[heronymus]

That's not even far fetched, the ever expanding possibilities of targeting individuals through the big data evolution, will clearly lead to some nightmare like this. My hope is that capitalism will be rendered obsolete through cultural and technological progress, before we arrive there. Stuff like this always reminds me on YTCracker's cyberpunk Album "Introducing Neals"

"...big data and your love live after this..."

https://ytcracker.bandcamp.com/album/introducing-neals

[mamon]

The problem is that technical progress is much faster than cultural one. Human nature is basically the same it was 2000 years ago: people in power want more power. And while the totalitarism of early 20th century had eventually fallen, the totalitarism powered by constant surveillance, Big Data, Machine Learning has a potential to be so effective we won't be able to escape it. Some elements of that are already implemented in China (think: Great Firewall).