The historian Yuval Noah Harari says that we are transitioning from an era dominated by human emotion, into an era dominated by data-driven manipulation of those emotions.
By gathering data from each individual, it is possible to build a profile that can be used to predict how that person would react to different stimuli. And at scale, it can be used to trigger people's emotions like playing a piano, manipulating them at will.
Today we can already see that by emphasizing divisive topics like: "abortion", "gun control", "immigration"... it is possible to make people upset towards each other with a high success rate. What if the reason these topics are emphasized is not morality but really about how people will emotionally react to them?
By gathering data from each individual, it is possible to build a profile that can be used to predict how that person would react to different stimuli. And at scale, it can be used to trigger people's emotions like playing a piano, manipulating them at will.
Today we can already see that by emphasizing divisive topics like: "abortion", "gun control", "immigration"... it is possible to make people upset towards each other with a high success rate. What if the reason these topics are emphasized is not morality but really about how people will emotionally react to them?