We can judge Google’s ambitions and intentions by the statements of its high-ranking employees. For example, as early as 2007, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, shared his vision of Google’s goals in an interview with Financial Times:

“The goal is to enable people to ask questions such as ‘What should I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job should I take?’”

In 2010, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he again confirmed these views, saying:

“I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions; they want Google to tell them what they should do next.”

Religious people might say that only God can answer such questions (unfortunately, for some individuals Google becomes precisely God…). Non-religious people would say this should always remain an individual responsibility—a consequence of personal autonomy.

In 2009, Eric Schmidt once again demonstrated a flippant and dismissive attitude toward personal data and privacy with his statement:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need this kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain information for some period of time, and it’s important because under the Patriot Act it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

And if we take the CEO’s position as the position of the company itself, it follows that—according to Google—we have no right to a private space or private secrets, and we should self-censor anything that would make us uncomfortable if it became public.

In 2010, at the Techonomy conference, Eric Schmidt predicted that “full transparency and no anonymity” is the future of the internet. He stated:

“In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there to be no way to identify someone. We need a way to identify people by name. Governments will require that.”

He then added:

“If we watch your chats and your location for long enough, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go. Show us 14 photos of you and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of you on the internet? You have photos on Facebook!”

These statements, in any case, raise questions. For instance: which life questions would you seek answers to from Google—and for which would you trust your own judgment and intuition?

And who would even want to be a puppet on strings, whose life is predictable and transparent to a privileged caste?

I ran an experiment myself by entering the question “What job shall I take?” into Google’s search engine. I thought that if this goal—Google being able to answer such a question—had been set almost fifteen years ago, some work on it should have been done by now. Here is what I got as a result:

What are the most useful jobs?
Here is a list of 40 most in demand jobs of the future:
#1 Solar Energy Technician.
#2 Nurse Practitioner.
#3 Software Developer.
#4 Wind Energy Technician.
#5 Physical Therapist.
#6 Registered Nurse.
#7 Data Analyst.
#8 Health Service Manager.

I could not explain to myself why number 6 (Registered Nurse) was in bold, unlike the other items.

The answer to the question whether a company has the right to claim to be a cultural and moral benchmark—and to determine not only the conditions under which we live but also who we are—is clear, especially when that very company is accused of immoral practices and violations of tax and antitrust norms and laws. A broad spectrum of accusations is periodically raised against Google, both by other firms and by states and organizations, including the European Union. The allegations include monopolistic practices; distorting search results in favor of the company’s business interests and stifling competition; favoring Google’s own companies and services; forcing smartphone manufacturers to use the Android operating system in their products; obstructing the installation and use of competitors’ services; tax avoidance; and more.

And if Google respects no one’s private space, that certainly does not apply to the company itself, which is extremely sensitive about information that might leak from its “kitchen.” In 2016 a lawsuit was filed against Google by a product manager who revealed the existence of an internal program of mutual employee surveillance, in which employees are expected to report on colleagues suspected of violating the company’s confidentiality agreement. But “everyone spying on everyone” is a principle of totalitarianism, and its introduction by big business (and in particular by Google) bodes nothing good for human rights and society.

---

Closing the Circle: The Path to a Universal Monopoly

Over time, Google has developed many other services beyond its search engine—the tool with which it conquered a leading position among users. Such services include comparing market prices and recommending products, or rating and reviewing tourist sites and facilities. In this way, the company closes the loop of supply and demand by standing on both sides of the process. In practice this means Google Search no longer has an interest in being objective, but would rather tend to favor its own products.

This is exactly what Tim Wu and Michael Luca found in their 2015 research on whether Google compromises its search service. With the introduction of the so-called “universal search” option, Google excludes competitors’ content and shows only its own products in the results. How “universal” such a search can be depends on whether we accept Google as the only and universal player in all markets.

In the digital age, people have become laboratory subjects of deep behavioral research and influence. IT monopolists organize their activity according to the following algorithm:

• feedback; information about (modified) behavior
• collection of behavioral data
• analysis (profiling)
• influence; behavior modification
• profit
• repeat the cycle, back to step 1

The pioneer in using the internet for such purposes is, of course, Google. Around the year 2000, the company was the first to recognize the internet’s potential for studying and influencing human behavior by analyzing users’ browsing history. At first it used this to improve the effectiveness of its advertising services. Later this expanded to today’s gargantuan scale, where predicting the reactions of individuals and social groups—and shaping their behavior—effectively becomes the core business model.

