After noticing Google’s rectification of my Misinformation about 2008, I started thinking about an electrical analogy.

My first thought was too literal. A full-wave rectifier does turn both directions of AC input current into a single direction of DC, but its goal is not the same as Google’s goal. Google is not interested in a useful power output; its output is aimed back toward the input in an attempt to destroy the morale of the input device.

An earlier acoustic analogy handles the goal correctly.

Social media is constantly described as an echo chamber where you hear only similar voices. This is false in two ways.

(1) Most media algorithms take SPECIAL CARE to insure that you hear the official line. If the algo thinks you’re a Trumptard, the algo ‘suggests’ Pelosi and AOC. If the algo thinks you’re an anti-vaxer, you’re blasted with the latest from Demon Fauci.

(2) When several people are inside a real echo chamber they can HEAR EACH OTHER. Social media is deaf. Nobody is listening. Whether your output is true or false, interesting or boring, it goes nowhere.

So the better analogy is an ANECHOIC CHAMBER. These are part of every acoustics lab. The chamber is lined with foam triangles designed to absorb all available wavelengths in all directions.

Each user is encased in a private anechoic chamber. You think you’re talking to your friends of the same side, but in fact you’re not emitting or receiving any actual information.

You’re only receiving what Google wants you to hear.

= = = = =

The better electrical analogy is a Wimshurst static generator. It’s simple and very old, but it doesn’t correspond to any useful modern circuit. It can’t be used for amplification or feedback control or power output. It can only be used to create damage and destruction, like Google’s algorithm.

Again reprinting:

In the Wimshurst machine, metal strips on the two glass discs constantly pass each other as the discs rotate oppositely. If one strip on the front disc (the Influencer) has slightly more negative charge, it will push electrons out of every strip it passes on the back disc. In turn, each of those slightly positive strips on the back disc will cause a slight increase in negativity on each strip it passes on the first disc. Soon all the strips on the front disc are strongly negative compared to the back disc, and the charge will be strong enough to break over and spark at the business end of the conductors.

The rule is: Every input, whether positive or negative, always leads to an increased charge in ONE direction. The charge builds up until it sparks over, causing war and chaos.