I really strongly recommend his book You Are Not A Gadget. He wrote it like fifteen years ago and it feels like he is describing last year. Like he's telling you about a lot of the problems of social media today, writing before Facebook had ads.

Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.

> Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.

Thank you, ordered :-)

Tangentially related, but while we're talking about eerily prescient writings, I nominate "The MADCOM [Machine-Driven Communication] Future: How Artificial Intelligence Will Enhance Computational Propaganda, Reprogram Human Culture, And Threaten Democracy… And What Can Be Done About It (2017)"

From Part II: The Implications Of A MADCOM World—Three Scenarios For The Future: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep03728.5?seq=2

"Heterogeneous democracies like the United States devolve into perpetual conflict as adversaries use MADCOMs to manipulate the population, by exacerbating cultural differences and undermining narratives that unify the country. The social consensus disintegrates, and political opponents are labeled traitors and enemies...

"The US public believes that MADCOM activities are just a more sophisticated form of advertising, and reflexively relies on appeals to free speech. In fact, there are active manipulation campaigns pushing these narratives to convince the public it isn’t being manipulated at all. Any time people interact with an electronic device—whether a smartphone, augmented-reality device, or social media—their data is captured, their behavior is tested and recorded, and algorithms adapt to make devices more addictive, advertisements more persuasive, and propaganda more manipulative...

"Some individuals flee to private social spaces online, but this reinforces their filter bubbles, exacerbating political polarization. A small number of people flee online social spaces entirely, creating a minor resurgence in offline, mass-market media. These information-savvy individuals are the least likely to be susceptible to disinformation in the first place, so their absence simply removes rational voices from the conversation. The affluent pay for the luxury of privacy, as brands emerge specifically targeting those who wish to protect their data and their cognition...

"Agreed-upon facts become a relic of the past. No one knows what is true anymore, because expertise has been subsumed to the tyranny of MADCOM-manipulated public opinion. AI video- and speech-manipulation tools invent and revise reality on the fly. The only truth is what you can convince people to believe. The new definition of a fact is “information that aligns with preconceived opinions,” and any contrary evidence is discarded as likely disinformation. The story is all that matters. The three-hundred- year-old Age of Enlightenment, based on reason and a quest for truth, ends."

(Full piece: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep03728?searchText=&searchU...)