It's interesting that health records were a prime topic at the White House event.<p>Are we going back to industrialist biopower (control of bodies) after neoliberalism psychopower (control via induced mimetic desires)? Probably a fusion.<p>It seems to me that big data has only been good enough to predict the past, but the real question is not steering "what do you want yesterday?" but "what do you want tomorrow?" (or, plainly said, why does Netflix catalog suck and do not adapt to my new interests?). AI models that can incorporate psychological or neuro-physiological signals (so the renewed interest in bodies, the explosion of wearable devices like smart rings) and build psychological twins of people to create even more perfect resonance chambers to remote-control people's view of the world and wants. It seem the logical step.<p>Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.<p>The mimetic desire is triangular, based on the subject, model, and object. The subject mimics the model, and both desire the object. Subject and model thus form a rivalry which eventually leads to the scapegoat mechanism.<p>The scapegoat is chosen arbitrarily. All participants in the removal of the scapegoat must genuinely believe he is guilty. The resulting peace is born out of violence, and this form of violence controlling violence has existed since the beginning of civilizations.<p>We cannot truly escape this mimetic desire, and any attempts to do so would simply land you playing the game of mimesis on a different level.<p>In a world with higher and higher turmoil, it's no wonder that people in power are creating the scapegoats they need to divert violence, and remain in power. It feels like the people in power want to replay the roaring 20s, or the Roman empire.<p>Does it look like it will go toward panem et circenses (UBI and entertainment), or the bad world wide wars of the past, or novel ways to mess the world? ... I am not positive about this, but I hope our collective bets (like AI) turn out to be positive for the world and not just for the elites of a single country.