Hier een gedicht van Caitlin Johnstone over algoritmen. Verdere uitleg lijkt me niet nodig.

(als
je het Engels niet machtig bent, zet dan de tekst in Google translate
dat
je rechts bovenaan deze pagina ziet staan,eerst
om in het Engels door in het menu van Google translate op Engels te
klikken, waarna je weer kan klikken op die vertaalapp en je dan
bovenaan in het menu Nederlands ziet staan, klik daarop en de hele
tekst staat in het Nederlands, de vertaling is van een redelijk goede
kwaliteit.)

 The Algorithm

Caitlin Johnstone

August 6, 2023

3 minutes

algorithm, dystopia, poem, Poetry

The
algorithm knows what you want before you do. The algorithm knows you
better than you know yourself. The algorithm knew you back before you
were a screaming slime child, back before they washed off the uterine
gunk and handed you a smartphone and made you get a landlord, back
before you knew that war…

Listen to a reading of “The Algorithm” (reading by Tim Foley)

The algorithm knows what you want before you do.

The algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

The algorithm knew you back before you were a screaming slime child,
back before they washed off the uterine gunk and handed you a smartphone and made you get a landlord,
back before you knew that war is sane and poverty is normal,
back before you were mature enough to understand that speech is violence and cluster bombs are peace.

You can trust the algorithm to tell you the truth — not the truth you asked for but the truth you need.
The truth that sees Nazis in America but not in Ukraine.
The truth that sees war crimes in Ukraine but never in Yemen.
The truth that applauds millionaire comedians who never criticize the Pentagon for their bravery in criticizing trans people.
The
truth that sails aircraft carriers into the South China Sea and sends
headless hounds built by Boston Dynamics to patrol the streets and
uphold the rule of law.

The algorithm learns your political biases and feeds you self-validating social media posts to assist you in confirming them.
The
algorithm listens to your conversations and presents you with helpful
advertising to assist you in achieving your maximum consumer potential.
Don’t cover your laptop camera like some weird conspiracy theorist, the algorithm is trying to watch you masturbate.

The algorithm is always a step ahead of you.
You have never once fooled the algorithm.
The algorithm knows you act confident but secretly you fear you’re inadequate and everyone hates you.
The
algorithm knows that those times you quickly pause and screw your eyes
shut are because you remembered something embarrassing that you did in
the past.
It’s okay.
Don’t worry.
Your secret is safe with the algorithm.
It’s a private little secret just between you and the algorithm and the NSA.

In the old days we prayed to omniscient gods who never existed.
Now we ignore omniscient gods who are as real as ourselves.
Strap me in to a VR headset and let Mark Zuckerberg send me to heaven.
Heaven with 3-d commercial breaks, bitch.
Skip the ad and return to nirvana in 5,4,3…

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where
you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. All my work is
free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it,
translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to
make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing
list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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