🌟How You Installed the Surveillance State. The Secret Agenda of Anti-Immigrant Pols – Kill Tech Innovation. And a #200 Edition Message From ME!🌟
Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck – welcome to edition #200!
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1️⃣ 👀 How You Installed The Surveillance State 📲
And how Big Tech and Big Government watch your every move.
In ‘1984’ – like Apple’s legendary ad – you were told what to do.
In 2024 – thanks to companies like Apple – you’re sold what to do.
The difference? Communism needed the power of the state to punish you. Consumer capitalism relies on you punishing yourself.
How did we get to this dystopia? 👀
As Byron Tau points out in his new book, the mechanics of digital advertising have gone well beyond what either George Orwell or Aldous Huxley could imagine... 😱
How did it start? As one reviewer noted:
Post-9/11 – the vacuuming up of personal data by Facebook, Google and others to feed the online ad market — stoked a thriving, under-the-radar bazaar of businesses selling data...
And here’s how it works:
✅ Phone apps hoover up your movements, web history and personal info and sell it to shady data brokers
✅ Govt agencies buy up databases from these brokers, bypassing pesky privacy laws
The result? A 360-degree view of your daily life in the hands of people who might – for a few dollars – pass it to anyone.
As Tau says, the system is built on two lies:
You agreed to it.
Its anonymous.
Real-world example? Researchers could track phones of US special forces on secret missions just by tapping ad exchanges. 🪖
So what can we do to fight back? 🤔
We need policies to rein in government data collection, slap strict regulations on the private data trade, and educate ourselves about using privacy tools.
There will always be a tension between privacy and security. We need an open debate about how much surveillance is too much in a free society. 🗳️
One thing is clear: that surveillance is no longer hypothetical. It’s here and it’s watching you. 🕵️
Agree or disagree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
⏭ ‘Means of Control’ by Byron Tau is out now.
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2️⃣ The War On Immigrants Has a Geopol Agenda
Anti-immigration politics aims to hamstring Europe’s tech sector.
Anti-immigration politics is the geopolitical gift that keeps on giving. Want to stoke unrest for a rival? Blame immigrants. Want to destroy support for foreign policy goals? Demonise immigrants. Want to hobble the tech sector? Make immigration impossible.
Reports from Germany 🇩🇪 and the Netherlands 🇳🇱, two key nodes in Europe’s chip ecosystem, paint a worrying picture.
The EU’s ambitious industrial policy, plus billions in subsidies, aims to reduce dependence on Asian chip imports and secure Europe’s place in the global tech race.
The threat? A shortage of skilled workers, made worse by rising anti-immigrant politics. 📉👷
German chipmaker Infineon and Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML are heavily reliant on international talent to grow their expanding operations.
With an aging European population, skilled foreign workers are essential.
Yet far-right parties – echoing anti-immigrant talking points from Russia – threaten to make Europe a hostile environment for global talent.
The Dutch government is already scrambling to prevent ASML from relocating due to political concerns. 🏭🔧
Welcoming skilled immigrants is not just an economic imperative, but a matter of national security and technological sovereignty. 🏛️📣
Let me know what you think in the comments.
⏭ “Anti-immigration policies are killing European tech.”
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3️⃣ What Formula 1 Tells Us About The World
Censorship, sponsorship, sport and journalism.
Like chefs who eat Weetabix off duty, journalists don’t often read for enjoyment.
I say this to recommend a bravura piece of writing on Formula 1 that was almost immediately deleted (we wouldn’t say censored) by Road and Track, the publication that commissioned it.
Writer Kate Wagner has opinions you may or not share, but she can spin words as deftly as Lewis Hamilton can spin a lap. Her piece is also – ironically – a reflection on journalism:
“What I received wasn’t a crash course in Formula 1—in fact, Formula 1 only became more mystifying to me—but journalism, as viewed by the other side. The great irony of the other side is that they need journalism... Unfortunately for the other side, journalism still remains a double-edged sword.”
It is archived here. Have a read with a weekend coffee.
⏭ “Keeping Up With the Carkrashians“ Marina Hyde skewers Christian Horner.
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4️⃣ American Most Reliable Defence Supplier?
Yes, it’s China!
Where militaries buy their weapons components tells you three things:
Strategy – they source from countries they likely wouldn’t go to war with.
Bureaucracy – complex processes and products mean they have little awareness about where parts actually come from.
Necessity – no one else produces the parts required.
A fascinating report (albeit from a company that sells supply chain management software to the DoD) has the following stats:
From 2005 to 2020, Chinese suppliers in US weaponry supply chains quadrupled.
Nearly half of semiconductors in weapons systems like the B-2 Bomber and Patriot missile depend on Chinese suppliers.
Chinese companies also supply fuses, detonators, electronics, software, and data links used in long-range precision strike weapons.
Should we be alarmed or reassured? Well as Ed Conway points out, Britain didn’t worry about where it got its binocular glass from (Germany) until 1914...
⏭ How Beijing is navigating US chip controls.
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5️⃣ Mineral Help From Mars
The inter-planetary tech searching for new stuff on earth.
⏭ We might be waiting a while for actual space mining.
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6️⃣ The Euro Anthem For Eurovision
Less Ode to Joy. More high tempo therapy.
Joost Klein’s comi-tragic EU anthem is also a tribute to his dad, who died of cancer when Klein was just 12.
The fiery ending?
“At the end of the day we are all humans. My dad once told me: ‘Out there is a world without borders’”
⏭ You’ll have to wait till May for the Eurovision vote.
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7️⃣ A Word From The Author
200 editions in, I have some unwanted advice for you.
This was me at 18. Vespa, JPS and shop-lifted Pringle sweater.
Estranged son to a workaholic and a melancholic.
The slimmest life chance saw me escape to study Merovingian kings and Umayyad Caliphs. My reward, the warrant of an elite institution.
Often I have failed to be the person that luck deserved.
So let me share advice I came to very late. If you don’t need it, look away now.
Show the reflection in the mirror some forgiveness.
I’m not religious, but as the great English hymn says:
Love to the loveless shown That they might lovely be.
If that’s you, bon courage.
⏭ A little audio prompt, if you need it.
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If you enjoy Seven Things – please recommend it! If I should change things up – let me know!
Best,
Adrian
Thank you for that personal sharing, Ade... we all deserve to hear we've done great. Your impact on the world over the past 30 years has been immense. There.