No plagarism Answer The following questions Please first read the argumentative essay below and then anwer the that I have attached as a file and please make sure when you write the anwers in the Microsoft word write the question first and than the answer I have attached the
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Argumentative Essay Starts form here
“Delete You Social Media Accounts Right Now” by Jaron Lanier (2018)
Let’s start with cats.
Cats are everywhere online. They make the memiest memes and the cutest videos.
Why cats more than dogs?
Dogs didn’t come to ancient humans begging to live with us; we domesticated them. They’ve been bred to be obedient. They take to training and they are predictable. They work for us. That’s not to say anything against dogs. It’s great that they’re loyal and dependable.
Cats are different. They came along and partly domesticated themselves. They are not predictable. Popular dog videos tend to show off training, while the most wildly popular cat videos are the ones that capture weird and surprising behaviors.
Cats are smart, but not a great choice if you want an animal that takes to training reliably. Watch a cat circus online, and what’s so touching is that the cats are clearly making their own minds up about whether to do a trick they’ve learned, or to do nothing, or to wander into the audience.
Cats have done the seemingly impossible. They’ve integrated themselves into the modern high-tech world without giving themselves up. They are still in charge. There is no worry that some stealthy meme crafted by algorithms and paid for by a creepy, hidden oligarch has taken over your cat. No one has taken over your cat; not you, not anyone.
Oh, how we long to have that certainty not just about our cats, but about ourselves! Cats on the internet are our hopes and dreams for the future of people on the internet.
Meanwhile, even though we love dogs, we don’t want to be dogs, at least in terms of power relationships with people, and we’re afraid Facebook and the like are turning us into dogs. When we are triggered to do something crappy online, we might call it a response to a “dog whistle.” Dog whistles can only be heard by dogs. We worry that we’re falling under stealthy control.
This is about how to be a cat. How can you remain autonomous in a world where you are under constant surveillance and are constantly prodded by algorithms run by some of the richest corporations in history, which have no way of making money except by being paid to manipulate your behavior? How can you be a cat, despite this?
Something entirely new is happening in the world. Just in the last five or ten years, nearly everyone started to carry a little device called a smartphone on their person all the time that’s suitable for algorithmic behavior modification. A lot of us are also using related devices called smart speakers on our kitchen counters or in our car dashboards. We’re being tracked and measured constantly, and receiving engineered feedback all the time. We’re being hypnotized little by little by technicians we can’t see, for purposes we don’t know. We’re all lab animals now.
Algorithms gorge on data about you, every second. What kinds of links do you click on? What videos do you watch all the way through? How quickly are you moving from one thing to the next? Where are you when you do these things? Who are you connecting with in person and online? What facial expressions do you make? How does your skin tone change in different situations? What were you doing just before you decided to buy something or not? Whether to vote or not?
All these measurements and many others have been matched up with similar readings about the lives of multitudes of other people through massive spying. Algorithms correlate what you do with what almost everyone else has done.
The algorithms don’t really understand you, but there is power in numbers, especially in large numbers. If a lot of other people who like the foods you like were also more easily put off by pictures of a candidate portrayed in a pink border instead of a blue one, then you probably will be too, and no one needs to know why. Statistics are reliable, but only as idiot demons.
Are you sad, lonely, scared? Happy, confident? Getting your period? Experiencing a peak of class anxiety?
So-called advertisers can seize the moment when you are perfectly primed and then influence you with messages that have worked on other people who share traits and situations with you.
I say “so-called” because it’s just not right to call direct manipulation of people advertising. Advertisers used to have a limited chance to make a pitch, and that pitch might have been sneaky or annoying, but it was fleeting. Furthermore, lots of people saw the same TV or print ad; it wasn’t adapted to individuals. The biggest difference was that you weren’t monitored and assessed all the time so that you could be fed dynamically optimized stimuli — whether “content” or ad — to engage and alter you.
Now everyone who is on social media is getting individualized, continuously adjusted stimuli, without a break, so long as they use their smartphones. What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale.
Please don’t be insulted. Yes, I am suggesting that you might be turning just a little into a well-trained dog, or something less pleasant, like a lab rat or a robot. That you’re being remote-controlled just a little, by clients of big corporations. but if I’m right, then becoming aware of it might just free you, so give this a chance, ok?
A scientific movement called behaviorism arose before computers were invented. Behaviorists studied new, more methodical, sterile, and nerdy ways to train animals and humans.
One famous behaviorist was B.F. Skinner. He set up a methodical system known as the Skinner box, in which caged animals got treats when they did something specific. There wasn’t anyone petting or whispering to the animal, just a purely isolated mechanical action — a new kind of training for modern times. Various behaviorists, who often gave off rather ominous vibes, applied this method to people. Behaviorist strategies often worked, which freaked everyone out, eventually leading to a bunch of creepy “mind control” sci-fi and horror movie scripts.
An unfortunate fact is that you can train someone using behaviorist techniques, and the person doesn’t even know it. Until very recently, this rarely happened unless you signed up to be a test subject in an experiment in the basement of a university’s psychology building. Then you’d go into a room and be tested while someone watched you through a one-way mirror. Even though you knew an experiment was going on, you didn’t realize how you were being manipulated. At least you gave consent to be manipulated in some way.
What has become suddenly normal — pervasive surveillance and constant, subtle manipulation — is unethical, cruel, dangerous, and inhuman. Dangerous? Oh yes, because who knows who’s going to use that power, and for what? …
I realize that we live in a world of stunning inequality, and not everyone has the same options. Whoever you are, I hope you have options to explore what your life might be, especially if you are young. You need to make sure your own brain, and your own life, isn’t in a rut. Maybe you can go explore wilderness or learn a new skill. Take risks. But whatever form your self-exploration takes, do at least one thing: detach from the behavior-modification empires for a while — six months, say? Note that I didn’t name [my] book Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and Keeping Them Deleted Forever. After you experiment, you’ll know yourself better. Then decide.