any system using technology." In other words, it is the scientific study of how humans, animals and machines control and communicate with each other.
I am not the biggest Soros fan, but this time he has a lot of valid points. Facebook and google are way too powerful, I think this is yet another green point for blockchain technology, because once implemented it will give the people the power ( more or less). However the paradigm shift will take a lot of time and effort, unless we spread awareness.
Blockchain in general is going to hurt the elites...those who exercise power over the general population.
The banksters are the prime targets over the next 5 years but these social media giants are also in the cross hairs. STEEM is already laying the foundation of what is to come. In 5 years, there will be tens of thousands of blockchains which are going to collectively have an impact on many facets of society.
The existing power structure has a right to be nervous and lash out like they do. In the end, it creates a situation where they might have to give up control...something that havent had to do for decades.
I believe they are actively thinking how to outsmart the upcoming events and the blockchain think tanks. We will see what they aare going to do once the shit hits the fan :)
I agree completely. There is no way they are going to sit back and let the power structure be swept away from them...at least not without a fight.
We are obviously seeing the first wave of it with the media attacks on crypto by the usual suspects. Next up will be hardcore regulation (in an effort to maintain control). When that does not work, I do not know what they will turn to...but it will be something.
I think that a lot of the countries will do the same as Japan. Embrace the technology and just collect tax while they can. People are going to love it, governments even more, until something doesn't fit anymore.
I agree...the smart ones will.
Although I said that for years about the pot issue in the US...why not just legalize it and tax it. Since 90% of the people tried it, according to the surveys, stop with the prohibition and make some money.
It is finally coming, albeit slowly.
So you are right, smarter, more agile countries will probably embrace it. Heck, even Venezuela is looking to this market although they want to control it creating the petro coin.
One of the problems of governments is that they are not built to act efficiently and fast. Thats why they are ages behind progress.
PetroCoin :) That really sounds like someone influenced them more or less.
So let me get this straight:
George Soros is worried about totalitiarian entities?
Well isnt that the pot calling the kettle black.
Soros is one of the main players who are controlling the world right now. I guess he is upset that he has some competition for being the master. It is nuts to think this guy cares about humanity at all. Actually none of them at his level give a crap about people.
It is all about power to them and I guess that is at the heart of his speech. He does not like the idea that technology might be causing a power shift and there is a new regime on the way which makes the people like him captives too.
Of course, I am optimistic that blockchain is going to negate what is taking place. Overall, we are going to see a huge explosion of these over the next 5 years. STEEM is one that is helping to lay the foundation for the power struggle with the existing social media entities.
In a couple years, the different might be noticeable. I think we will also see the banks suffering over that same time. Governments will take a lot longer.
I think that you are too biased. There are multiple Billionaires that have pledged to help as much as they can. Most of the extremely wealthy dedicate a great deal of their time to philantropy, as they understand that the end is near. If we look at Bill Gates, his foundation is doing a lot of good things. And its not only him.
Putting everyone under the same cap is very harsh and does not reflect reality. They have done a lot of bad things, but they have also done a lot of good things. Without them blockchain technology was never going to be invented in the first place. Not everything is doomed!
The more I read your articles, the more I realize that you think that everybody involved in Blockchain is a saint and everybody from traditional business is a devil trying to destroy the world. LOL. What is your opinion on the numerous REWARD POOL RAPES in the community ? The thousands of self-upvotes, the thousands of abusers ! The billions stolen in scams?
The coin always has two sides. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for your comment but I think you need to work on your realizations.
To start, did you really compare Bill Gates to George Soros? Where did you uncover the idea that I put any of them in the same class.
You mentioned billioniares, I mention banksters....they are two totally different entities.
I guess you missed my repeated comments about how much if a fan I am of Elon Musk (a billionaire) and Richard Branson (another billionaire). These are just two, of the many, who are actively doing things. Of course, they are not banksters (a term I guess you missed me using thousands of times).
Bankster, which Soros is, are corrupt and operate in a culture of where fraud and deceit are not only accepted but factored in as a cost of doing business. These are the true villians.
I really hope that this is not a serious statement. If that is your conclusion, you are far off the mark. Of course there is extremely shitty people involved in blockchain. How many times have I warned people to stay away from ICOs since a good portion of them are outright scams? I guess you missed those comments too.
