based in london, the .ink blog is published by christoph hargreaves-allen (‘CH-A’) - AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, NEWS ANALYST AND INFORMATION-THEORIST.

For more articles by ch-a, please visit christophh-a. journoportfolio .com.

we’re living through the “GOLDEN AGE of intelligence”…which is to say the following.

CYBER-surveillance is ubiquitous; like broadband. our digital actions ARE monitored non-stop, 24/7/365. OUR PHONE CALLS are parsed phonetically and semantically - for intonations of mood and/or keywords, both of which can swiftly be monetised. known and unknown organisations track our behaviour on- and offline, collecting lists of our interests and habits, our fears and desires, and so on. potentially-lucrative activities are distributed and predictively analysed for their dollar value every time we click online. our digital activity is not only surveilled, in real-time - it’s also sold at virtual auctions conducted in nanoseconds. all the time that’s required for a click to open a new page, and enough time ( typically <1 sec’) for advertisers to select targeted users based upon their real-TIME actions. time enough for interested commercial parties to bid for then buy an ad’ slot on the next page you or I view.

according to a source inside the consumer finance and tech’ industries, the average click [with metadata regarding the user who’s clicking] fetches between $100 and $250 at automated auctions. details of OUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP NETWORKS ARE HARVESTED every second…and traded between 2nd, 3rd and more parties. curiously, the profits gained from the sale of your personal data (and mine too) is pocketed by the brokers and their clients. the user - the source of this valuable data - receives 0.00% of the gross proceeds of this fabulously profitable sub-sector.

it’s impossible to hide in the 21st century.

the HUMAN NEED to belong and to communicate with like minds - and to seek PEER APPROVAL, across SOCIAL-MEDIA PLATFORMS - has led to an intriguing phenomenon. one that’s easily overlooked…

the abundance of individual exhibitionism on these platforms obscures a less-detectable, EVEN MORE WORRYING, tendency in most social-media userS. this is an unconscious DISPOSITION toward SELF-CENSORSHIp - especially when it comes to controversial topics. our increasingly UNQUESTIONing SUBMISSION TO DOMINANT NARRATIVES or political correctness contributes to the phenomenon - which is unexpectedly strong in democracieS where freedom of speech is taken for granted…AND YET IS exercised less and less.

the truth is, it’s not JUST what you do or say or like online. it’s ALSO what you don’t do or DON’T say online that reveals MUCH about you. this is the most valuable data of all. THIS IS THE REAL ‘CYBER-STALKING’ - INDUSTRIAL ANALYSES OF YOUR SHADOW SELVES.

yet our prudent approach to uncomfortable issues means we refrain from discussions of some of the most important dilemmas of our time. the INDIVIDUAL’S withdrawal from public discourse (FOR FEAR OF ALIENATION: THE PENALTY FOR BUCKING GROUP-THINK) creates a vacuum which misinformation and covert propaganda fills instead.

leading to the creation of a so-called tyranny of the mainstreaM - whereby web citizens are happy to agree with others but will most often decline to disagree IN PUBLIC - for fear of disapproval or social and professional harm stemming from the (courageous; DEMOCRATIC) act of SPEAKING FREELY in THE public DOMAIN. EFFECTIVELY, WE ARE STALKING OURSELVES AND OUR BEST FRIENDS.

TRUST NOBODY ONLINE - AVOID THE WORLD WIDE WEB. THAT IS THE BEST ADVICE, IF ALSO THE LEAST PRACTICAL - THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE - OPTION. EXCEPT IT ISN’T. IT TURNS OUT THAT FOR EVERY HOUR SPENT GAZING INTO YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN, IT REQUIRES 3 HOURS TO REFRESH THE POSITIVE BASELINE-MOOD YOU FELT BEFORE ENGAGING WITH ONLINE MEDIA…THE LATEST STUDIES SHOW.

ANYWAY. WE CAN’T HELP IT. IT’S AN ADDICITON. AND the aforementioned ‘vacuum’ is filled up BY, instead OF HUMAN TRUTHS, an ersatz, unrepresentativE ‘consensus’…which is manipulated and EVEN re-engineered by political agents and special interests COLLABORATING WITH them.

digital consensus-manufacturers have all kinds of agendas to meet, from political to industrial TO military to communications mandates. consent is manufactured when our personal opinions are influenced, through feedback loops, by topics re-framed accordingly so as to fit our profile. (it’s performed by algorithm.) NEVER MIND THE TEMPORAL ASPECT OF SOCIAL FEEDS - THE FAKE SYNCHRONY WHICH IS EXACTLY (THE SYNCHRONY, THAT IS) WHAT GETS US HIGH. SHAME IT’S AN ILLUSION - BUT, REALLY, WHO CARES?

the digital content we see CAN BE ‘virtually’ orchestrated by interventionists impossible to identify. the result is that social media provides a distorted or massaged version of the truth that has been manipulated much than it might seem. so well-disguised is it under its mask of spontaneity, it’s impossible to discern online intervention and surveillance.

the world we see online is a disingenuous facsimile of the ‘real world’. the breaking stories we seek in digital news are targeted, re-framed versions of the actual news - -despite seeming so real thanks to high-definition TV screens.

what we see is a mirror of some kind. just don’t forget the mirror is a broken one.

