tl;dr: In hindsight, the harvesting and mining of personal data might be one of today’s great moral failings.

Going to head the obvious attack off at the pass and say straight out that I’m not equating slavery and the buying/selling of personal data.

If you get worked up about that, just stop reading and go to the end of the Internet.

However, what I am wondering is if, at some point in the future, future generations will look back at the current era of surveillance capitalism and judge us in the same way we look back at slaveowners.

Many people have been watching the Social Dilemma on Netflix. I haven’t because, well, I feel like I already get it, but there’s is a “wokeness” happening when it comes to the addictive elements of our digital lives today and the massive personal data industry that rests behind it.

Maybe that’s the first step toward realizing the fact that all of this data has laid the groundwork for a form of “mental slavery.”

Not just mental slavery in the form of addiction to the machine, devices, and services, but the more insidious form where the masters of the data can manipulate our worlds so we see what they want us to see.

We’re seeing the effects already as camps devolve into a slavery of the mind to a cause-be it conservative or liberal.

I struggle with this… a lot.

There are parts of my day to day activities that involve the trafficking of data and it weighs on me.

Perhaps I’ve drunk too much of the crypto Kool Aid and I shouldn’t worry about it.

And perhaps my role isn’t that bad. Maybe I’m just using the data to help people actually discover the products and services that they want so I can serve them and know them better.

I honestly don’t know, but I do know that it bothers me.

I just don’t know if I’m alone on this one.

And I don’t know if I’m right or just self-righteous.