Thousands of abusers? Exaggerating isnt going to make your point. Please detail how there are thousands of abusers on here. Unless you think that everyone who self upvotes is an abuser....of course how is one an abuser when it is allowed by the system (if that is your view that self upvoting is abuse)? Unless you think the entire STEEM rewards system is corrupt and ripe for fraud and abuse?
It seems there are a handful of people who get in the crosshairs for reward pool abuse. Of course, are they really running scams...or just highly successful. Outside one or two who garnered a great deal of attention, what others are there.
I may have goten ahead of myself. So after your clarification, I understand your point of view better, thank you.
Obviously I have missed some of your comments, that woud have shed a light on the matter.
I am not saying the entire Steem system is corrupt, but it definitely has problems. SteemDev's are also pretty concerned so, I am not making this up. I guess when the SBD problem is solved things will get a lot better.
However, thanks for the reply. Glad we are on the same page for the most of it.
And I am sorry if I got a bit defensive.
Yes there are problems...without a doubt. One of the biggest problems I see is the lack of communication from the Steemit development team. I believe in their capabilities and feel they will work the issues out, yet their communication is non-existent. I think they should improve on this...it doesnt take much to post an update every so often.
The downvoting situation could use addressing...there are a number of proposals out there that make some sense....hopefully there will be something put in place to allow for people to downvote reward pool rapes and spamming without using up all their VP.
The reason I am so excited about blockchain is I believe it will create abundance for most people. This takes away the need for these corrupt antics. Will there always be a few bad apples? Sadly, yes...it is unavoidable.
Nevertheless, if most of the world has some basic necessities that comes from cryptocurrencies, then we are operating on a much higher place as a species. The existing power structure will not give up the control easily but I think, in the end blockchain will win out.
Decentralization is just too powerful.
Agree ! Thank you ! You are a cool dude, who knows what he is talking about :)
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Thank You!
More Info: Abuse Guide - 2017.
Let see who is coming to Bilderberg this year.
Bitcoin was NO topic last year, this year for sure.
The position really when I read it let me know this is very dangerous
Addressing a dinner at the World Economic Forum on Thursday in Davos, George Soros, the US billionaire, gave a harsh speech saying that Facebook and Google were a threat to society and the government organization of both companies should be increased.
"Internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society from the consequences of their actions, making them a threat and the regulatory authorities should protect society from them," Soros said on his Web site.
He also said that social networking fools users by manipulating their interests and directing them to commercial purposes for these networks. He said there is a similarity between Internet platforms and gambling companies where they develop techniques to connect gamblers with a point that keeps them away from their money.
Soros made the remarks just two days after Salesforce chief executive Mark Benioff described Facebook's addiction to cigarettes.
Thank you for sharing this valuable information
I love this so much. @zer0hedge
When Facebook and Google became popularized the Orwellian tyrants thought that they would become the tools of our damnation. A spy state that even Orwell himself could not have dreamed of. Instead these tools are becoming tools of human liberation. We have seen the start of a mass awakening on a scale the world has never seen, made possible by technology the world has never had. Now they are doing everything they can to censor dissenting voices. It is too late. We now control the narrative. Further, technological advances like blockchain are creating platforms such as Steemit that cannot be censored. We are in the mist of human renaissance.
Not 100% true to be honest, especially in the case of Huxley.
"In the past we can say that all revolutions have essentially aimed at changing the environment in order to change the individual. I mean there’s been the political revolution, the economic revolution, in the time of the reformation, the religious revolution. All these aimed, not directly at the human being, but at his surroundings. So that by modifying the surroundings you did achieve, at one remove an effect on the human being.
Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows. Well needless to say some kind of direct action on human mind-bodies has been going on since the beginning of time. But this has generally been of a violent nature. The techniques of terrorism have been known from time immemorial and people have employed them with more or less ingenuity sometimes with the utmost cruelty, sometimes with a good deal of skill acquired by a process of trial and error finding out what the best ways of using torture, imprisonment, constraints of various kinds.
But, as, I think it was Metternicht said many years ago, you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. If you are going to control any population for any length of time, you must have some measure of consent, it’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion an element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them.
It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude."
