Using Protection

Most of the employment stories related to the AI-fueled tech boom are about the potential job losses. But the extreme wealth and social media-inflamed rage of the era has led to at least one area of significant job growth: Bodyguards. “Bodyguarding is at least as old as Alexander the Great’s somatophylakes, or ‘body guardians,’ and the Praetorian Guard, which emerged to protect Roman rulers as the Republic gave way to imperial rule around 27 BCE. During that time, as now, the erosion of democratic norms and free discourse helped create a market to keep the powerful alive … Today, there are additional potential accelerants: a scummy soup of social media; unchecked inequality; and unrestrained bombast at every level of government and society, algorithmically optimized to reward the most controversial voices.” Grayson Schaffer in GQ: Meet the Bodyguards Signing Up to Protect America’s Frightened Billionaires. (Alt link.)

+ The violent speech online often bleeds into real life. So does the vigilantism. The merging of our on- and offline worlds is in full (and fully disturbing) view in this NYT (Gift Article) story about livestreaming vigilantes who ambushed an innocent man. They Tried to Catch a Predator. They Trapped Themselves Instead. “Akash had been ensnared by a business venture that traffics in public humiliation as entertainment. That he was innocent of what he was accused of only served to draw a bigger crowd.” The most vile aspects of social media sort of ruined the internet. Are they coming for real life next?