Done-the secret deals that our changing our world (Jacques Peretti):

A staggering debut from the ferociously formidable investigative journalist & renegade economist Jacques Peretti. Peretti levels a kind of scatter-gun, all encompassing, encyclopedic approach to the current tech-corporate-surveillance dystopia/extinction-ear-mark by delving with utmost diligence into the center of these unfolding horrors (most of which will have probably escaped the publics recognition entirely or but with the faintest adumbration). So anything from Investor Dispute Settlements, the Powell Memorandum, the McKinsey Institute, the Laffer Curve, & a bestiary of the most shadowy shits ever to wriggle their way from over the River Styx & blight the world with fell inhuman extinction-advocacy. Then of course there is all the health scandals, mammoth privatization programs (many of which will be officially denied, drenched in maximum obfuscation & finely-crafted dishonesty), pro-obesity pestilence, disease induction, crisis commerce…. stricken then extract! super tax negation by the richest & most replete (naturally), conflict commerce… automation, post-human, post-truth, organized ignorance, cognitive suppression & retardation (as a deliberate policy to yield a submissive, insensate & abstracted populace for maximum exploitation) Deep Blue/Watson/Deep Mind enhanced AI human obsolescence initiative (“I for one, welcome our new computer overlords.”) the “cashless” cataclysm, where cash is relinquished in favor of “tap” technology/credit devices thus making all transactions monitored/filed & then of course controlled &/or forbidden/taxed etc (fiscal exclusion, which would be determined by whom & what?), Bio Via? TTIP? Palintir Gotham? An ice-cream trucks worth of Orwell smothered in Kafka as anti-terrorist “expertise” forged in the hell of Iraq & concomitant war theaters is now exported back & rolled out onto the American public (the poorest bearing the brunt/first contact) & integrated into law enforcement (ha-ha) agencies for the private profit of godless scoundrels like Peter Thiel & other jet-black heinous reprobate technogarchs & odious commercial nabobs parasiting off their fellow-man. This book is so stuffed with information, teaming & turgescent, a certified overload. Taking notes, revisiting sections will be necessary for all but the most humectant of swats. Jacques has compiled a genuine milestone & dumped almost the entire swag-bags contents into one volume. It’s not easy to read, just in terms of the sheer blood-vessel bursting abominableness & terrifying implications/consequences. But that’s all the more reason to read, understand, to divest & to disavow as quickly as possible. Some of his analysis/research, presumably due to the humungous scope, can on rare occasions seem a little presumptuous or minimalized. Also, there is at times a hint of classic conspiracy theory flavor that is not mirrored by the vast majority of the book. Peretti is currently blasting the podium with a recently concluded, highly publicized television series Billion Dollar Deals (which I have yet to see). It’s a stream of solar beam that such a radical, incisive & revelatory journalist is being granted decent airplay. Watch this guy, & providing you can handle it, (not to mention, anybody with a serious concern over big data, tech, AI, the internet, robots & automation etc) definitely’ definitely read this f#*^}ng incredible book.

Author – Jacques Peretti

Publisher – Hodder & Stoughton (2017)

https://www.hodder.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096sjk2