-Aldous Huxley (1962)
Facebook and Google are considered harmful if the use of a person in harmful things may not be so if he uses them in things that benefit the community, it is maintained according to the use of the individual and I agree with you that he can not establish the Mafia
I also agree bro that he can't establish the mafia.
Facebook is a social media service that allows sharing of more visual content, as opposed to Twitter, where "the world is not lit". For this reason, content marketing experts often say that the content to be shared on Facebook should be "fun." The reason for this is quite obvious; the number of followers of a few of the phenomenal accounts that share fun content is almost equal to 10% of Facebook users in our country. If you want to win followers, you should keep people entertained.
Social media is a vast sea, in order to benefit from this sea in the most efficient way, we have to close our door without Twitter, we have to float our ship without losing ourselves to the fun world of Facebook, and we have to close the door to control the message.
The content shared on Facebook is also fun to me.
Orwell knew the PTB would purposefully attempt to control and destroy language (the "new-speech" - war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength etc.). The technology used is circumstantial. TPTB have succeeded in US. It is apparent on this site who's an US indoctrinated pleb - the ones without a most basic understanding of politics, ideologies, economics, philosophy etc. And the ones that uses terms with to describe the opposite of their original meaning (like describing fascist/capitalist USA as communist or socialist). Or the US version of libertarianism (originally - and still outside US - a left-wing ideology against all forms of authority/hierarchies/concentrated power private or public. Now - in US - just old-school arguments for unfettered capitalism).
The DNA of humans offers many possibilities - yes, there're the potential of greed, egoism, selfishness, competition, materialism etc.. But there's also the potential for compassion, empathy, collaboration, sharing, altruism, idealism etc. The question is what part of the human condition do you want to base your society on? What part of the human potential will you cherish, further and award? Capitalism is based on the first - but I don't find it hard to imagine a society based on the latter...
@zer0hedge
Maybe I am wrong, but isn't it a case of large business figures like this complaining about competition. For all too long they have controlled vast business empires and like puppet masters they have pulled all the strings, they are now complaining about other massive corporate entities doing exactly the same, so whats the difference?
This is no different to Microsoft now complaining about Googles dominance which is a joke after the position they held in the 1990s.
The problem is that this is all we ever have in terms of freedom of choice, which large corporate master do you want to give your money to?
We tell ourselves that we are free because we can choose Google over Microsoft or Apple over Samsung, but really what is the difference?
When corporate entities or business moguls complain about other businesses taking away your rights, it is not because they care, it is because they are worried about their own profit margins being effected by the competition.
What we really need is new community based enterprises like steem that conduct business in a different way, instead of the top down approach, we need something that works from the ground up. It is only then that we will not see Orwells nightmare become reality. (if it isn't already)
This guy is talking about Facebook and Google treats...Oh, how funny...The criminal talks how we need to get rid off criminal ? What a Hypocrisy ? I read the article, it is with lot of details but this hypocrisy blows my mind...
@zer0hedge...bro Kurt Vonnegut Jr. had the insight of what our society would become and laid it out in his book Player Piano circa 1952. We're fucked, headed fast to the cashless society and the end of human liberty.Right. Orwell outlined the cruder, more brutal aspects of totalitarianism, which the US is now experiencing - mad cops, insane prisons, homelessness, poverty, starvation. Huxley offered a soporific vision of designer humans, opioid fantasy, and aimless comfort for conformists.Both "worlds" exist in the US. The tiny minority who resist or even expose this horror are silenced. Or they leave. Thankfully I don't live there. Successful totalitarianism requires a vociferous opposition debating trivia (controlled by the state). Hence the vigorous debate in Vanity Fair over Oprah's "third hand" and Reese's "third leg". Are they reptilians?! The repercussions of this editorial anomaly dwarf the Mueller Russiagate case and must be investigated at the highest levels. Russians or Reptilians? Priorities..The only left-wing arguments you'll ever be confronted with is from real people - on comment sections like this. All medias and most social medias (inside the capitalist cores, like US) are owned, controlled or influenced by the capitalists/the corporations - that is why the US plebs are clueless when it comes to the most basic terms in politics and ideologies. All by design. .thank you for sharing with us...
Tnx for this Kurt Vonnegut Junior's information.
You are welcome sajeeb bro...
