The short answer is yes. But it is not really a "modern" thing, or a new thing. It has been like that since at least 1883. Nothing has changed except for the magnitude of the lies, maybe. And I am really not sure about that either, knowing Edward Bernays definition of what a Democracy is.
Aug 30·edited Aug 30Liked by Etienne de la Boetie2
You could say that the allegory of Plato's Cave was more of a 20th Century manipulation of the populace. There's that too now, but today with social media and the majority of people's addiction to their smart phones, that people have become (B.F.) Skinner-ian rats* in a ruling class constructed maze, our behavior studied algorithmically so well that the controllers can trade in "behavioral futures markets"*. They can and will be able to predict our behavior but also "nudge" it to their desired outcomes.
* Skinner did not believe in human freedom, or free will. He believed that "free will" was simply ignorance of the causal factors that affected behavior - the "ignorance" being on the part of the behavioral engineer.
*See the book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff.
Is Monopoly Media and Algorithmic Censorship Creating A Modern Version of Plato's Cave?
The short answer is yes. But it is not really a "modern" thing, or a new thing. It has been like that since at least 1883. Nothing has changed except for the magnitude of the lies, maybe. And I am really not sure about that either, knowing Edward Bernays definition of what a Democracy is.
https://archive.org/details/no-such-thing-as-a-free-press-1883
You could say that the allegory of Plato's Cave was more of a 20th Century manipulation of the populace. There's that too now, but today with social media and the majority of people's addiction to their smart phones, that people have become (B.F.) Skinner-ian rats* in a ruling class constructed maze, our behavior studied algorithmically so well that the controllers can trade in "behavioral futures markets"*. They can and will be able to predict our behavior but also "nudge" it to their desired outcomes.
* Skinner did not believe in human freedom, or free will. He believed that "free will" was simply ignorance of the causal factors that affected behavior - the "ignorance" being on the part of the behavioral engineer.
*See the book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff.