Thursday, September 21, 2017

Your Inner Google


UNSCOM United States Special Operations Command Insignia.svg

Back during the Second World War, the predecessor of the C.I.A. the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), under the legendary Wild Bill Donovan employed psychoanalysts to produce profiles of Axis leaders. These early studies, aimed at predicting the behavior of enemies, became the model for famous studies by psycho-historians like Erik Erikson, famed for tomes like Young Man Luther and Gandhi’s Truth. Hitler’s sexual proclivities which included a possible affair with a half-niece (who eventually committed suicide) or Gandhi’s testing his willpower by sleeping next to naked young women were some of the more juicy tidbits that emerged from these studies of world historical figures during and after the war. Today psychohistory has become a moribund discipline, not only due to the decline in the influence of psychoanalytic thinking, but also because of internet search engines like Google. If Google is like a therapist’s office and users are like typical neurotics seeking relief, then doctor/patient confidentiality is being broken the minute any subscriber turns on his or her computer. Your Google history literally tells your life story, including all your peccadillos and particularly paraphilias. These are not only available for the literally anyone to see, but they’re in fact exploited (through the use of cookies planted on sites) by marketers who target internet users' interests and inclinations as they leave their footprints on the information highway. Big Brother no longer needs to be watching, since literally literally everyone evinces their interests and desires anytime they go on line.


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