![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MONTAGE.gif\" "\\"MONTAGE\\"")
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We\u2019ve all noticed a bit of a change in the socio-political atmosphere in the last few years. Whether it\u2019s in the emergence of social networking monopolies or the advancement of tracking systems, it seems more and more that Big Brother has got us covered \u2014 in more ways than one.\u00a0
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/google.jpg\" "\\"google\\"")
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Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2028\u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0 We\u2019ve all noticed a bit of a change in the socio-political atmosphere in the last few years. Whether it\u2019s in the emergence of social networking monopolies or the advancement of tracking systems, it seems more and more that Big Brother has got us covered \u2014 in more ways than one.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7845],"tags":[3156,6975,6982,6974,6977,6976,6983,168,2048,10,6978,6981,6979,6980,2524],"class_list":{"0":"post-35715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"tag-amazon","8":"tag-anti-depressants","9":"tag-avatars","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-disease","12":"tag-fluoride","13":"tag-gmail","14":"tag-google","15":"tag-google-earth","16":"tag-government","17":"tag-gps","18":"tag-mass-transit","19":"tag-rfid-chips","20":"tag-subway","21":"tag-twitter"},"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe scenario: you’ve been corresponding with your sister about her wedding, a subject you already hate, when lo and behold, in the margins of the Gmail script there suddenly springs up a wealth of information pertaining to weddings. Gmail’s unsettling habits of honing in on keywords in emails to personalize advertising is just one of the charming ways in which personal information becomes slightly more public than it should. But then, who needs privacy<\/a> when they\u2019ve got endless peripheral information at their fingertips?\u00a0<\/p>\nTwitter<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/s2.hubimg.com\/u\/2621821_f520.jpg\" "\\"twitter\\"")
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\nIt’s a sign of national trust when a social networking site has to be blocked by a government in revolt. Or at very least, a sign of the times. Of-the-minute (and to-the-second) updates on the mental activity<\/a> of an individual bears a disturbing resemblance to some kind of standardized monitoring of brainwaves. And there\u2019s something especially disturbing in the thought that so many of us willingly, gleefully indulge in it, thinking nothing of the implications<\/a> of something so ruthlessly self-monitoring. What\u2019s more are brilliant contretemps by foreign governments (namely South Korea) to make people think it’s so voluntary it’s democratic. But many of us (though not enough) know better. \u00a0<\/p>\nAvatars<\/h3>\n
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\nWhy does practically every website insist on some semblance\u2014however enhanced\u2014of visual identity? No sooner does one venture over to The Guardian, or some likewise reputable organ of news and culture, to see sitting smugly beside some article the author’s face<\/a> in thumbnail size. And to make matters worse, the comment section is overrun with ghostly, faceless avatars vaguely the shape of what an online magazine format thinks a human looks like. It puts a face on the printed word which doesn\u2019t need to be there, and relegates the comment section to an anonymous mass of individuals with troublingly negative opinions. Call it a subtle undermining tactic by the system that brought you the iPhone and iPad\u2014making everything increasingly about \u2018I\u2019 while canceling out any identity \u2018I\u2019 could possibly have.\u00a0<\/p>\nMass Transit <\/h3>\n
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\nFor most of us, there\u2019s simply no other way to get around in a large city without stooping to the disheartening level of mass transit, where behaviors are monitored<\/a>, courtesy of security cameras, and patrons are blasted in twenty-second intervals with warnings to keep their belongings in sight, to trust no one, and to generally operate in constant fear of one\u2019s surroundings. While the train stops for a fifteen minute stall (for no explainable reason \u2014 or at least one they don\u2019t care to explain to passengers) and then continues at a snail\u2019s pace for the rest of the journey, you\u2019re left devising a plan in your head of how to organize a boycott so that the price at least won\u2019t continue rising steadily, while simultaneously realizing that the state of one\u2019s bank account makes it a complete impossibility. When monopoly meets cattle-herding meets fear tactics, it\u2019s as close to a police state as it can subtly get.\u00a0\u2028\u00a0<\/p>\nRFID Chips<\/h3>\n
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\nIt\u2019s a Matrix-like<\/a> invention with all the seductive implications of a film about loss of identity\u2014something digital which makes a home literally under one\u2019s skin. Mostly used for tracking people\u2019s whereabouts, the device now has another, friendlier face. Having been recently adopted under the banner of health improvements, chips are available for retinal enhancement as well as diabetes. But can the potentiality of such inventions outweigh the thought of having a GPS tracking machine imbedded in one\u2019s person? Time will tell.\u00a0\u2028\u00a0<\/p>\nHealth Advertising<\/h3>\n
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\nIn times of political upheaval, or even general downtime, advertising takes a sinister turn in the character of alarmist images depicting the disease in vogue at the moment, accompanied by a suggestion to get vaccinated at the earliest date possible. Marketing a disease like it\u2019s just come out of nowhere is nothing short of fear mongering, and generates much the same response from an easily frightened public. From the terrifying “Influenza Kills” ads<\/a>, the recent Hulu commercials warning against the suddenness with which Meningitis strikes, the government-approved message seems to be to run for your life \u2014 into the arms of doctors wielding a vaguely important vaccination shot available to all.\u00a0<\/p>\nGoogle Earth<\/h3>\n
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\nIt’s weird enough that Google can see all of our houses. Now we have news of its true importance \u2014 Google earth can be used by government officials as an unobtrusive tracking device to suss out a criminal suspect\u2019s general whereabouts. While it\u2019s potentially a helpful law enforcement tool, there\u2019s also something less than cozy in the idea of the Google camera cars driving all around the world in their desperate struggle to visually map the entire world \u2014 both at a distance and from a suspiciously close-up view<\/a>. \u00a0\u2028\u00a0<\/p>\nForced Fluoride <\/h3>\n
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\nIt used to be the weekly fluoride dose we\u2019d all swish and spit through in grade school \u2014 until it stopped for unknown reasons. Now fluoride is back with an ungodly vengeance \u2014 in our water supply. The reason? As vague<\/a> in origin as the abrupt halting of the grade-school treatments themselves. No one can quite make up their minds on the benefits or dangers of fluoride \u2014 but the fact that it\u2019s nationally administered without anyone\u2019s having a say in the matter, is cause itself for worry.\u00a0<\/p>\nAmazon.com Customer Purchase Info<\/h3>\n
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\nThere\u2019s always the private search function on Firefox for when things get too smutty. But when the North Carolina Department of Revenue solicited Amazon.com last year for a history of sales of state residents \u2014 including names and addresses \u2014 things got personal. Thankfully Amazon declined \u2014 but that still doesn\u2019t answer the question of why North Carolina was so interested in the purchases of their inhabitants, enough to make an indecent proposal <\/a> indecent enough for even an online shopping behemoth as powerful as Amazon to refuse. \u00a0<\/p>\nAnti-Depressants<\/h3>\n
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\nAt first glance they seem so painlessly marketed \u2014 those little pills with their benefits personified by a bouncing cloud or a carefree couple strolling in the park. But in recent years, drug marketing, especially for anti-depressants, has become less and less specific in its target audience. Soon, the indications of clinical depression became so loose that almost everyone finds themselves responding to the sympathetic Zoloft commercials that play at halftime. Sertraline<\/a>, the chemical first patented in the Zoloft drug, has since been made available in generic form. But is it a ploy on behalf of the drug industries, or larger, more politically conceived response to a drone-like mass populace which looks for a cure in all the wrong places?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"