I’ve being annoyed with Amazon’s recommendations for a long time. What they think, who are they to recommend something for me? Not only daily recommendations but the whole history and future of recommendations. And why should I be interested in something someone else bought?

Now, I almost settled my nerves with Amazon, they just use statistical algorithms to sell more, when the message on NY Times website hit me hard: they want me to know what my friends like reading on NY Times. Why, for God’s sake, I would be interested in what someone else is reading? Do NY Times editors understand that they violate my privacy as a part of my identity? What they know about me or what they intend to do on me, to make such a suggestion? It’s a refined brainwashing.

NT Times is a serious paper. So, it’s not a slip, it is the policy of individuality smearing. Did mankind advance so far? As Edward O. Wilson reminded us in his The story of two ants, about 90 million years ago ants were nonsocial species, like wasps. Nowadays, when they number roughly in the million billions and weight about as much as all of humanity, they are among the key players of Earth’s terrestrial environment because they attained their dominion by means of the most advanced social organi- zation known among animals.