Can The WWW Read Our Minds?

I got freaked out a few minutes ago, but let me lay some groundwork first. Some time ago, I was on another forum, Head-Fi, a headphone forum, as I was heavily into headphone listening of music until my tinnitus got worse. Anyway, one day I was posting about some product in a sub-forum, and when I was finished, I went back to the forum Home. There it was, an ad for the very product I had been posting about. Now I know there is spyware everywhere which tracks us and so on, and links to advertisement resources. However, read the following.

Last night, my wife and I went to the local town museum to see one in a series of foreign films. The movie was free, no tickets, we only signed the museum register. The film we saw was a "Bollywood" film, Water. It was good, well photographed, good audio, rich colors, technically competent, and the plot/characters were engaging. I recommend it. OK, good movie, little or no paper trail, no www contact. This morning, the 3X4 matrix of Favorites on my Mac, shows miniatures of 12 websites, IMDB among them. So - guess what movie was prominent on the IMDB portion of Favorites? Yup - Water. Does this happen for real, or is it just coincidence? Anyone else experience this??

reply to post by Lazarus Short


To me this sounds like a mix of three things, spyware on your pc, coincidence and a pinch of paranoia from yourself.

Not the internet reading your mind, at least not in the literal sense, they can build up a picture in theory of what your interests are and target advertisements utilising this information. This is market research and not some top secret mind reading program.

dont worry i get it all the time
especially the ads that say to "get laid tonight"
and "swingers in your area"
followed by pizza lol
dont worry everything is bloody logged nowadays

OK, it turns out it was not weird at all. After my wife woke up, she told me she had looked the movie up yesterday on IMDB. Ah well...

reply to post by Lazarus Short


But your "paranoria" as someone tried to label you is wholly correct in one sense. Your brower is now merely your "social secretary," keeping track of little tidbits that you in one way or another commit to key strokes.

But just wait. Currently, the responses and suggestions that appear for you are based upon pure behavioral actions--those key strokes. But coming and probably here already but they don't want to openly tell us is massive computer programs that work in the background to predict an indepth analysis of who we are simply by what we present on-line. You will not be an active participant on-line without your psychological profile being known and instantly re-analyized each time you log-on. --The argument for doing that electrical mind reading is simple: Advertisers will kill for that kind of data and TPTB will want to make sure you are not a domestic terrorist--or anyway, a threat to it. Win-win for them.

Your browser will know on Friday nights that you may want a racy movie to share with the wife and present its suggested choices based on even other factors in your life AND perhaps include her profile into the equation. Of course, this info and data will all be stored at a number of places.

And the cloud will make it sooo much easier for TPTB to keep track. Sign up today.

Originally posted by Aliensun
reply to post by Lazarus Short

 

But your "paranoria" as someone tried to label you is wholly correct in one sense. Your brower is now merely your "social secretary," keeping track of little tidbits that you in one way or another commit to key strokes.

But just wait. Currently, the responses and suggestions that appear for you are based upon pure behavioral actions--those key strokes. But coming and probably here already but they don't want to openly tell us is massive computer programs that work in the background to predict an indepth analysis of who we are simply by what we present on-line. You will not be an active participant on-line without your psychological profile being known and instantly re-analyized each time you log-on. --The argument for doing that electrical mind reading is simple: Advertisers will kill for that kind of data and TPTB will want to make sure you are not a domestic terrorist--or anyway, a threat to it. Win-win for them.

Your browser will know on Friday nights that you may want a racy movie to share with the wife and present its suggested choices based on even other factors in your life AND perhaps include her profile into the equation. Of course, this info and data will all be stored at a number of places.

And the cloud will make it sooo much easier for TPTB to keep track. Sign up today.

So scary and true. I have had the same type experience as this OP many times and I see advertisements directed at me or my restaurant profession that are arrived at by knowing what books I have ordered! It is very uncomfortable.
Whenever the "Auto-text" feature is correct in a weird way IT is reading your mind as well.
It is a programmed designed to guess what you want. They will only get better and soon they will know what we want before we do.

reply to post by Lazarus Short


Has anyone ever had google earth automatically download into your computer without you doing it? I thought this was my imagination the first time. I looked something up in google maps, low and behold there's the google earth globe on my desktop!

It can read your mind just like any other human can. Once you know someone well enough they become nothing more than a most likely possibility. and if you force them to act a certain way then you don't just read their mind but controle it, very simple.