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Comment by tootie

5 years ago

I don't think that would really fly. You may get served a higher class of ads, but if you go apply for a loan or a job, you still have to disclose your real self.

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tootie

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maze-le  5 years ago

Yes but that's just the thing: OP wants to create their "real" self, just not the authentic self. It becomes real, by association with the name of the person, yet it stays a simulated expression, a simulacrum[0].

Consider that the loan- or job-"machines" are collecting intelligence from social networks to evaluate the person -- in addition to loan history and previous job performance. Now if you can present "yourself" to this machines in a conformal way, you don't need to fear negative repercussions on shitposts you did. While you can still be authentic in private or under pseudonyms.

Of course, you will still get categorized by the bank transactions you make in your real name. Same goes for your performance reviews on previous jobs. It is just a matter of tricking these other forms of automated social control into a higher rating bound to your name.

-----

I find it fascinating that philosophers like Baudrillard and Deleuze were able to think and warn about these issues more than 40 years ago when none of this was even remotely on the horizon:

See also Deleuzes "Societies of Control":

https://cidadeinseguranca.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/deleuz...

and:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337844512_Societies...

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum

  • socialcooling  5 years ago

    Thank you for posting this, saves me the trouble :-)

    I re-read Deleuze's three-page paper every year. It really describes things well.

    • maze-le  5 years ago

      > It really describes things well.

      It definitely does, and he is scarily accurate in his analysis. I just re-read it myself, and stumbled over this part, which I certainly not anticipated in this form a few years back:

      > For the hospital system: the new medicine "without doctor or patient" that singles out potentially sick people and subjects at risk, which in no way attests to individuation -- as they say -- but substitutes for the individual or numerical body the code of a "dividual" material to be controlled.

      This is certainly an accurate description of the control mechanisms various states have put into place in the form of apps that enforce selective quarantine restrictions.

      The socialcooling website really a great project! Important content presented concise and on-point, thank you for doing this!

  • tootie  5 years ago

    I don't understand what any of this is warning of. This just seems like Living in a Society 101.

josefresco  5 years ago

> but if you go apply for a loan or a job, you still have to disclose your real self

Then doesn't this discount the threat being posed by the "Social Cooling" theory? If social media activity doesn't matter "when it comes down to real transactions" shouldn't we be less worried?

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. Obviously you can't "social media fake" your way into a mortgage (I hope) but it may stop you from getting a job or being elected to office.

  • ntsplnkv2  5 years ago

    Financial transactions have better tracking like credit scores and credit history, or things like your income/debt ratio.

    > but it may stop you from getting a job or being elected to office.

    This is more of the problem - the social impact eventually leads to financial impact.