It seems pretty amazing that a whole generation of citizens, are voluntarily, though, perhaps unwittingly, pretty much divulging their entire personal lives, as in their financial position, their friends, their habits, their travels, their employment, and their likes and dislikes, by the virtue of their constant interaction with their social media accounts, internet browsing, as well as the usage of their cell phone, of which that smart phone, pretty much sees all and thereby knows all. All of this seems pretty incredible, especially when we stop to consider that information is absolutely a form of power, and when that information is held in the hands of corporate players as well as governmental agencies of all stripes, then that probably signifies that our negotiating position as well as our independence is seriously compromised.
We live in a time in which a significant amount of Americans are dependent to some degree or another upon their government, for student loans, for housing vouchers or subsidies, for food, for healthcare, for unemployment, and for this and for that, of which, when that government knows an awful lot about a particular individual, then that government can make it their point, to provide what it so provides only to those that play by the rules that the government so demands and therefore those other troubling and bad people will thereby suffer the indignity of losing things of value, for their disobedience; of which this means that, for instance, hanging out with the wrong people as defined by that government is not therefore permitted, or being arrested for civil disobedience will result in the removal of benefits, and so on and so forth.
Further to the point, corporations are in the business of making profits, and as long as a given individual is willing to provide pertinent data about themselves to those corporations, directly or indirectly, then they will get in turn, some sort of perceived benefit from those corporations, but let there come that day, when those people are perceived to have little or no value to those corporations, then such favoritism will so terminate.
We should remember, that when it comes to our relationships with other people, we always have the option to forgive and to forget; but those that are our governmental masters and our corporate overseers, while having such an option, have no good reason to avail themselves of such, because our personal information, is of invaluable assistance to them, so as to therefore mold us, to manipulate us, as well as to monitor us, along with the recognition that embarrassing and inconvenient facts about our personal life, no matter how distant in time, are always there to be used against us or to compromise us.
It is by no means a stretch to believe, that our social media accounts as well as our cell phones, and internet browsing activity, has provided to the government, and corporate companies, all of the information that they could conceivably ever want, all without those entities apparently having had to actually violate any of our Constitutional rights to obtain such. We have, in short, sold ourselves to them for a very cheap price, and thereby have forsaken our liberty, becoming then, far too vulnerable to that which has the ready capability and capacity of being a very dangerous master to us.