Survival of Democracy

From Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?

According to recent reports, every Chinese citizen will receive a so-called ”Citizen Score”, which will determine under what conditions they may get loans, jobs, or travel visa to other countries. This kind of individual monitoring would include people’s Internet surfing and the behavior of their social contacts (see ”Spotlight on China”).

My answer to that question is no, it won't. Democracy is already dead, people are opting to their small benefits over abstract principles. Democracy was an interim value, that was produced by decentralized wealth. It looks as the wealthy learn to feed the people's mind to create intended behavior, democracy becomes synonymous to plutocracy.

It wasn't some sacred value anyway. Would you be slave of a wealthy man or a poor peasant? Although our current values say otherwise, being slave was a status for some (or most) people in the history. Our understanding of human behavior is flawed, so our social and political theories and we roll our eyes when we see that people select gadgets and toys over democracy. Yes, they do, as they always did.