Trevor, one pattern I’m noticing is that you have a habit of identifying the limits of technology (here and elsewhere) and then, because you can’t prove otherwise, asserting intelligence agencies possess these capabilities and deploy them effectively toward national security problems without evidence. It’s akin to arguing from first principles that humans have nuclear fusion in 1955 because we’ve had a theory of quantum mechanics for some time now.
In reality, it seems unlikely to me that the government’s ability to analyze massive data for trends and manipulate large groups of people via the internet runs ahead of digital advertising (and in fact, it is common knowledge at this point that government uses the advertising industry for large portions of its analysis tasks), because digital advertising is already attempting to solve similar problems in similar ways, and has access to better human capital and more money than any intelligence agency does. The CIA has unique capabilities, because they’re allowed to break the law in ways Google cannot, but at the same time they face problems, because they’re also incapable of operating in foreign countries overtly at all.
in fact, it is common knowledge at this point that government uses the advertising industry for large portions of its analysis tasks), because digital advertising is already attempting to solve similar problems in similar ways, and has access to better human capital and more money than any intelligence agency does.
These are some pretty big and broad claims, it’s the core of the argument in this comment, and it seems likely to be subject to the problem I’ve described in this post. It would also be a very harmful mindset if mistaken. Can you go into more detail about this, either here or in a DM? That would have some really big implications for my research, and if true it would save me a lot of time reinventing the wheel.
Trevor, one pattern I’m noticing is that you have a habit of identifying the limits of technology (here and elsewhere) and then, because you can’t prove otherwise, asserting intelligence agencies possess these capabilities and deploy them effectively toward national security problems without evidence. It’s akin to arguing from first principles that humans have nuclear fusion in 1955 because we’ve had a theory of quantum mechanics for some time now.
In reality, it seems unlikely to me that the government’s ability to analyze massive data for trends and manipulate large groups of people via the internet runs ahead of digital advertising (and in fact, it is common knowledge at this point that government uses the advertising industry for large portions of its analysis tasks), because digital advertising is already attempting to solve similar problems in similar ways, and has access to better human capital and more money than any intelligence agency does. The CIA has unique capabilities, because they’re allowed to break the law in ways Google cannot, but at the same time they face problems, because they’re also incapable of operating in foreign countries overtly at all.
These are some pretty big and broad claims, it’s the core of the argument in this comment, and it seems likely to be subject to the problem I’ve described in this post. It would also be a very harmful mindset if mistaken. Can you go into more detail about this, either here or in a DM? That would have some really big implications for my research, and if true it would save me a lot of time reinventing the wheel.