Déjà Vu, the Chorus, and Big Tech: Out of Control Witch Burnings in the Time of the Internet
I’ve been having the strongest, repeating sense of déjà vu I have ever experienced in my life lately. I am not a stranger to déjà vu. Déjà vu has always occurred around times that have changed my destiny. The more déjà vu I have, the more certain I am that something meaningful is happening or about to happen. Even more so, when the déjà vu pairs with repeating dreams, then I know something is happening. These dreams don’t need to be fantastic and strange. Rather they are often common and ordinary, but that they start happening is what marks them in my mind. When a dream unfolds in the natural course of a day mixed with the sense of déjà vu, I can’t help but feel that it is something remarkable.
The whole thing is stressful in a way though. We can never be exactly sure what the future may bring. I am a believer in the universe expressing itself in signs and have had tarot card readings manifest themselves, but the exact nuts and bolts of how something is going to work out is not clearly drawn out for the human eye to see. We can follow and read signs based on our rich symbolic heritage and the content of our collective unconscious, but usually, the exact falling of the dominoes is obscured. I believe this has to do with free will operating within a universe that has an element of predetermination, but what that predetermination is exactly, what makes it so or why it is what it is can only be examined speculatively.
We don’t choose our fates, but we can exercise some control over our own behavior, especially if we reflect on past decisions and the outcomes associated with them. There are many things about my life that I would like to go back and change. I am not talking about just changes of action. I am also talking about changes in receptivity. There have been people in my life I was receptive to and befriended who ended up being a bad match or who I trusted in vain. Though I sometimes feel weighed down by regret at my own foolishness, I also can’t help but think that even some of the bad decisions served a purpose, shaping me into a stronger, wiser person. This is true of my receptivity of the online realm as well. I’ve signed up for too many email lists, social media platforms, and online accounts. My receptivity opened me up to these online experiences, but that receptivity put too much of my information out there. Hacking and excessive online surveillance is a real threat, and the more online activity we engage in, the more chances of our information being stolen or manipulated.
When it comes to the déjà vu I’ve been experiencing lately, this sense of something remarkable at the edge of my consciousness is something I invite, but it also has an element of tension; there are some things we do not need to accept. On the great stage of life, the chorus, voice of the social code, observes both what we can and sometimes what we cannot see, inviting itself to judge us. The chorus may be wrong though, or we may have a blind spot. My déjà vu, my dream like revelations, I hold them to be sacred though I do not understand them completely. The chorus, which is not necessarily wise and which does not understand what I am experiencing, would over extend itself if it felt correct in its judgment of my own ineffable experience, and it does habitually over extend itself in its judgment of others. In traditional theater, the chorus chanted or remarked upon the action of the play. It voiced the mores of the community, especially those associated with social and spiritual codes. Modern society is possessed by the spirit of the chorus in a way that it never has been before. There has always been social judgment based on norms. There has always been gossip and preaching about what is wrong or right, but today, every action can potentially be remarked upon and judged via the Internet, a never sleeping, never ceasing false god. Information flows through it endlessly, creating an illusion of omniscience. The people jump in to be entertained and weigh in, giving them a sense of importance beyond what they experience in purely material terms. What some commentators have been saying lately, which I agree with completely, is that this process of public remark and censure has gone too far. It is creeping into the realm of thought policing. As I contemplate my déjà vu, my life unfolding signs of spiritual import, I also contemplate a sense of paranoia I have. My intuition, beyond immersing me in a sacred experience that is ineffable, has guided me toward a realization about the more menacing implications of the web. It’s as if online gesture can be interpreted as thought or even action. With big tech manipulation and a chorus out of control, it is a dangerous recipe for everyone.
One might argue that thoughts aren’t publicly displayed so the concern over thought policing isn’t valid; however, with the Internet, thoughts can be observed and interpreted even if obliquely and/or incorrectly, and the thought policing process of the chorus does in fact exist. For instance, the people you follow and the posts you like can be judged as evidence of your thoughts on a topic. For the most part, it is safe to assume that you follow people you agree with and like posts you support. Your thoughts on these things can be assumed. The chorus can then weigh in and judge you for these semiotic markings of thought. The truth is though that some people actually follow people they don’t like or don’t agree with, just to be better informed about a topic. It is possible to follow someone you don’t like that much because you admire one aspect of that person’s personality rather than everything about them. You can also like posts just to save them for future reference or perhaps in a gesture of ironic, semiotic sarcasm. When the chorus starts making your business their business and preoccupying the empty hours of their day remarking on what they perceive to be your thought process, we thus see the problem of modern post culture and the enactment of an almost ritualized thought policing.
