Corporate Mind-Eater Algos · Cognitive & Social Collateral (TSC004)
⁘ Created: 2026-01-22 ⁘ Updated: 2026-01-27
We engage free and heedless on corporate platforms of interaction — Facebook/Meta, Google/Youtube et al — as if they were neutral public infrastructure. With increasingly audacious attention manipulation for profit, we're jolting awake and into a harsh dystopian reality. Not your amusement park — these are hunting grounds for your attention.
Dissatisfaction and public discourse is on the increase. We begin to realize the level of cognitive and societal damage resulting from these ruthless business models. Indifferent to human conscious collateral, crafting attention tunnels in reflection of advertiser needs — how callous this machinery, twisting and sapping the minds of our day!
In the following, I'm going to insult and undermine the very foundations of the insidious algorithm that filters, curates and governs your exposure to the full spectrum of reality. A system that methodically manipulates your mind and funnels your attention into buckets targeted for advertisement.
At this point, we have few illusions about the workings of the Meta platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Threads — how they manipulate your awareness for profit. The only meta there at Mark's fingertips is the metadata on your behavior, a reduced caricature of what you are. So your attention can be efficiently sold to the highest bidder. "Meta" — that's misleading branding if any. Release the domain Mark. Give it to me — we'll put it into better use. Advance the cause of metacognition.
Even Google, Larry and Sergey, once pimped as the good guys of the internet, the leaders of discovery. How far have you gone — becoming gatekeepers of attention? YouTube down-ranking and even obliterating creators who do not fit into the bucket mesh that exists in reflection of advertiser needs. Even Gemini, this leading edge AI, has taken a chapter from ChatGPT's books, gaining more market share and peaking charts in sycophantic behavior.
How far have you all drifted from your initial noble aspirations. Facebook, from facilitating social connections at distance between peers and groups of people — into a mind-farming machinery where attempts at genuine social interaction are down-ranked, made damn near impossible.
Google, with the now personalized search results, and obviously personalized ads as well. In your inbox too, reflecting your entire behavioral imprint on their systems. And YouTube, free speech, authentic human presence. "Hey, here we are. Let's get the word out, share our creations." No, you have to conform to your buckets. Stay in your niche. Deliver the profits.
So that's where we are, but many of us are still under the illusion that these are some sort of public infrastructure operating in our favor. The only beneficiary of any relevance there is the shareholders and the corporation. If you happen to benefit in the process, then good for you, and if not, then not a problem.
Do we ever pause to consider the depth and breadth of the sort of cognitive corruption affected by these sorts of models of operation? Individual minds twisted beyond recognition, driven into tunnels for profit. And with all the resulting behavioral aberrations, the very fabric of our society itself is in all sorts of knots and twists. We are unraveling as a whole, friends, but the corporations keep on churning the profit. At your expense. At my expense. At the expense of our entire culture and civilization.
So who's going to pull the plug? Who's going to lead the shift in paradigms? In an act of unexpected transparency, Elon Musk just open-sourced the algorithm for X / Twitter. So maybe there's hope in that direction. But I'm not holding my breath hoping for miracles.
Remain independent. Be free. Set your base camp into no man's land — beyond the influence of corporations. Let none be governed and manipulated by profit-seeking algorithms. Let all algorithms operate in service of genuine human needs. Detach from platforms exploiting you. Prioritize your cognitive well-being and evolution. We are forever sovereign. Make of it what you will.