The collection of user data happens in many ways through Google’s services, most of which are free. This includes the Google Chrome browser, Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, Translate, Calendar, Android, Google Maps, Google Assistant, YouTube, and many more applications, online services, and hardware—around 150 products, perhaps more. In addition, Google offers many services aimed at other software developers via so-called APIs (Application Programming Interfaces): systems of functions through which the functionality of Google-controlled software can be used. Google Maps, for example, can be used by any developer who wants to embed that functionality in their own applications. But using such services makes those applications dependent on Google. Thus, even through “independent” software, Google can again obtain user information and dictate terms to developers. At present, this “web” of Google services entangles so many applications and has penetrated so deeply into the software industry and people’s lives that detaching from it—by developers or users—can be very difficult or even impossible.

Every interaction between the user and any application or service is recorded—forever. And even when there is no interaction, an application can spy on you with or sometimes without your consent. For example, through Google Maps installed on your smartphone, Google likely knows where you are—unless you have forbidden that data from being sent to Google. And if you have forbidden it… who knows whether something still doesn’t leak from your phone to some servers…

In general, given the wide spectrum of Google apps and services, the company certainly knows you better than you know yourself.

In the summer of 2016, Google quietly removed a ban on collecting personally identifiable information in its DoubleClick advertising service. Google’s privacy policy was changed so it could combine users’ browsing records obtained via DoubleClick with user data from other Google services. On this occasion, the New York-based nonprofit ProPublica stated:

“The practical result of this change is that DoubleClick ads shown to users can now be personalized based on the user’s name and all sorts of other information Google knows about them. This also means that if it wanted to, Google could create a full psychological portrait of a user from a name alone, based on everything they have written in their private email correspondence, every website they have visited, and the searches they have conducted.”

Google replied with the clarification that “at the moment” it does not use keywords from users’ private correspondence for ad targeting.

---

Since December 12, 2012, Google Search’s SafeSearch option—filtering adult content—was changed so that it became impossible to fully disable it, and even in its loosest mode it requires the user to enter additional clarifying terms for adult sites to appear in the results.

---

Profiling, Influence, and the Shaping of Reality

Data analysis serves both to profile the individual and to identify common behavioral patterns; to study social situations and characteristics, proportions and processes; to predict them—and much more. In this way, Google and other IT giants likely possess more information about the individual and society than governments, intelligence services, and other institutions of public order.

Behavior modification occurs mainly through the personalized information Google delivers to the user. It can be of any kind and results from Google’s various services. Here are about a dozen examples—only part of what a company like Google (not the only one) can do:

• Personal digital assistant
• Recommendations
• Search results
• Search result ranking
• Ads
• Autocomplete in the search field (or suggested queries)
• Autocomplete in the browser address bar
• Reminders
• Curated news
• Bulk emails, spam
• Potentially deliberate disruptions in how a service or software functions
• …and so on.

In each of the above, hints and suggestions could be inserted in order to influence psychological processes and create illusions. Let’s look at these more closely.

Personal digital assistant

The personal digital assistant is a relatively new invention, available since 2016. According to its creators, it is a self-learning program that finds and provides information to the user; communication can also be voice-based. In interacting with the user, it collects and uses personal information obtained through that interaction and then uses it to serve the user better.

But the creators’ goal goes beyond smooth communication. In fact, it is about the complete “undressing” of the human soul before artificial intelligence: over time the individual is studied and understood in the greatest detail by a machine capable of finding patterns in human behavior that no human being could notice. Yet we can hardly hope that this personal assistant is truly personal—keeping the information only to itself, without sharing it with others. And this is far richer and more detailed information than what is typed into the Google search field, for example… The program can also provide all kinds of recommendations depending on context and circumstances.

Many probably perceive it as a personal friend. But could it be a traitor instead?

Recommendations

“Recommendations just for us” appear on many sites—not only those owned by Google or Facebook. They claim these recommendations are based on the activity of a specific user. The exact logic behind them, however, remains opaque. Recommendations filter the information the user receives, so their judgment is influenced by a selection carried out according to unknown criteria. In most cases, recommendations do not refer to content created by those doing the recommending; rather, they are selected from the vast amount of information available online.

In the real world there is no such analogue: each of us sees all objects in the environment we’re in. There are no glasses that hide cars on the street from one person, while hiding trees on that same street from another. Both cars and trees are part of the street’s reality, and everyone on that street sees them—thus forming as objective a picture as possible. Otherwise it would be dangerous.

