The People Machine

September 20, 2020 10:23 AM

In her new book If Then, Jill Lepore examines how the Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, and destablised politics, decades before Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. Read her New Yorker article on the subject and listen to her interview on Talking Politics.

Previously by Jill Lepore on Metafilter:

• Benny and Jenny, they were called, when they were little.
• Sunny days sweepin' the clouds away
• The Lingering of Loss
• The Disruption Machine

posted by adrianhon (9 comments total)

Jill Lepore is like the Joyce Carol Oates of nonfiction (not that JCO doesn't write nonfiction, too). How on earth does she manage to write so prolifically?
posted by PhineasGage at 10:30 AM on September 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

Excellent timing for me - I came across a reference to this book recently somewhere and was very curious to know more. I appreciate the links to the articles (and also to the previouslies - I had missed the Sesame Street one).

Thanks for posting this, adrianhon!
posted by kristi at 12:18 PM on September 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Jill Lepore is like the Joyce Carol Oates of nonfiction (not that JCO doesn't write nonfiction, too). How on earth does she manage to write so prolifically?
posted by PhineasGage at 1:30 PM on September 20

Your question was perhaps rhetorical, but Lepore addressed this a beautiful 2019 essay.
posted by cheapskatebay at 12:36 PM on September 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

(Which I now see was linked above... whoops. Sorry.)
posted by cheapskatebay at 12:58 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Fascinating story. I'm very curious about the book now.

(Eugene Burdick was quite an influencer, as we say now. The Ugly American and Fail-Safe!)
posted by doctornemo at 1:42 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Jill Lepore is the best.
posted by thivaia at 9:45 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

cheapskatebay, that essay is amazing.
posted by skyscraper at 10:44 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

(Which I now see was linked above... whoops. Sorry.)
posted by skyscraper at 10:46 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Not long after I started reading the NYRB item linked, I was thinking "psychohistory was in the air," but pulled up short when the reviewer put the election of 1960 as "about the same time" as Asimov began writing the Foundation Trilogy (which was composed starting in the 1940s). Am I just getting old? Was the election of FDR "about the same time" as the Korean War?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:15 AM on September 21, 2020