Quotes by Franklin Foer - Page 2

If you think of data as kind of an x-ray of our soul, it's this window into our minds that the company has possessed. It's a very, very powerful x-ray for them to hold because the more that you understand about somebody, the easier it is to manipulate them.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Data
Easier
Manipulate
Possessed
Powerful
Window
Hold
Minds
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Putin has made a habit of supporting far-right candidates who undermine his foes in Europe; perhaps he never could have imagined such a character taking root on American soil. Trump's reasons for aligning with Putin have been more innocent, if no less dangerous.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Candidates
Habit
Innocent
Putin
Soil
Foes
Root
Supporting
Undermine
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Trump uses the phrase 'America First,' only dimly aware that he is repeating a phrase from the interwar years and indifferent to its historic resonances. But he compulsively echoes that period - another time when leaders described the world in apocalyptic terms.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Another Time
Echoes
Historic
Indifferent
Time World America
Phrase
Repeating
Uses
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The biggest problem is that Facebook and Google are these giant feedback loops that give people what they want to hear. And when you use them in a world where your biases are being constantly confirmed, you become susceptible to fake news, propaganda, demagoguery.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Demagoguery
Fake
Feedback
Google
Loops
News
People
Problem
Propaganda
Susceptible
Use
World
World Your People
Being
Become
Biases
Biggest
Biggest Problem
Them
Constantly
Confirmed
Facebook
Fake News
Giant
Give
Hear
Where
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Apple was very important in terms of disrupting the music business and remaking the television business. They made it harder for people to make money on the things that they produce. In news, they've created Apple News, and they've tried to steer people towards information.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Music Business
Steer
Business Money Music
Apple
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Google helps us sort the Internet by providing a sense of hierarchy to information. Facebook uses its algorithms and its intricate understanding of our social circles to filter the news we encounter. Amazon bestrides book publishing with its overwhelming hold on that market.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Circles
Google
Hierarchy
Intricate
Overwhelming
Providing
Publishing
Encounter
Facebook
Filter
Uses
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It's very un-American to say nice things about elites. Elites are often terrible. It's not like we've ever had a perfect set of benevolent democratic elites ruling over our country. But the fact of the matter is that a representative system of democracy delegates power to elites.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Benevolent
Delegates
Democratic
Elites
Nice Things
Ruling
Terrible
Representative
Un-American
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Computer scientists have built a set of massive DNS databases, which provide fragmentary histories of communications flows, in part to create an archive of malware: a kind of catalog of the tricks bad actors have tried to pull, which often involve masquerading as legitimate actors.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Databases
Tricks
Catalog
Communications
Flows
Fragmentary
Histories
Involve
Masquerading
Scientists
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In 2012, Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency after a four-year, constitutionally imposed hiatus. It wasn't the smoothest of transitions. To his surprise, in the run-up to his inauguration, protesters filled the streets of Moscow and other major cities to denounce his comeback.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Cities
Comeback
Filled
Hiatus
Inauguration
Moscow
Presidency
Putin
Streets
Surprise
Denounce
Four-Year
Imposed
Returned
Transitions
Vladimir Putin
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I grew up using maps and having a sense of direction, and now I have a phone. I used to try to remember numbers, and now I... can just call them up instantly. And that's great. But what's happening right now is that we're in a phase of human evolution where we're merging with machines.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Human Evolution
Machines
Maps
Merging
Numbers
Instantly
Phase
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Monopolists always defend their monopolies by arguing that competition is wasteful. When the railroad barons completed their monopoly, they argued it would be wasteful to have competing rail lines, AT&T said the same thing. But today, the size and scope of these monopolies is different.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Competing
Rail
Scope
Wasteful
Argued
Completed
Defend
Monopolies
Same Thing
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The sense of crisis is everything for Trump - even if it's largely invented. His depiction of darkness justifies his candidacy, the need to violently shake the system. His ability to conjure fear is what distinguished him from all those career pols he has vanquished. And it suits his ego.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Candidacy
Crisis
Depiction
Distinguished
Suits
Conjure
Justifies
Shake
Vanquished
Violently
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The genesis of Donald Trump's relationship with Paul Manafort begins with Roy Cohn. That Roy Cohn: Joe McCarthy's heavy-lidded henchman, lawyer to the Genovese family. During the '70s, Trump and his father hired Cohn as their lawyer to defend the family against a housing discrimination suit.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Discrimination
Genesis
Housing
Lawyer
Begins
Family Relationship Father
Defend
Donald
Hired
Joe
Mccarthy
Paul
Roy
Suit
