Farming is easier than you think

Sometimes the discussion I have with my wife, the beautiful, barefooted Hawaiian Hillbilly from Appalachia I've come to not know after over forty years (and I only know this because she's kind enough to remind me on a regular basis), sounds more like an argument than an elevated place of mutual understanding and respect. If I had to characterize our union, think of what it would look like if Charlie Brown and Lucy grew up, got married and limped into the crusted comic books stacked in the closet where they seldom frequent anymore. 

Usually our most heated exchanges come while we peer at one another over the edges of our laptop and workstation desk-fortress where normal people would put a dining room table or some other traditional set of furnishings.

"So how do they know that?" I hear my wife bellow after surfing the internet for information on a celebrity or some other something that I normally couldn't care less about and usually ignore, except .......that gets me in trouble. 

I glance over to meet her eyes "What...." I ask while plugging away at one of my many self-absorbed, save the world projects.

"I was just looking up something on finding another flower die cut and now your algee-rythm thingy you always talk about won’t go away! These pop up are annoying! What'd I have to do to make 'em stop?"

"Stop clicking keys. Every word you type in, the sequence you dictate, the machine makes word associations to....its called machine inference. They also call it semantics. Think of those ink blot tests people take while lying on a couch and the psychologist jots down the words on a notepad. They'll take those results....think of them as test results and, through research, personal interpretation and discovery, they'll make a determination of what to offer or recomend to alter the client's behaviors or habits in serving the best interest of the client, the subject. However, machines and businesses aren't bound those same codes of ethics to respect what's in your best interest. No, they can claim that if harm comes your way during their internet services, you asked for it when you agreed to use their services. That's the acceptable cost everyone has agreed to when using their machines to do word play, off of your inputs, by playing clickbait games with you. There is no lawful means protecting users, or should I say losers from harm.....and that's why you’re annoyed. You just got farmed."

"I'm even more annoyed now! What the ....did you just call me?"

It's true, most people don’t understand the complex nature how monetization of the internet has evolved, no less how marketing products and e-commerce companies can get away from being held responsible for activities that lure internet users away from what is in the user’s best interest, and into a growing "web" of lost souls. Let’s look at that.

Companies farm users by counting keyboard clicks, making word associations to your entries, in what is called metacrawling. If we thinking of how all our machines are connected to other machines (client and host), we can play the Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation game, except with you, the user as the subject. How many people do you know? Think about that. How many people are actively in your circle? How many are from the past? Now, how many times have you filled out various forms with your information that is broken up by the machine into neatly stacked packets and mapped out so that other machines can find and retrieve it, like a street address of where you live. Think of it as livestack. Now you have a better idea how the hyper texting of fields on a form works to replicate a hyper-extension of something that physically exists, you can imagine how your personably identifiable information (PII) is intended to represent something real like you in a cyber-physical environment. This concept can be applied to anything, factual or fictitious, to contridict the past, confuse the present and predetermine futures.

When machines interpret your entries, they make many operations as instructions to compare LIKE objects, like your name and all the information you feed as identifiable properties or PII. This is known as metadata or meta properties. The machine is said to transmit very small but brief bits as packet of electricity that crawl through web network, structures that it expects to encounter also known as data structure protocols. This is how machines communicate with one another, trying to complete its instruction. After that, the machine can take other conditions like timing in consideration to produce return transmissions, or results.  Those results may replicate or model something from the present (2D or 3D), the past or future (4D).

Those returns could be to tell the machine you are using or transmitting command instructions from, to get or interrupt a services like showing photos or playing music. All kinds of magic happen behind that mysterious background of internet services. And it’s really easy to ignore the man behind the Oz curtain. But the reality is, the wizard in this scenario is a business that can replicate and alter your metadata in just about any way it wants to sell as a commodity to other businesses, like livestock. However, there are probably better protections for livestock than there are for livestack, your data compiled neatly so other machines can map and make comparisons to other LIKE, stacked metadata objects like herding cattle. This is an industry and it is not only acceptable, but good sport and profitable to prey on your appetites for more and more returns that may not be in your best interests. A good example is fixation and addiction to social media, pornography and online betting. People who are predisposed to having issue with self-control are often times preyed upon by not just cyber-threat actors as elicitors, but legitimate businesses and even so called academic institutions.