Never thought I’d ever say this, but I’m actually in agreement with George Soros! I think it’s time these monopolies were dissolved, just like Standard Oil was. Competition is good.
The problem is that the tech giants manage to tapdance around so perfectly that they stop JUST barely short of actually fulfilling the legal definition of a monopoly. It is still technically possible, albeit astronomically unlikely, to compete with them.
For an analogy, think of a crooked manager. If you work an employee for a full time week you have to give them health insurance on top of their salary, so you schedule them for 38 hours a week. That's just short of the hours where you would have to provide insurance, but still for all intents and purposes full time labor.
Same principle. These tech corporations are going riiiiight up to the point where if they got any more influential they would openly violate an anti-monopoly law, and then stopping, and thumping their chests about "wanting to give power back to the individual."
Thank you for posting that. Im happy to see you citing the original source so obviously.
The fear that FB, Google etc can become mahor players in the surveillance field isnt new, but I like the idea that they should become public utilities. That, ofcourse raises many more questions, the most obvious being 'will they then ve tax payer funded?'
good sharing on behalf of humanity. many thanks for info. @zer0hedge
Good post. Nice information
Outstanding post thanks for sharing
Hopefully all of this there is a way out.
well i like the share i always do
Social media has always had its drawbacks, everything has a flip side to it especially when it comes to advancement in tech and communication.
I believe that just as the payment system is getting decentralized very soon the democracy ideal will change to something new altogether.
nice post, very informative please keep them coming.
These politicians infuriate me!!!Connoisseurs and seers of crypto-currencies...((Especially George Soros is the chief expert in the crypto currency...
The emperor from Star Wars, the financier, mastermind and anti-humanitarian warmonger who plots to destroy nations, kill and starve citizens on behalf of the same people, institutions and empire he criticises in his speech, is lecturing the world on who is evil... Lol is this a sick joke? Look in the mirror Mr. emperor.
There you have it... "internet government".. in a cpuple of years you cant be totally free anywhere.
Facebook is this generation's cigarettes
Google is this generation's brain
Is it just me or was this speech well rounded and hitting most of the issues facing the world? Like I was not expecting Soros to put down Google and FB, but all I really know about him from what I've seen in the media... so I don't really know shit. I'm honestly pretty confused by the speech, but it seemed like a good admittance that social media in it's current state needs changes(steemit cough cough) and that the world is not quite at ease with eachother
First of all thank you for your comments and ideas. I'm really starting to think that you and the idea are the same. I agree with most of what they say. I'll talk about the place that attracts the most attention. Trump and the nuclear war. Trump is trying to make himself a dictator of a free people. Those who voted for him will understand that what they do is a mistake. If not this year, I think a lot of things will change for you. Trump did not have much time to go. I hope it happens as soon as possible. North Korea has long been a nuclear war. He's doing nuclear missile tests. You're just warning. We destroy it. You are encouraging more against this. Why is one who is a dictator to his own people fearful of your danger? On the contrary, it is more resistant and confusing. Who wants a nuclear war in the end? So many innocent people die. This thought can be entirely a dictator's thought. @zer0hedge
Great article and I appreciate it. Im feeling my way around the site. Would follow you if I can figure out where the button is.. lol
Responding to this involves so many "on the other hand" comments that I feel like I need to be part squid, but here I go.
On one hand, I have never trusted (and will never trust) George Soros.
On the other, he managed to be completely right about Facebook and Google having the potential to wield such a web of control. In fact, there are many who would opine we are already seeing that happen.
On still another hand, he is behind so many censorship drives that he is largely to blame for that.
On still another hand, the most totalitarian surveillance states in the world are the ones where Facebook and Google are blocked (or at least partially censored in some milder cases) for being too difficult for the State to control, including China (where Soros is revered as a saint) and to and admittedly lesser extent Russia (where he is hated).
On STILL another hand, it is ironic in light of that fact, to hear that his solution to the problem is tighter government control over social media,
And on STILL another hand is the fact that state control over social media runs the immense risk of creating the very monster he is allegedly setting out to destroy, not by limiting social media's power to control information but by harvesting it for existing institutions to tighten their hold on power.
I mean... who do I trust when my enemy is warning my enemies that another enemy is dangerous?
Some music to go with this:
https://steemit.com/music/@bifilarcoil/the-richest-man-in-babylon