When you factor in the surveillance and censorship of big tech along with the possibility of information rape (hacking), you might come to the same conclusion I have come to: there’s a big problem here. Big tech has taken on the “responsibility” of collecting data via phone and Internet applications that go beyond the actual use of whatever application. You may recall Facebook’s privacy scandals, the Cambridge Analytica situation being one. Facebook is known to collect data far beyond what the average use would even expect and has been accused on manipulating politics with that data. So too, Google’s power of information access reaches beyond what is necessary and extends to the realm of thought. If Google knows where I drive to, what’s on my calendar, and what sites I visit, then it could use this information to predict my thoughts via artificial intelligence technology. You might have experienced situations in which you were thinking of something and then the next thing you know, Google presents an advertisement for just that. Big tech calls this convenience. They are using technology to offer you what you want or even what you think you want. They use artificial intelligence and other technology to analyze what they think they know in order to make a close to accurate guess about what they don’t know. They can generate money and sway politics in this way. The process is operational behind the scenes, and opens the door to manipulation, disinformation, and abuses of power.
Recently, it dawned on me that I didn’t think about my online privacy enough in the past. One instance of hacking could expose my location, my bank information, my saved work, and more. It also could potentially expose me to the malice of an out of control chorus, a public that thinks all information, even what they assume are my thoughts, should be there’s to judge regardless if they know what was motivating the thought or what the thought specifically was. Even if it violates privacy terms, if a hacker exposes private information, the chorus would help itself to your information, however under-informed they are, and they would feast on that information like ravenous vultures, regardless of how innocent or guilty you might be. I do not mean to say that every individual is like this. Rather, I am commenting on how individuals act within groups, specifically the chorus phenomenon.
It’s like the Twilight Zone. With the powers that be having complete access to every move we make on the web, they can potentially destroy lives. Big tech knows who we find attractive. Imagine a world where they tell that person how much we like to look at their face! It would be embarrassing. We gravitate towards beauty, but if we keep it to ourselves, there’s no reason for everyone to know and judge us for it. To provide another example, big tech knows if we watch pornography and what kind of pornography we watch. They may not realize that there are different motivations for the pornography we view. I am not advocating for privacy and protection for pornography that violates minors, deals in human trafficking, or is staged without consent. What I am saying is that whatever lame pornography you are looking at whether if it is to laugh, to gawk, or to masturbate could potentially be hacked and used against you. The chorus would happily try to mock you to death and tear you apart for it when there could have been some other motivation for your viewing. If you like consensual rough sex pornography, and you are male, be prepared to be labeled as part of the toxic masculinity problem. If you are a woman and watch that sort of thing, I’m sure the chorus will find some way to insult you. Either way, the information is private, so a chorus fixating on this kind of stolen information would be a chorus in disorder. Their judgments would perhaps voice social norms, but information theft is unethical. What chorus is judging the chorus? Who is remarking on the violation of norms by the chorus? It wouldn’t matter because if someone who works in big tech gave an enemy your information, then they could publicly embarrass you with that information as well as make it out that they know your thoughts when they don’t. The chorus would be happy to tear you apart. In the case of pornography, they will call you a lecher. In the domain of politics, the chorus might decide you are a racist even if you aren’t. They can potentially assume your thoughts if you read risqué literature or even so much as glance at a perspective that differs from there’s. In a smaller scale example of this, when I was in college, I worked at the college tutoring center. During down time, we were allowed to read, and I was reading the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, and another tutor came up and loudly said, “What are you doing reading pornography at work?!” right in front of a supervisor. Luckily, the supervisor knew it was a joke, but in a different work environment, it could have caused a bit of trouble. There could have been an uprising against the smutty Decameron reading I was doing! Not everyone participates in the cancel culture, public humiliation chorus, but it is happening more and more. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t hear about someone getting called out for their “insensitivity” as if the process of the “call out” wasn’t insensitive as well.