If someone who dislikes cars could “switch off” their perception of them, they could not protect themselves from cars—because they would not see them—and the probability of being hit while crossing would be high. Someone else who “switched off” trees would probably escape with bruises from colliding with a tree, but even if that’s the lesser evil, it’s still not desirable. Filtering information on the internet based on personal activity and preferences eliminates the objectivity present in the physical world. This contributes to the formation and reinforcement of so-called “echo chambers,” where each person becomes sealed inside the reality of their own preferences and ideas—reinforcing them with compatible information or conversations with ideologically similar people—while increasingly losing touch with the rest of the world. People split into groups, and the differences between them deepen over time.

It’s clear that a complete picture of “objective” reality online is impossible, given the enormous volume of information that must be sorted and filtered. But as always, the devil is in the details—the small nuances that can turn a useful service into a Trojan horse for our consciousness…

Is intent possible in the recommendations we receive? Given the opaque logic by which they are determined, such intent is technically entirely possible. We cannot know which databases the algorithms connect to, or whether they truly work only with our activity on a given site or app. That is already disturbing, because selecting and presenting information based on our personal data—psychological traits, secrets, complexes, problems, desires, and so on—can also become a powerful instrument for influencing our psyche and subconscious, even if the information remains within the topic of a given site.

Imagine, for example, how you would react to recommendations that contain associations with your phobias—materials, themes, visuals that irritate you because they activate fears and insecurities. This doesn’t have to happen openly; associations can be veiled, and recommendations can be layered so that only after clicking a third or fourth link do you arrive at something that triggers a reaction or process in your mind.

As for video recommendations like those on YouTube, an entire separate book could be written… Let me again remind you of the saying that one image is worth more than a thousand words. Among artists—and directors in particular—there is the belief that cinema is the greatest manipulation. Imagine, then, the potential power of constantly recommending clips and films to someone based on intimate knowledge of their personality, psych profile, status, problems, and behavior—especially if you are a clever manipulator… On YouTube, that is exactly what is being done. Of course, what the site recommends is usually of interest to users, but a fly or two can always be slipped into someone’s mind—provided the door to consciousness is ajar…

Recommendations can also be used for suggestion. Here I could again cite the example of circulating YouTube videos mentioned in the chapter “Suggestion”: over relaxing music they list “signs” that indicate a person is highly intelligent. Because the signs are generic, many people recognize themselves in them. Then comes the suggestion: the video begins to explain how intelligent people live. In many such clips the message is that intelligent people are introverts, have few friends, and don’t need them—because what matters most is home, work, and communion with oneself. Thus a person is programmed toward social isolation—a program they might otherwise reject if they had not first been lured into a flattering category, after which isolation becomes more acceptable and “naturally” linked to that identity.

We can never be sure why certain content is recommended to us by a site or service. Without targeted observation and analysis we cannot know whether it is a harmless algorithm associating preferences with content, or whether we are the object of a complex manipulative software operating under certain policies.

Until companies providing such services are forced to make their algorithms public, proving and avoiding such manipulations is, unfortunately, impossible. But at least we can keep it in mind. That is how immunity develops.

Here’s something you can try: log into YouTube with your account (owned by Google), look closely at the videos it recommends, and think why exactly those were recommended. Think about your life as a whole—status, work, private life, problems, hopes, everything that concerns you. Remember that Google knows everything about you—probably even your small or large secrets. And in that context, consider the recommendations. Then refresh the site and see the new recommendations. Do this several times (the more, the better) and see whether anything occurs to you. I’m not saying you will necessarily discover some sinister conspiracy targeted at you, but it’s not impossible that you will enrich your understanding of the nature of your relationship with YouTube and Google.

Search results

The results of every use of Google Search are also the product of unknown logic and algorithms. This means that every time we use their engine, we trust Google. That trust is understandable—Google helps us with everyday tasks. But is that enough to decide that because Google is useful to us, it is necessarily useful to society?

Let’s not forget: a good manipulator also strives to build a positive image in order to use public trust to manipulate individuals unnoticed for the benefit of their plans and strategies. And when we are not talking about an individual, but about a huge corporation with economic as well as political interests, trust is hardly the best approach.

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution on June 16, 2019, American psychologist Robert Epstein warned of the growing threat that Google and Facebook pose to democracy and society. He introduced the concept of SEME (Search Engine Manipulation Effect): the manipulative effect of search engines, referring to the fact that all Google search results are shaped according to some company policy. His key concerns were largely tied to the possibility of influencing U.S. election outcomes, which could allow corporations to gain control over political power. Epstein also recommended that the site indexing used by Google be made public, which would reduce manipulation possibilities in search.

