My Algo Just Doesn't Know Me
We are all pretty well aware that there is this big computer in the sky or cloud somewhere that knows everything about us. It just collects data from everywhere about you and I. Where we spend our money, where we drive, where we eat, what we eat, when we eat. A lot of it comes from our internet usage. The collection of data on the internet is very impressive to say the least. If the amount of time, money and brainpower that went into delving into the smallest pieces of our live were spent on solving mankind’s greatest problems we wouldn’t have climate change, cancer, tofu or Kim Kardashian.
However, the horse is out of the barn and has run so far we will never catch him or her. Try as you might like to go off the grid, it is impossible. We have given up our selves for free web searches and zero cost shipping.
I, for one, gave up long ago. I know they know that I know that they know everything about me. Even if I switched to DuckDuckgo.com now, it’s too late so I give in.
I like have every piece of information mankind has gathered in the last 125,000 years at my fingertips. Sorry, they want to know that I ordered Kewpie mayonnaise from Amazon at 7:30 last night, I don’t care. If I want a free tour of King Tuts tomb, I can get it, that’s the price I have to pay.
Life has always been about tradeoffs. You give up something to get something, thats how things work.
I once liked a Ben Shapiro video on Instagram and somehow I started getting more and more Shapiro videos in my feed (not surprising) but I also started getting more and more right wing conservative videos as well. Ok, I can live with that because frankly, I agree with most of the sentiments in those random videos. So, my algo got it right I guess.
Until it didn’t.
I started getting more and more videos that bordered on places I would prefer not to go. They passed the censors at Instagram but I really didn’t agree with them and I really have no idea how to stop them.
Until it dawned on me. It should dawn on everyone in this country as well.
I didn’t have to listen. I didn’t have to watch them either. Because some far to the right conservative believes that every man, woman and child in this country should be armed to the teeth with an AR-15 and 500 rounds of subsonic ammo doesn’t mean I have to agree with him. I agree with his right to express his feelings no matter what my feelings are towards them.
Let’s see if Instagram can mess up me liking funny dog videos.
I have a confession to make. I started getting the NYTimes delivered to my doorstep again, along with the NYPost and I read both of them almost religiously. It was a matter of the Times offering me a $9.99 a month subscription for like 6 months and then it will balloon to $89 a month in which case I will once again cancel it. The Post had an even better offer. A dollar a week and some guy will come clean my gutters. Couldn’t pass either up.
So now I am back diving into both papers and they have literally gotten worse, if thats even possible. The Times can not, in any form, write something positive about a Republican or Conservative. The Op-Eds are even worse and the motto “All the News Thats Fit to Print” is long gone. The Post has always bordered on sensationalism and that is to be expected. The writing for the most part is mediocre at best and while New York City, like every other major city, has problems, read any Post and you would not want to live or visit New York.
The difference between the Times and the Post is huge, obviously. However, the Post doesn’t hide the fact as to where it’s priorities lie.
The Times plays a different game.
The Times acts as an authoritative paper of record. It’s International reporting is still top notch and I don’t really think it has lost that journalistic mantle. Yet, the Domestic stories have for the last three years become more and more biased and to me, biased reporting under the guise of fair and accurate is abhorrent. Don’t make yourself out to be this journalistic stalwart when you only report on the facts that continue pushing your agenda forward.
There are so many lapses in reporting at the Times even the dullest tool in the shed can see it now. The pullout in Afghanistan was a bright spot for the Biden Administration. Huh? The Biden Administration and it’s policies have brought on the greatest surge in employment in US History. Say What? Trump’s reckless policies were the foundation that inflation launched from. Ok now stop!
One thing I will say, and this will hopefully tie this column together, is that the Times has done a fairly good job on reporting how universities across the country are pushing back on the liberal campus’s attempt to silence conservative voices. The Times, as far as I can tell, has dropped plainly on the side of the First Amendment rights to free speech.
I may not agree with what a lot of the left has to say, but I firmly believe in their right to say it. That should go both ways.