For instance, for many years now major academic institutions have sponsored and conducted surveys among very young school children asking very sensitive questions that would give intimate insights on their natural and predeterminal dispositions. Data sets like these, if compromised, would be catastrophic if given to our adversaries. But, who are our adversaries? If you consider the findings of many who are critical of data driven decisions based on privacy as we know it today, scandals with Cambridge Analytica and the outcome of free elections indicate we are more at risk now in 2025 than ever before.

At this point, it’s easy to see how we can transition and talk about how farming shifts to gaming metadata, the creepy business of generating data sets based on user surveys as “research”. And how the ever-so slow drifting of returns can lead you on alternate paths from where you belong.

Degrees of standard deviation advertisers use to build probability bell curves as mosaic models to group and predict individual consumers' e-habits. Compiled with other like consumers, these are sold to marketers, known as 358 degrees (Data anonymization). The markets reverse engineer the mosaic amalgam data (2 degrees or Data de-anonymization) to target the original consumer, while not compromising privacy rights. Once the customer is targeted, strategies predict how to modify behaviors to motivate consumer  relations through point and click conditioning.

      TED on marketing extremism

      The tragic target

            https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/3-psychographic-gems/

Luke 4:1-13, Movie Minority Report, Artificial Intelligence and predictive analytics; the dangers of drawing from only the known data sets (digital modeling) to make assertive outcomes.

https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/Technology/885000/Recent-Federal-Government-Action-On-Artificial-Intelligence-And-Next-Generation-Technologies

Here is an excerpt taken from the end of the article to the last link above: 

"In addition to new legislation to develop next generation infrastructure, members of Congress have also expressed interest in readily addressing algorithmic bias in AI applications that may result in inaccurate, unfair or discriminatory decisions affecting the American public."

In 2013 I had to write a college paper on Next Generation Technology and Legislation. So I'm sure there has been a disturbance in the field since I did my research on the controls we use in our infrastructure every day to manage information to protect our National Air Space. None the less, the same enterprise framework is used in e-commerce across industry sectors. That means these mechanisms warrant consideration when we talk not just about data access, analytics and ethics, but also economies of scale, healthy competitive forcing, community health and the trickle down of these effectors on mental health, behavior and information flow that we collectively are faciltating by being users.

We urgently need a unifying force when considering the lessons learned from the past in avoiding tragedies. We must have healthy competitive interoperability in our relations, including political, in order to have the right information getting to the right people at the right time if we want to predict outcomes to take decisive actions. Otherwise, we fail ourselves.

Net centricity, the good, bad and ugly

NextGen policies tackle a lot of issues, but central is the management of timely and accurate information. The concept is to take information gathered in real time and apply that information to a model to predict an outcome in an alternate reality. The more scenarios run on this model, the greater the chances of a predictable outcome. From there, models are categorized into types where they are monitored for deviation as digital mosaics. This continuous loop of sampling helps build models that set the stage for shaping a producer-consumer environment. The result is a community of LIKE consumers. Marketers use this same strategy to break down consumers into pseudo-profiles. This is commonly known as 360 degree profiling or programmatic targeting. Anyone who has had a senior loved one scammed by fraudulent actors knows where these practices can lead. 

The ability to use fresh and appropriate data to build models that simulate is nothing new. However, what is relatively new is the (1) intrusive capability of advertisers through web service providers to track and manipulate the user interface and user experience, and (2) scale and frequency the sampling instances. This sets the stage for a booming potential, the likes of which we are seeing in most recent socio-economic terms. That’s a good thing for those on the ground floor investments of Big Analytics. But, what is the opportunity cost in terms of domestic tranquility?

Going back to the model, if internet users are grouped so that the primary feed of information and web exposure is based off of what users gravitate to, chances are they will subscribe and dwell in the virtual communities that reinforce their belief constructs about all matters under the Sun. Depending on the producer of the content, it may even villainize or repel other LIKE communities that do not reinforce and align with core values like their own. You have to be a LIKE in order to be liked. So, is this really news?