Google, of course, deny any intent in how their search engine works and call Epstein’s theses “nothing more than a poorly constructed conspiracy theory.” But regardless of whether Google are telling the truth, such actions are entirely feasible and well within Google’s capabilities. Therefore it is hardly reasonable to rely on corporations’ “honest word” that they will not manipulate political, social, and economic processes. Instead, reliable mechanisms should be built to prevent possible actions in that direction. But to get there, the topic of risk from unregulated IT corporate activity must appear as often as possible in public discourse.

Sorting of search results

Here the logic is similar to the logic behind search results themselves, with one additional nuance: a search engine bears less responsibility for its activity if it presents all possible answers—yet still arranged according to its own discretion.

In the spirit of the earlier “pubs” example, imagine the three pubs being presented in a different order when you search on your smartphone. Wouldn’t you stop at the first suggestion? No? In that case, perhaps you are not among those who always jump on the first offer. But suppose that, based on your online behavior, it has been established and recorded in a database that in 67.56% of cases you choose the second suggestion. A matter of ranking…

Ads

For most of us, ads are certainly something annoying. They are unsolicited information that most often irritates and distracts us. That is why ad-blockers are so popular. But if you still haven’t installed an ad-blocker in your browser, then you are being bombarded by all kinds of ads, with all kinds of content.

Broadly speaking, digital advertising can be divided into commercial and non-commercial.

The logic of commercial ads is, in most cases, perfectly understandable. For example, you have recently visited a vacation website, and quite logically, flashing banners with beaches, palm trees, and prices begin to appear on every second site you visit. But even in that case, the devil could be hidden in the details.

Let us assume you are a man, and ad providers “know” that you like blondes. Then it is entirely possible that the banners presented to you will also feature sultry blondes. The advertising effect might be even stronger if it is “known” that you have family problems, because statistics might show that men in your age range are, during family troubles, 34.5% more inclined toward affairs compared to men of the same age, professional, and other group who do not have such problems. Still sounds harmless?

Then let us assume it is also “known” that you love gambling—or even if you don’t gamble, you are, by temperament, a gambler. Then perhaps a vacation ad that includes a chance to win a car if you are the 1000th person to book this month would catch your attention? And if you have been more irritable lately and your online behavior has given you away, wouldn’t it be fitting if the information about the car began with a huge: “Hit the jackpot…”

And if we imagine that you have no intention of going on vacation at all—but there is a study showing that in 27.25% of people in your age, professional, family, and other group, a desire to travel appears if they are repeatedly presented with images of suitcases and other travel-related items—would it not be “reasonable,” from the perspective of an ad provider, to arrange things so that you suddenly, inexplicably, start seeing ads for suitcases on the sites you visit? Perhaps this would tune you into a travel “wave” through the associations triggered every time you see such suitcase images. And if you then decide you do need a suitcase, wouldn’t buying this new object generate in you a desire to use it as intended? Who knows. “Big Data”?

Yes—these are, of course, arbitrary speculations on my part. But how can we be sure that corporations have a moral code that forbids them from manipulating us on the basis of our personal data—our desires, states, problems, fears, anxieties, tendencies, and so on?

In theory, the limits are only in our imagination… and in practice, no one will voluntarily tell us how things stand today, or what they will be tomorrow.

Non-commercial advertising is most often connected to political and social campaigns. Here the logic is roughly the same as with commercial ads. It has been proven that in many political and electoral campaigns (not only in the United States, not only in connection with Donald Trump) manipulation is carried out through microtargeting based on an individual’s political orientation, psychological profile, value system, social status, and who knows what else. These personal characteristics determine the approach and the type of advertising content presented to the individual. Whether it will be praise for a candidate, smearing their opponent, demotivating someone from voting, or something else depends on the specific case—on the personalized approach toward each individual, as part of a large-scale campaign strategy. This is the type of modern electoral strategy that has borrowed heavily from the advertising business—and it is spreading not only in the United States but in more and more countries around the world.

Autocomplete in the search field

Let’s assume you are searching for information about the Australian dog Dingo, and the corporations know that you are on bad terms with your wife because you recently visited websites offering advice about marital problems. Let’s also assume that, in line with some global sinister plan, they want to divorce you from your wife. Then why not take advantage of the opportunity to “whisper” the idea to you—plant that fly in your head—by, for example, after you type the first two letters of Dingo, autocompleting the word so that it becomes Divorce?