My reveries, dreams, and desires are private. I share them to illustrate that in this day and age, it is relatively safe to discuss the magical. My interactions and thoughts are private. What people see they see, but they shouldn’t over assume. What I do in an observable public domain is not private. At the same time, what I browse privately shouldn’t be a televised event, an invitation for human sacrifice. This isn’t just about me. It’s about you, all of you. Your thoughts are being swayed, manipulated, and observed. If you think privacy is some quaint, outdated notion and that you have nothing to hide, you haven’t thought far enough ahead. You do not have supreme wisdom. You can not foresee which Internet like or Internet hack could complicate your lives. The witch burnings aren’t happening due to discussion about intuition and crystals. The witch burnings are secular and happening to regular people whom the chorus assumes are violating codes. The chorus takes on the responsibility of a punisher, seeking to burn those who transgress codes, blasting the, perhaps misdirected or incorrect, moral outrage of the people to the point that those unfortunate enough to be up on the stake could lose loved ones, opportunities, or even their livelihoods.
I’ve always been somewhat paranoid about the Internet, and now I am more so. I would like to say that I am switching to cash and tuning out, but there are so many ways that interacting with the web seems convenient. I can order inexpensive garments and listen to a wide variety of music online. I can communicate with old friends. My willingness to engage in the Interweb is an exchange. I exchange some of my privacy for convenience, and so do you. However, I am now in the mindset that I need to trust less and disconnect more. It will be a process since so much of my life is tangled up with the web, but it is a matter of human dignity. No one should have that much access to your life, especially strangers. We can trust the ethics of Big Tech employees, but just one bad apple could open up your information to nefarious entities. On top of that, big tech’s ethics are questionable as they have demonstrated a willingness to manipulate public opinion as well as individual choices.
Finally, I recognize I am saying things people don’t say. Strict atomic materialists may question my sanity due to my spiritual beliefs as if anyone on this speck of a planet within an infinite sea of being has any right to act as if they know what is and what is not when it comes to the spiritual. There are objective truths, but spirituality is not something you can prove as false even though or perhaps because it is not a material phenomenon. I also anticipate smug conformists who blindly trust in their big tech allies calling out my paranoia. Human beings are fallible, and behind the scenes of any enterprise, you will find humans beings who want money and power, who believe their ideals are better than others, and who think the ends justify the means. You may think that people who propagate and conform to your ideas are above fault and beyond blame, but they are people all the same, with the same failings as someone who may disagree with you. For all you know, they may be saying the things you want to hear in order to more easily manipulate you for their benefit. You could even contemplate yourself, how you assume, how you enact the role of chorus member. I suggest you imagine what catastrophe may visit your life if you misstep and are at the mercy of the chorus.
I end this piece with my déjà vu. It is beautiful and strange, the stuff of magic. It is not something that can be expressed in words. I trust it though I do not understand it. It’s a personal thing that I mention for context in this article. My intuition about something mysterious is paired with intuition about something not so mysterious, a disturbing phenomenon I’ve been observing on the web. In general, what we think about is no one’s business though I am sure the chorus wouldn’t mind making it so. It is thus time to think more critically about the social ills manifesting as a result of our over reliance and excessive trust in the Internet. Our hopes for a better world cause us to raise voices in unison with others in order to battle injustice. The Internet helps us connect more conveniently, thus giving us more perceived power than what we might otherwise have. While this solidarity can potentially cause positive change, it also opens up a safe space for mass hysteria expressing itself as the will to control via the means of public outrage. The chorus would like to act like it knows what you think even when it really doesn’t. It would love to speak for you, against you. You might be safe from a witch burning in town square. Some of the chorus may even be spiritual people. However, as a general rule, no one is safe from the semiotic secular witch burning that is full volume Internet cancel culture. If you look back in history, well intentioned mobs have been complicit in massive social tragedies all the while thinking they were right — right to judge, right to imprison, right to censure, and right to kill. I believe there is right and wrong, that we have to make ethical decisions within society for the health of that society and that there is objective truth, but when it comes to the realm of thought and privacy, people need to take a step back. The powers we give the rulers of the web and our confidence in our own interpretive behavior need boundaries, especially when we think it is okay to engage in cancel culture online without knowing the full story and especially when we blindly trust in big tech. As self-righteous as anyone can be, regardless of political affiliation, you can just as likely be the next victim or the next witch burner. Your information can be used against you in an unfair way, or you may find yourself using other people’s information in an unfair way. It’s a good time to think about our own actions and to work together to help protect people from out of control Internet manipulation and witch burnings.