Like minded communities and Group think

When we talk about the ideals of what a healthy community with a healthy competitive spirit would look like, many look to the past. Religion provided a paradigm for persevering through extreme abuses of power and corruption. It was the local cultural norm to look to leaders within their immediate circle for guidance, vision and faith in predicting outcomes. With an intuitive sense of confidence, leaders determined the kinds of behaviors that were considered normal. Based on core values, Religion served as a behavioral standard for organized communities to conform to mandates, promote general welfare and encourage predictable civil order. However, deep divisions in belief caused great schisms that impacted these behaviors as an accepted culture through mandates and expectations.  The modes for expressing these expectations were delivered through various forms of media, including literature and art. The same can be said today where resources and favor find the decent folk but not necessarily the wholesome.....the us and them.

The contrast between the model of old and new is the objective experience. A unifying God under the religious model still holds weight for many struggling to feel comfortable in their skin. With advances in technology come challenges riddled by complex decisions with outcomes reduced into less meaningful terms to protect kingdoms of control over cultures that reflect core regional norms, practices, values and beliefs. But the art of media expression has taken a drastic change. With the capabilities of artificial intelligence and computer-augment or virtual realities to filter, predict and shape realities comes a returning theme of fragmentation. In contrast from the past as to what leaders brought to the community, we now have programming to influence what determines model behaviors through commerce, interactive media and gaming. These extended environments offer new challenges to protections from schisms, affecting new dimensions in the realm of critical thinking emotional intelligence skills. Adjusting to change on a personal level is key to having a sense of self in relating to others through the environment, physical or extended. Things in terms of internet and modeling, it is easy to see how conceptions and visions can become realities. An essential component to an adaptive learner’s tool box is a healthy sense of self first before relating to others. Self-regulation is essential to intrapersonal understanding, self-realization and talent efficacy. This is a balancing act for managing emotions and self-control, especially when core values and beliefs are threatened. When one’s emotional center is thrown off, vulnerabilities can surface and bad things can quickly spiral out of control, especially for those distracted by neurosis. Aggressors will leverage these sorts of episodes to try and get their opponents to expose details about themselves that may lead to compromising and embarrassing facets. It is not uncommon for the aggressor to even, through the deceptive modeling, amplify the downward spiral of their opponent by fabricating an alternative experience as fact. If the aggressor is not perceived as an aggressor as a bad-faith actor, and instead, treated as trusted confidant, it can shatter expectations and even trigger violence. This is known as gas lighting and can be a powerful tool to disrupt and disenfranchise. Once someone is isolated from feeling connected to others, they often become discouraged or even outraged. This type of fragmentation does not support intelligent communities. These tactics use technology subjectively and break the spirit in which these unified models serve. So how do intrapersonal skills relate to the responsible use of technology? By bouncing our virtual perceptions, expectations and visions against people within our immediate circle. However, knowing how to approach someone about these matters is a delicate and personal skill that can be quite an embarrassment to learn. That is when the dynamic of potential and change can take hold and bring one to a higher level of self and understanding in their maturity.

The very best outcome in these types of experiences are to go back to the past in breaking down the barriers that resemble dominions of control or kingdoms, and learn from leaders that offer expertise in their respective fields. Our Commonwealth is only as good as the open access afforded to general public by those that represent us and enhance our communities through public funding. Objective programming and artificial intelligence can do many wonders, but it can never leverage its ability to provide the complexities of love through the human machine interface.

Subject Matter Experts (SME)s are often in LIKE communities, composed of “peers”. These relationships of peers help SMEs agree or disagree on a common rules, principle or objectives and often dictate work cultures, behaviors, and best practices. However, they can act as gatekeepers, limiting access, mobility and even means to facilitate an engaging public. That's when communities of interests (CoI)s make fantastic spaces to cultivate youth or even professionals looking to change career paths. Joining civil organizations and nonprofits help participants try on different roles before dedicating themselves to a formal career path with communities of practice (CoP). Volunteering is a great way to test what is valuable when trying to find our place in our ever changing cyber space against the backdrop of our communities where we work and play.