I assume this may sound quite naïve to some. But then let the respected reader consider whether they themselves can invent something smarter than these seemingly flat speculations. It is not difficult.

After all, if we believe there is an effect from subconscious suggestion—like the “25th frame,” for example—there is no reason not to allow the same possibility here, is there? And in suggestion, repetition is more important than cleverness.

Autocomplete in the browser address bar

This functionality offers possibilities for suggestion similar to those described above in relation to autocompleting search queries.

Reminders

There are many kinds of reminders. For example, reminders featuring our own photo material—what we looked like and where we were at some earlier time—often awaken emotions and reflections. Open an old album and you’ll understand what I mean. It seems harmless and probably is in most cases. But would we want someone—by their discretion and desire—to direct our attention and emotions at a moment of their choosing?

Another type of reminder might be about going to vote. During elections, some people receive them, others do not. Who decides—Google or some other monopolist? How do they decide? A secret.

Can this affect election results?

Yes.

Curated news

Here again we are dealing with unsolicited information, as with ads and recommendations. Or if such information has been “requested,” then it is consent to letting an algorithm determine which news we read and which we do not. This can represent constant and methodical influence over the individual’s consciousness and subconscious. The thought that a company assembles an individual’s reality according to its own discretion and its own judgment of that individual is, to say the least, disturbing.

Just now I opened the Google app on my phone (which I do more and more rarely) and looked at the news it presented to me. Although most of it did not concern me at all, I involuntarily associated certain elements of it—individual words, phrases, or images—with facts from my own life, and those associations were not necessarily pleasant.

Of course, I—as everyone else—am responsible for my own associations.

Unsolicited emails, spam

As I assume is the case for most people, spam in my email lands in the spam folder and I know nothing about it. It has happened that an email from a new contact also ends up there, which has sometimes caused me problems. And the opposite happens too: spam emails regularly and methodically land in the inbox, which has made me wonder by what principle Google decides which email is spam and which email deserves my attention.

In that connection, I recently asked myself why an email from some domain that looks like letters and digits put through a blender—urging me to save money for my own funeral—was not sorted as spam. On the contrary: Google decided I should see it. Meanwhile, it decides that a perfectly normal-sounding email address from a new contact should go to spam—without notifying me at all.

Through spam, all kinds of messages and suggestions can be delivered to the conscious and subconscious. There is no need to place content inside formal рамки, as with ads. At any time you can receive any spam from a deeply concealed domain, as was the case with the “save for your own funeral” email mentioned above. Although formatted like an advertisement, many would define its content as traumatizing. And since it is unlikely that ads with such content would be presented by a mainstream ad provider such as Google Ads, email spam remains a good way for more frivolous methods of influence—hidden behind anonymity.

Potentially deliberate disruptions in the functioning of a service or software

Deliberately caused problems in the functioning of an IT service or software may involve limited functionality due to an unpaid license, for example. But technically it is entirely possible for a variety of obstacles, glitches, and oddities—slowdowns, delays, “quirks”—to be programmed as features, with the ability to activate or deactivate them for a particular user or group of users. The more complex the software, the more opportunities exist to create small or large problems, and to hide such intent behind countless details and conditions.

Imagine you work with a complex program in which small issues constantly occur: sometimes you have to press a button twice, or sometimes the program crashes and you lose information—and this happens over a long period of time. Wouldn’t that affect your psychological and emotional state, your concentration, your productivity? Wouldn’t it subtly change your attitude toward the work you are doing?

---

This list of example influences does not claim to be exhaustive; its purpose is only to show that such abuse is entirely possible. The horizon of possible influences is endless. In theory, every interaction in the digital sphere can be used for some manipulation or be part of a broader manipulative strategy. Since there is currently no way to know by what criteria and logic these IT corporate services operate, we cannot simply take on trust the assurances of their representatives that they are guardians of some moral and ethical code rather than its destroyers. As long as their algorithms remain opaque and protected as trade secrets, we should not believe a single word of corporate propaganda.

For one of the above suggestions to be effective, the first condition is that it must be constant and methodical, repeated regularly. Otherwise it would not produce a lasting effect in our minds and would quickly be ignored and forgotten (except in moments of psychological vulnerability). Second, it must be presented through different informational channels, from different sources, and in different forms. That is why the methods mentioned above need not be used separately, but together, in search of a synergistic effect.

