This Was Your Life

The idea of data about human beings
becoming a powerful currency is not new,
despite what some digital naysayers spout.

What is half new is the estimated value of mass data
in this age of information abundance and inequality,
where the data collected by the few is about the many
where the few used to be wealthy western governments
but they are now private corporations over grown
from the advertising revenues which in an age
of tax avoidance are their private bank.

This new inequality is not a threat in itself,
but when so much is written on-line only
the inequality sets up that grand oxymoron;
'a digital democracy' where ideas become slogans
powered/paid for by digital ghosts, or ghost hunters,
in some great chase which can only stop
when the machines break down,
forcing the humans start to listen
-which won't be a long time yet.