Add my "what went wrong" take to the pile

[marked50]

46. My Wife and I have been discussing this exactly as you have described for a couple of days now. I agree completely with

your analysis. Demographic analysis is important but if you can't breakthrough this new form of Brainwashing ( which we have never ever really seen before) we will most definitely be controlled by it and more specifically by those who are generating and controlling these tools.

I know someone (I will not name or identify) who is someone people would call a computer systems Nerd. He was involved with the eventual rollout of the precursor for the internet ( it started with the Military of course)-ARPANET. He retired a number of years ago.

I haven't had many discussions with him over the years in regards to those things but I did just a few months ago. He confirmed something to me that I always had some concern about. I was reticent about any social media usage when that stuff started appearing years ago. We (wife and myself) made the decision to avoid participating in any of it. It certainly restricted our friends and family contact, but we still have phone and email contacts ( we only use a flip-phone and only when we are on-the road).

The confirmation part of the conversation with him was around this exact potential of Control of social media. He said that he too was not participating in any of this because of what he knew about it's danger- he never started engaging in it. He tried to keep it simple for me but it is exactly what you have described in this OP EarlG. Algorithmic methods are only a part of it. There is more.

Now the real scary part that exists now is the involvement of Musk, X, and Starlink. There is a reason that the Team now consists of Trump and that Project 2025 Crew and Musk. We are only seeing the beginning of what may come in the not to distant future means of control.

How we can prepare ourselves and deal with this is something I have no concept of.