THE DEMAND, therefore, FOR REDACTED, filtered, verified and considered NEWS is higher than ever. Filtered news. call it ‘intelligence’, maybe - to separate it from the narrative-driven newscasters’ stories? if you like breaking news, the most accurate news is probably found only on a few wires and on bbc|world channels or in the better (print) newspapers.

information is over. analysis is the new ‘press’. the demand for no-bullshit news has rarely been sharper or higher. NEITHER HAS THE need TO MONITOR THE NEWS (and social) MEDIA FOR TRACES OF PROPAGANDA AND MISREPRESENTATION WHICH easily GO UNNOTICED IN our HURRY TO KEEP UP WITH a media culture permanently on fast-forward.

…HEY - AT LEAST IT’S ENTERTAINING. AND YOU FEEL IN CONTROL BECAUSE YOU DO ALL THE HARD WORK - GIVING AWAY YOUR DATA, OPINIONS, AND MORE FOR FREE. DILIGENT SLAVES OF THE DIGITAL OVERWORLD: IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE.

#WE_r_FUCT.

:)

MANIFEST EJECTOR

Christoph Hargreaves Allen


Dice game or destiny?

We'll see.

If I wake up tomorrow,

Does it mean I was pardoned by the Holy Sea?

If I get pigeonholed I'll change my name again. 

How does Supreme Ocean sound?

Down with Pronoun. Strike out he & she,

Let's all get down with It instead.

Except for me. Me, I changed my nut to THE.

Changed my lastname to FOUNDATION 

and

 the firmaments like my handle’s RE*CREATION.

I seen pinball machines with more common sense. 

Seen real victims and -

Guess what? They live outside your mind.

They're real, they hurt, they got mutilated without consent. 

Same simulation? Same game?

Nope. It's different players but the same time.

Is it fair? 

No.

The wealth got lost

In the layers. A whole lotta players 

With no credits got put out on the streets. 

It's not the same gameframe for all of us, let's not pretend.

Some got shivved with a bullshit dereality

And left for dead. On Skid Row. In your city.

Maybe they make a comeback? 

Maybe they win by default

Because they got nothing to spare but themselves? 

Zombie Hour.

We got stuck in bricks and mortar. Sold our souls to an idea

To do with expressing our mentality. In the mean,

They took our data like it was their common wealth. 

Except the wealth wasn't shared. They kept it to themselves.

Who the fuck do they think they are?

Programmers? That's poor. That's some fugly shit.

First shortcut to image distortion and they call that a win?

It *was* a win financially, though these cubeheads wuzz

So low on substance and even so, revenues galore,

The cyberbeeches stole the House without knowing much more

Than reframing shit online. Banking riches

Like Michael Jackson after THRILLER was widebeamed.

Fair enough. 

How to spend it? They got no idea.

Damn, we lucky we not them cos if their work is so bad

Their lives may be more than equally sad.

It's all good, we can repro them with unspoken codes

Written in analogue, read then swallowed.

The rest is gameplay, some may hope

To crack the hive mind.

Enjoy the goose chase, bitches -

The cut works both ways.

Seek and hide. Look and fail to find.

Our Valley paymasters are way behind on 

Making a welfare state. 

Or sending me my royalties

For all that data under copyright I sent their ways. Mistakenly.

Two-way street. No payback means no dividends.

No returns for us means class action suits all over the place.

It's not my fight, them phoney algo's already screwed my brain.

I got so many minds it's a relief to stop one fixating. 

I needed to rewind the mind, to abort the babes I never planned on having. 

I fragmented my own experience into butterfly albums

As if this, uh, invention was Nabokov shit, voyeurism included.

That's my take. 

Life in monologue, that's bad enough.

Turning reflexes into mathematics gets me real irate.

Makes me fume, me fire. Makes me blow up like Vesuvius.

Anger management, it's my Achilles heel.

Five minutes later and I couldn't care less.

It's the game. Game meets game,

May the best man win.

To hell with inflation and bilk the rent.

Capsize platforms. Switch up rubicons

Like we're swapping uniforms. 

Makebelieve. Or is it real role play?

Don't ask me, I'm too busy decapitating unicorns. 

Got the mask on. Got the grasp on the torch 

And one eye on the other lot.

Big collusion. Tech meets government. 

Ignore all slogans. Trust your instinct and nothing else. 

When they hear the hooves pound 

They know we're coming their way and they know

The game's silver or lead.

One chance and that's THE END.

Ten paces. Turn and fire –

If I don't filet them by eight A.M.

They'll have more holes in them than hairnets by nine.

Okay. Whatever.

See you at dawn.

Bring a batman cos someone's gotta catch you 

When you hit the ground.

I'm gone, I got laser gymnastics at 10.

And I hate the gym.

Between the lines this means that today 

I'm not looking for friends.

I got no conclusions. Not yet. 

I'm snatching mirrors instead, as many as I can.

I deflect the laser and smoke out the trainer -

I beam 1000 reflections, and 1000 combined

Turns nice trainers to ash. Dust to dust.

The session's off. Sorry it's forever.

I need to train my mind. Never say never

The sun, the one, the force. 

The brave. The blind. 

The shorties and the kinds

Warning ⚠ 

Stay in your place or I'll shelter you in a plywood box

Measuring 6 by 1.

ALASKA AIR

The Day They Broke the Internet
I LOVE CATS, he lied.

I LOVE CATS, he lied.