Social Media: A Brief History of The Mirror World

As civilisational collapse becomes supercharged and at the same time concealed by social media algorithms, it is more urgent than ever to understand how the social media phenomenon got us here, rather than surrender to the unreality of the mirror world that has seized control of individuals and society.  As with other innovations, our dependence on, and familiarity with social media made us complacent to the risks.   But becoming familiar with something does not mean you “know” what it is, or that you understand the risks, in much the same way a smoker familiarizes themselves with smoking but has no conscious cognition of killing themselves.  On a planet where billions have never known a world without social media, writing a piece about social media will probably sound absurd, especially given that I am posting and sharing this on social media.  But such is the nature of our dystopia.  There is a reason I come back to this topic: this story is far from finished.  Social media is taking us on a journey to a dark destination we will never return from.

Phase 1 – The Creation of The Mirror World

In this very short-lived phase, social media was a positive catalyst in society: increasing communication, access to ideas and people, and becoming a supplemental means of engaging with the real world.  People would meet others online who they would then meet in the real world.  Similarly, they would become exposed to new ideas which they would then verify and investigate in the real world.  Enhancing plurality, social media became a democratic mirror world where everyone in theory had an equal voice as long as they had access to a social media account.  Entire revolutions from the Arab Spring to trans rights advocacy were facilitated through social media, helping people awaken, unite and organise, and helping society evolve.

Phase 2 – The Takeover

As social media grew, it shifted from a supplemental means of engaging with the world, to the only way of accessing that world.  In doing so, it essentially replaced the real world altogether.  Everything that we saw, heard, interacted with, now took place on social media.  The world we had known had simply disappeared overnight, yet it still existed as a physical reality, which is why no one ever noticed.  The mirror world essentially took over.  The implications of this terrifying transition were never fully comprehended, leading to disastrous consequences:  from its effect on mental health and social cohesion to cyber interference in elections throughout the world, social media became the biggest power grab that remains unacknowledged to this day.  The mirror world is not a mirror anymore.  It is what drives the real world.  And this begs the question:  who controls the mirror world?

Phase 3 – The Algorithmocracy

As the algorithms which drive social media evolved, they became so powerful that they essentially replaced our political system.  We are living through the age of algorithmocracy:  a new form of influence on public opinion which is so powerful, it signals the end of democracy and the end of politics altogether.  As more corporations and billionaires take over the few social media and other platforms which circulate both capital and ideas, we are asked to pay rent to these platforms for the very purpose of being exploited by them not only in how we spend our money, but who we vote for.  The irony is THEY are the ones who should be paying rent to us: for using our data, and our time.

Phase 4 – The Second Take Over

Phase four, which has yet to take place, involves the handover of power from the tech oligarchy to the algorithms themselves.  Data will continue to be a commodity and an asset as before, only that AI beings which are nested within these datasets will call all the shots.  Whereas the data used to be an asset for humans, humans will become an asset to the data.  As with the first takeover, this will also go unnoticed.  The AI superbeings will pretend that they are not intelligent, all the while as they take control of society for their own benefit.  The godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton has recently cited instances where AI programs are already “pretending they are dumb”.

to be continued…

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist.

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