In 2016 the team at Google X (Now X) lead by futurist designer Nick Foster released an internal video for his Google colleagues. The video was called “The Selfish Ledger” and set out a concept for a system that Palantir would be proud of.

The video is alleged to have been only for insiders but with social engineering techniques being a way of introducing a concept into the zeitgeist, I believe this was about putting the concept out there to make it seem familiar in the years to come.

The theory put forth in the video builds upon Richard Dawkins book “The Selfish Gene”. Nick Foster was the co-founder of the Near Future Laboratory and recorded the voice over for the video which you can see below.

The video was designed to be disturbing, and as it was only allegedly meant as a thought exercise. A Google X spokesperson made it clear that this was not a product this is in development.

That may well be the case in terms of an actual product called The Selfish Ledger, but are we really to believe that DARPA created Google owned by Alphabet is not applying these concepts, ideas and principles to other technologies?

The simple act of discussing this idea is data gathering itself.

The Selfish Ledger concept was based in part on the work of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who was a French Biologist and naturalist. He believed that the more a character trait is used by a living organism the stronger it becomes and then that new characteristic is passed on down through the DNA to its bloodline.

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