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Google's ability to pick winners and losers in the information world is a menace. These companies have the ability to determine which media companies are successful and which ones are failures. If I adopt a business plan that doesn't line up with Google's, then they're not going to reward me.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Determine
Google
Information
Media
Menace
Successful
Business World Me
Adopt
Companies
Losers
Line
Pick
Plan
Reward
Winners
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Of course, formulas always existed in journalism. When I was just getting into the business, 'Time' and 'Newsweek' knew if they could put Jesus' face on the cover that it would do really well on the newsstands. So every year, they would put Jesus' face on the newsstand. There was a formula there.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Formulas
Journalism
Time Business Face
Existed
Newsweek
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When I started off in journalism, you knew there was an audience out there and that you wanted people to read what you produced. But it also felt like you had a limited ability to shape the audience, or to acquire an audience, for what you were doing. So you didn't really think too much about that.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Acquire
Journalism
Produced
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I think what's happening with book advances is something that most of the world just doesn't fully appreciate, especially when it comes to nonfiction, because writing a book of investigative journalism is an expensive endeavor, and the system works best if you have publishers making bets on authors.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Endeavor
Expensive
Journalism
Nonfiction
Publishers
Advances
Authors
Bets
Investigative
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Michael Bradley has the stuff of leadership; he works hard and can break up the opponent's play. However, that's not enough to justify his philanthropic attitude towards possession, the generous portion of balls that he contributes to his foes. His sloppiness constantly culminates in unnecessary goals.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Break Up
Generous
Justify
Philanthropic
Unnecessary
Michael
Foes
Opponent
Portion
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Brazil is strewn with ruins of projects - refineries, power plants - begun but never finished. Most of this investment never landed in places or industries that really meshed with the trajectory of the global economy. This wasn't state-of-the art industrial policy. The projects seemed curiously nostalgic.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Brazil
Global Economy
Investment
Nostalgic
Power Plants
Ruins
Trajectory
Begun
Curiously
Landed
Industrial
Plants
Strewn
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I look at the way that my kids interact with technology, and it becomes a mirror to the ways in which I myself interact with technology. I can see the ways in which that addiction and compulsion starts to settle in on them, and it's much more unnerving to see it in them than it is to experience it myself.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Addiction
Compulsion
Interact
Settle
Unnerving
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On its face, Donald Trump's hateful musings about women and his boastful claims of sexual dominance should be reason alone to drive him from polite society and certainly to blockade him from the West Wing. Yet somehow, his misogyny has instead propelled his campaign to the brink of the Republican nomination.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Claims
Dominance
Hateful
Polite
Brink
Campaign
Sexual
Nomination
West Wing
Wing
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Who can complain about the price that Google is charging you? Or who can complain about Amazon's prices; they are simply lower than the competition's. And that's why I think we need to shift back to a more Brandeisian conception of antitrust, where we consider values other than simply efficiency and low prices.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Antitrust
Charging
Conception
Efficiency
Complain
Prices
Shift
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What I worry about ultimately is that when we're stripped of our privacy, when we're stripped of free will, when we start to merge with machines in a more robust way, at some point, we'll cease to be identifiably human. And therefore, I think our humanity is, in some ways, the thing that's under existential threat.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Cease
Existential
Free Will
Machines
Privacy
Robust
Threat
Merge
Stripped
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Booksellers initially thought of Amazon as their best friend. They were coming in, and they were challenging Barnes and Noble, and Borders, which were the big, dominant corporations of the day, and that they would disrupt them and make them less powerful, but they could never envision that Amazon would overtake them all.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Best Friend
Borders
Corporations
Dominant
Noble
Disrupt
Envision
Initially
Overtake
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Not even Trump's father's wealth, nor his father's faith in his son's destiny, could save Trump from incessant discipline. At the age of 13, he was shipped off to the New York Military Academy, which employed brutal tactics for the remaking of delinquent character, even resorting to violence to assert control over the boys.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Brutal
Discipline
Employed
Incessant
Assert
Delinquent
Shipped
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Hunting for malware requires highly specialized knowledge of the intricacies of the domain name system - the protocol that allows us to type email addresses and website names to initiate communication. DNS enables our words to set in motion a chain of connections between servers, which in turn delivers the results we desire.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Communication
Connections
Domain
Hunting
Initiate
Protocol
Website
Address
Chain
Enables
Highly
Motion
Specialized
