Mindf*ck
by Christopher Wylie · first published 2019
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Mindf*ck goes deep inside Cambridge Analytica’s “American operations,” which were driven by Steve Bannon’s vision to remake America and fueled by mysterious billionaire Robert Mercer’s money, as it weaponized and wielded the massive store of data it had harvested on individuals—in excess of 87 million—to disunite the United States and set Americans against each other. Bannon had long sensed that deep within America’s soul lurked an explosive tension. Cambridge Analytica had the data to prove it, and in 2016 Bannon had a presidential campaign to use as his proving ground. Christopher Wylie m
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…to influence with basic memetic warfare. Twitter, Facebook and Reddit are highly susceptible to influence operations of this type, and were the target of the Trump campaign. Christopher Wylie's book: Mindf%ck, is a great read on this. After the election, Trump appointed Thiel to his presidential intelligence advisory board as quid pro quo for his campaign funding, furthering his access to secrets.
on “Why Peter Thiel Searches for Reality-Bending ‘Secrets’” ↗Another excellent review of the book "Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie is at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52269471-mindf-ck Once there, find the review by "J."* You'll have to scroll…
on “How I Helped Hack Democracy (Christopher Wylie, 2019)” ↗…John Mandel Shards of Earth - Adrian Tchaikovsky Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Gnomon - Nick Harkaway The Gone Away World - Nick Harkaway The Apollo Murders - Chris Hadfield Nonfiction ---------- Mindf*ck - Chris Wylie 1776 - David McCullough Apollo 8 - Jeffrey Kluger
on “Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2022?” ↗Did you read Mindf*ck? Fascinating book. I'd be so so angry about Brexit after reading it if I'd been affected.
on “The hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections” ↗In "Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America" Christopher Wylie described how Cambridge Analytica (CA) did the same thing on a large scale. CA was active in both the Brexit campaign and the American…
on “The Truth Matters and Secular Humanists Should Defend It” ↗…person’s behaviour more accurately than one of their co-workers. With 150 likes, better than a family member. And with 300 likes, the model knew the person better than their own spouse.” ― Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World > At about the same time these "Bod Dylan has died" fake click baits raged at Facebook, and somehow they stopped. It is probably also related. I…
on “The AI firm that conducted ‘state surveillance’ of your social media posts” ↗I don't use any social media. After reading "Mindf*ck" I decided to quit all of them. Surprisingly if you cut off all facebooks, instagrams and reddits, it turns out the Internet is quite boring place. What are your favourite sites where you procrastinate?…
on “Ask HN: Best Sites to Procrastinate” ↗//reading "Mindf*ck"// Could you tell more. Maybe gist of the book. Thanks
on “Ask HN: Best Sites to Procrastinate” ↗…anything fancier than linear regression. But considering how large their data team was they probably had access to datasets (even today) which give them tremendous edge. Data is oil in this field. The book "MindF*ck" [0] briefly describes a project within RenTec to build a statistical behavioural model of every individual citizen the USA, fed by enormous public and private databases. From this behaviour they could…
on “A Conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown” ↗