Let us imagine for a moment that Google wants to make us eat, say, medlars. Google, being fully informed about our lifestyle, psychological profile, health status—and therefore aware of potential health problems that might develop—decides to direct our attention to such a risk. Suppose our weight is slightly above normal. The next time we log into YouTube, for example, Google could recommend a disturbing film about the risks of excess weight, which might lead, say, to a stroke.

That might motivate us to search in Google or YouTube for information on how to lose weight. And here—voilà—in the search results, in first or second place, we are helpfully served information that, according to the latest research, medlars have a surprisingly good effect on weight loss.

And this repeats in various ways, again and again. Medlars appear in other contexts too—showing up as results for different searches—hammering themselves into our subconscious until we gradually include them in our menu.

At first glance this may sound unlikely or even foolish to some. Perhaps the example is simplistic. But its task is only to illustrate the possible. We can only speculate about the sophistication of manipulations that could be built on such a basis—about their multi-layered nature, associative structure, stealth, and complexity—born of achievements in psychology and sociology that may not even have become public.

Perhaps a good way to grasp the potential influence of these channels on human psychology and behavior is for the reader to imagine themselves in Google’s place and attempt to compose their own multi-layered scenario of psychological diversion aimed at an individual (or a group) with a given psychological profile and life situation. Try to be creative. It might even be fun.

---

In his book Everybody Lies (2017), a Google collaborator Seth Stephens-Davidowitz focuses mainly on Google’s ability to acquire and analyze all kinds of social information—presenting it as a positive development and a way to improve how social institutions function, and as a path toward dismantling many social myths and misconceptions. The heuristic methods for extracting conclusions and correlations from relatively unrepresentative information entered into Google Search—described in the book—are undoubtedly very interesting and likely reliable.

But the book analyzes only the information entered into the search field. If we add everything else that flows into Google’s servers every second through its countless apps and services, we would probably need another hundred books. And even if many more books were written, the most important thing would very likely remain intentionally unwritten.

Of course, the possibility of obtaining a snapshot of society’s state, as well as information about social trends over time, is tempting. This could probably have positive effects on institutions, crime prevention, healthcare, and much more. But it also raises many moral, philosophical, and ethical problems—some of which Stephens-Davidowitz mentions. The use of personal information could lead to discrimination on countless grounds, changes in culture, and even the disappearance of democracy altogether.

Moreover, if acquiring personal information is considered “useful,” then how far can this go? Undoubtedly the most accurate and detailed information about society would exist if homes were equipped with all kinds of cameras and sensors, and if sensors were installed on people’s bodies themselves. Technically, that is entirely feasible today. Yet such a scenario has always been viewed as a nightmare and a dystopia.

Would humanity agree to sacrifice its private space in the name of some promised security? And to what extent can we even speak of “security” if such an order would require unconditional trust in a ruling caste privileged with unlimited information about people’s lives and private space? And if we add to that caste’s knowledge of biological, psychological, and social conditions shaping personal behavior and social processes, it becomes terrifying. Could democracy and human rights exist at all under such conditions?

Would attempts to increase order and predictability in society—even in nature—beyond some optimal measure not lead to the killing of life itself: vitality, spontaneity, faith, hope, ambition, will—the “spark” and energy that push the human being forward and enable evolution, drawn and enchanted by the unknown that is yet to reveal itself?

When someone begins to read a novel, they do not flip to the last pages to see how the story ends. It is precisely the unknown that makes them turn the pages with impatience, and it is what sustains their interest to the end. Who, then, would want to know everything in advance in the book of their own life? Who would want to live in a sterile, mathematically calculated “society” in which there is no freedom, spontaneity, and not even a little magic?

Is there any place for the Individual in such a “society”—any place for feelings, dreams, hopes, plans, longing, joys, disappointments? Would we be ready to exchange all of that for “knowledge” and “science”? The quotation marks are not accidental: true knowledge is unreachable, and conclusions drawn from partial knowledge can be overturned by knowledge of a higher order. The idea that the Earth is flat was also once “knowledge.” It was replaced by another “knowledge” in which the Earth is spherical. The two forms of “knowledge” are incompatible; they imply radically different concepts and modes of thinking.

How can we be sure that the drive toward extremes—pushed by technocrats blinded by the endless flow of data—is not simply a narrow-minded fundamentalism, while what truly matters remains hidden and elusive, and only a few can sometimes, perhaps for a brief moment, glimpse its shadow?