The natural anonymity of the Internet has lead to the organic growth of a lot of things that would otherwise not exist. In the past, if you had a weird idea, you kept it to yourself, now you go online, find others with the weird idea, and devolve into an echo chamber of reaffirmation. So in that sense it is partly organic.
"literally a simulation" would be an exaggeration, but algorithmically sorted content specifically to drive narrative does exist and was artificially created, either by tech or by government.
Yes, elements of the government, esp. in the CIA, have admitted that social engineering was heavily researched and experimented with beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. My take is that its about 65/35 between a large amount of the trend described in the first paragraph, and actual attempts at social engineering.
I think it is some of both.
The natural anonymity of the Internet has lead to the organic growth of a lot of things that would otherwise not exist. In the past, if you had a weird idea, you kept it to yourself, now you go online, find others with the weird idea, and devolve into an echo chamber of reaffirmation. So in that sense it is partly organic.
"literally a simulation" would be an exaggeration, but algorithmically sorted content specifically to drive narrative does exist and was artificially created, either by tech or by government.
Yes, elements of the government, esp. in the CIA, have admitted that social engineering was heavily researched and experimented with beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. My take is that its about 65/35 between a large amount of the trend described in the first paragraph, and actual attempts at social engineering.