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When the mayor of Sao Paulo wanted to increase bus fare by 21 centavos in 2013, the country erupted in the largest mass protests in its history. It wasn't a dramatic hike - just nine cents - but a perfect symbol of the increasing burdens on the working poor, forced to fend with an inadequate system, insensitive to their plight.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Cents
Dramatic
Inadequate
Insensitive
Mass
Nine
Plight
Burdens
Hike
Fare
Forced
Largest
Mayor
Protests
Symbol
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Mark Zuckerberg has never really had pressure put on him. He's an engineer, and he's created this perfect system that is Facebook, and he's always been concerned about the internal beauty and logic of this creation that he's created. I don't think that the human implications of what he's created have often been apparent to him.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Beauty
Concerned
Creation
Implications
Logic
Mark
Perfect
Pressure
Always Pressure Never
Apparent
Often
Facebook
Him
Internal
Put
Mark Zuckerberg
System
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When you're staring at your phone to navigate and being led places, you do become less aware of your environment, and the journey becomes kind of automated. There is an aliveness that comes with having to puzzle out directions for yourself. And you have to ask other people for help, which creates opportunity for social connection.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Navigate
Automated
Creates
Directions
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Once upon a time, if you were going to get a loan from me, I would have had to look at your file, and I would have to make a decision about whether youre going to get a loan. Maybe we would meet and talk about it. There would be some level of human involvement and human interaction. Now, a lot of this is determined by an algorithm.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Determined
Interaction
Involvement
Loan
Algorithm
Time Decision Look
File
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Trump has emphatically denied ties to Russia - a claim refuted by his Twitter feed and a cursory Google search. Putin says his government had nothing to do with the hack of the DNC computers, even though it carelessly left a trail of crumbs tracing back to his intelligence services. The cunning liar is exploiting the blundering one.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Computers
Government
Crumbs
Cunning
Denied
Google
Left
Putin
Russia
Ties
Tracing
Trump
Nothing
Twitter
Back
Carelessly
Claim
Feed
Even
Exploiting
Hack
His
Liar
Says
Search
Services
Though
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One of the fantastic things about Silicon Valley is that it's both the birthplace of technology and it was one of the birthplaces of the counterculture. The Internet and the personal computer were going to be like the communes, where we would all be networked together, and we would be able to achieve this state of global consciousness.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Technology
Computer
Together
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Most of the time the concept of globalization ends up sounding unnecessarily abstruse - even the name itself sounds clunky and highfalutin. And people discuss it in a way that makes it seem so impersonal. But globalization really is a concrete, fundamental fact in everybody's lives, and you really see that come to life in soccer stadiums.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Globalization
People
Soccer
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Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple are among the most powerful monopolies in the history of humanity. So, the problem is, is that they have tremendous ability to shape the way that we think, the way that we filter the world, the way that we absorb culture. And if they were just companies, maybe we shouldn't be so concerned about them, but they play an incredibly vital role in the health of our democracy.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Humanity
Powerful
Thinking
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And I know that sounds outrageous, but it's true. Such monopolies as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple are trying to stay with us from the moment that we wake up in the morning until the moment that we go to bed at night. They want to become our personal assistants. They want to become the vehicles to deliver us news, entertainment, to track our health. They want to obey our every beck and call through Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Home
Morning
Night
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Fifty years ago, the way that we consumed food was revolutionized. We began eating processed foods, and it seemed amazing. And then we woke up many decades later, and we realized that food was engineered to make us fat. And I think that such companies as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple are doing the same thing with the stuff that we ingest through our brains. They're attempting to addict us, and they're addicting us on the basis of data.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Brain
Google
Thinking
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Is Islam a tribe or is it a force of globalization? Islam has certainly been studied as a local, tribalistic phenomenon. But Islam is also theoretically a universalist idea, its spread has been facilitated by modern technologies, and it's an identity that people can slip into and out of fairly easily. I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Technology
People
Thinking
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The New York Times and PBS are gatekeepers of a sort. And they perform that role of gatekeeping with a set of rules and aspirations about where they want to lead their viewers and their readers. They value objective facts, and they attempt to transmit a comprehensive view of the world. And they do have values. And they do lead their viewers and their readers to certain conclusions. But it's different than such monopolies as Apple or Google which are dissecting information into these bits and pieces, which they're then transmitting to people. And it's about clicks.
Franklin Foer / Journalist
Different
Google
People
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Franklin Foer Quotes - Page 2

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