All Seeing, All Knowing, All Controlling (?)

More and more stuff is "free" but it does come at a price.

An Amazon Prime Membership of $99 per year is a bargain for the two-day free shipping alone, but Amazon has added thousands of free streaming videos, and now there's free streaming music. I gave Amazon Music a try this month for its Holiday library; the e-mail I received today is a reminder that Big Jeff is not only watching, but sifting, collating, and categorizing everything I watch, listen to, read, and buy.

Google, Facebook, Apple, and others are all trying to do what Amazon is doing. Each has access to different compartments of our lives, what we produce (photos, emails, text messages) and what we consume.

You know, Jeff Bezos kinda looks like Big Brother

Some say the objective of all this information-gathering is predicting what we will do next, but that betrays a lack of ambition. Control--for example, nudging our political views in a certain direction without us being aware--is the ultimate prize.

Christian theology teaches that though God sees and knows all, mankind has free will to follow or reject God. As our society rushes pell-mell to the brave new Big-Data world of the 21st century, that God seems a bit restrained.