Part 1
Alison McDowell is an independent researcher whose work as an activist began around the privatization of public schools in Philadelphia. Her work opposing the standardization of curriculum and testing brought her focus to educational technology and the commodification of children as data. That data was weaponized to privatize public education. Over time she came to realize that turning people into data was part of a much larger global apparatus. It wasn’t simply about controlling public schools but about creating and managing systemic global poverty. Excess concentrated wealth has resulted in predatory philanthropy – large philanthropic foundations whose endowments invest in privatized schools systems, for-profit prisons, and other problematic assets. They use grants to underwrite research that can influence public policy in ways that are not in the interest of the general public. If you are a researcher proposing a radical solution that would threaten to alter the power structure, you won’t receive funding. Social impact investing and human capital bonds are used along with blockchain to hypothecate human behavior, essentially mortgaging humanity to a future controlled by artificial intelligence, or the holy grail.
Chris Semancik
#technocracy
#fourthindustrialrevolution
