Yes. The trick is to identify what something looks like and then assume positive intent and carry on -- as I did in my post. For the record, I shared several O

Yes. The trick is to identify what something looks like and then assume positive intent and carry on -- as I did in my post. For the record, I shared several Obama/data stories with friends, specifically mentioning how this was the sign of a really bad thing. (Not the details of what they did, the concept of using deep personal data and friend networks as a way to monitor and persuade voters.) I am especially concerned that the public can't seem to focus on this problem unless there are clearly set up good guys, bad guys, and some kind of simplistic emotionally-manipulative narrative. So, for instance, the current narrative is foreign powers using FB in a way most users never expected to (perhaps) deeply influence a U.S. election. For many news consumers, that's got a bunch of cartoon figures acting almost like villains in a movie. Much more concerning to me is the fact that data, once collected, can go and do anything. Being too much for any one person to understand, we rely on programming to do things with it. In effect, we are creating systems that we ourselves do not understand. So how could we understand the downstream effects? For every Hollywood Standard Movie Plot news story, how many other bad downstream effects are happening that we don't know and might never figure out? I know this sounds a little bit like arguing from ignorance, but my point is that these are systems about which we cannot reason. So Zuckerberg may have a noble cause and be on a mission to connect the world so that it can be a better place. In the process the things he created could end up killing millions. And it might be a hundred years before we figure it out, if ever. (Likewise, he may actually cause more good than harm in the world -- and 20 years from now somebody steals the data and uses it to start a war killing tens of millions. Is that Zuckerberg's fault? With something like, it's not simply a matter of "stealing". If I were creating and collecting H-bombs in my basement and somebody broke in, the crime involved is not simply "theft". Something much worse is going on.)