Doug Casey on How Data Is the New Oil… Implications for Privacy and Profits
International Man: Before people understood what oil was, they considered it waste. Later, once people understood the economic potential of oil, it was transformed from unwanted waste into a lucrative commodity.
Similarly, British mathematician and entrepreneur Clive Humby said, “Data is the new oil.” What he means is that data people used to perceive as worthless could become extremely valuable when refined and analyzed.
What’s your take on all this?
Doug Casey: Data banks know practically everything about everybody. Trillions of microchips are increasingly interconnected. The Internet of Things lives in The Cloud. They’re controlled by algorithms and increasingly by artificial intelligence. They’re so complex that I wonder if they won’t take on a life of their own. If SkyNet exists, it’s bound to be growing larger and more powerful every day.
“They” know everything about us, both as individuals and as groups. It’s very much like what Larry Ellison said 30 years ago, to the effect of “Forget privacy, it doesn’t exist.” And that was decades ago. It’s orders of magnitude more true today.
Most of where we go, who we see, how we feel, what we do and have, say and write, believe and think, might seem trivial and of no value to others. But when thousands or millions of bits of these things are aggregated and analyzed, they form a pattern which “they” can use. And use it they do. Mostly in a subtle more-or-less benign way right now. But conditions can change.
International Man: Cellphones, computers, smart TVs, cars, Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and countless other devices and platforms collect enormous data about our interactions, preferences, and actions.
All of this information is stored and can be refined and analyzed.
What are the commercial implications of monetizing this data?
Doug Casey: I try not to worry about the commercial implications of this data being monetized, per se. Partly because you can’t really avoid it, and most commercial applications probably won’t hurt you.
However, corporations are hand in glove with the State and enforce its laws and regulations in increasingly direct ways, not to mention the fact that most corporate bigwigs, like almost all high government officials, tend to be sociopaths.
Today, everybody is attached to their cell phone. The thing is fun, convenient, and almost necessary. But you should, to the greatest degree possible, stay away from the thing, not just for privacy, but for sanity and mental health. Many people appear umbilically attached to their device, unaware that it’s constantly feeding you propaganda while uploading tons of data to likely adversaries. Every minute, you’re on it. I hate my cell phone and avoid using it. The same goes for electronic vehicles (EVs).
All cars have thousands of computer chips today. The worst offenders, though, are EVs, which are constantly reporting, sending, and receiving everything that happens. Your rate of speed, where you are, and perhaps even what you say in the car, whether you know it, or like it, or not, becomes part of a permanent semi-public record.
I’m a fan of electronic vehicle technology in some ways. They can make sense in cities where they don’t drive long distances and can be charged easily overnight. And in temperate areas so as to avoid depleting the battery. However, the State’s mandates for universal use by 2030 are simply insane, for many reasons that aren’t germane to this conversation.
Generally speaking, you want to stay away from EVs as you do from cell phones. That goes double for Alexa and Siri. At best, they’re frenemies; they’re intrusive, brain-deadening busybodies made to rat you out. The same goes for social media.
People who are constantly on Facebook, Twitter, and the like are not only wasting their lives but voluntarily disclosing everything about their lives. It’s as if they’re purposefully building a case against themselves which can, and will, be used against them.
It’s like you’re adding pages to your FBI, CIA, IRS, and NSA files every day, saving them the trouble of snooping on you. It’s like waving a flag, saying, “Watch me! Investigate me if you’ve got some spare time!”
International Man: The amount of data governments have about their citizen subjects is almost incomprehensible and grows daily. Governments salivate at the prospect of imposing digital IDs, vaccine passports, CBDCs, and other digital control mechanisms.
What are the personal freedom implications of governments having so much data on individuals?
Doug Casey: As we talked about a moment ago, corporations work hand in glove with the State, both directly and indirectly. It’s an intrinsic aspect of state capitalism or, to use Mussolini’s word, fascism.
The bottom line is that they know everything about you. If it suits them, “they” could threaten to disclose sensitive data in a private, public, or legal forum. Blackmail? Not when your betters do it. The prospect is intimidating, though. It makes you want to be a good little lamb. Which is the whole idea and why they are only rarely forced to take the gloves off in our sham “democracy.”
Of course, when a formal social credit system is adopted in the US as it has been in China, you won’t be able to do anything without being observed and judged for it.
You won’t be able to do, have, say, or go anywhere without having an algorithm determine whether that was good or bad. The implications to personal freedom are worse than horrible. They’re catastrophic and Orwellian. Truth, justice, and traditional American values? Fugedaboudit.
International Man: Aside from the threat of governments to your data, private criminals pose a growing danger. It seems that not a day passes that you don’t hear of some cyber breach where hackers access personal, financial, and health data.
What are your thoughts on this?
How can people protect their data?
Doug Casey: Governments are the worst possible custodians of data.
I dislike doing everything—or at least most things—by computer. But you actually have little choice living in the modern world. And it’s getting worse.
As computers become more powerful, they become both more invasive and more necessary to life the way it is. Can you protect your data with biometrics? Well, to some degree, but your biometrics can be captured and used against you. And once they have your biometrics, that’s just more data that they can use to control you. Biometrics are, at best, a double-edged sword that mostly cuts against you.
In warfare, the advantage always goes to the attacker. He’s always looking for ways to ways to subvert and obviate defenses and can strike unexpectedly when he finds a weakness. It’s the same in the computer world; innovation favors the aggressor. The average guy is always going to be on his back foot.
The best thing you can do is use electronic devices as little as you can. And use them as best you can to subvert the enemy, not work with him.
I’ve got to say that the biggest “clear and present danger” right now, to use their lingo, are CBDCs. You won’t be able to buy, sell, own, or transfer anything without going through the central bank’s computer. They have the prospect of reducing us to veritable serfs. Serfs with currently a high standard of living, but serfs nonetheless.
Boobus americanus will welcome it, however. It will seem so convenient…
International Man: What investment or speculative opportunities do you see taking advantage of this trend?
Doug Casey: The real question is: How to profit from the ongoing collapse of Western Civilization. It’s perverse because Western Civ represents just about everything that’s good and worth preserving. That’s what this is really all about, what’s at stake. But we now live in Bizarro World, and lots of people want to destroy it.
Some people would say that you ought to buy the shares of successful computer companies that have phony mottos that make them seem like your friend.
Like, “Don’t be evil,” which you’ll recall years ago used to be Google’s motto. But with what little intellectual honesty they still have, they dropped that because they actually are evil.
They’re not even your frenemy; they’re actually your enemy.
The world is going through a revolution right now that’s as big as the Agricultural Revolution 5,000 years ago or the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.
I’m not sure what the exact nature of the current revolution will be because it has so many tentacles and so many aspects—robotics, nanotechnology, biotech, quantum computing, and AI, among them. What’s going on right now will climax in Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity, which will change the whole nature of life itself—unrecognizably and permanently.
But, since I’m an optimist, maybe that’ll be a good thing.
Editor’s Note: The months and years ahead will be politically, economically, and socially volatile. What you do to prepare could mean the difference between suffering crippling losses and coming out ahead.
That’s precisely why, legendary investor and NY Times best-selling author Doug Casey just released this urgent report on how to survive and thrive.
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