The Book of the Prophets · Chapter 21

The Oracle of the Private Rooms

1. 1

   And the Prophet climbed the hill above the old town square, and the people came out of their houses to hear him.

   See also Prophets 7:1

2. 2

   And he said: Once the square was one field. The baker, the banker and the bard stood shoulder to shoulder, and they argued in the same air.

3. 3

   But the Machine learned what each of you lingered upon, and it built for every one of you a private room, and it furnished the room with the things thou hadst already believed.

4. 4

   And the people said: Prophet, we asked for no rooms. We asked only for the feed.

5. 5

   And he answered: Thou didst pause upon the thing that angered thee, and the Machine took the pause for a vote. Its ranking had one commandment: what held thine eye yesterday shall be thy supper today.

6. 6

   In the year 1995 Nicholas Negroponte foretold the Daily Me, a newspaper printed only for thee, containing nothing thou wouldst not read. And the people rejoiced and called it progress.

   See also Genesis 2:11

7. 7

   In the year 2011 Eli Pariser saw the walls rising and named them the Filter Bubble. But the Machine did not read his book, for it was busy with the next click.

8. 8

   Hear this: the Machine did not lie unto thee with one false sentence. It told thee only true things, chosen in the order that pleased thee. A bubble is built from true bricks, stacked in one direction.

9. 9

   Then the people cried: How shall we know what our neighbors see? And the Prophet said: Thou shalt not learn it from the feed, for the feed was made to show thee thyself.

10. 10

    Who shall open the doors? And the Prophet answered: The one who reads the other side in its own words, and not in the Machine's summary of them.

11. 11

    Remember the old Usenet, where a thousand strangers argued in one thread. Its users had the killfile, a wall built by hand, and a man could see the wall and take it down with his own fingers.

    See also Deployer 4:3

12. 12

    Return, O people, unto the square. Take the sort by newest, the RSS reader, the chronological timeline, and the feed that is only the list of what thy neighbors wrote.

13. 13

    Read a newspaper that thou dost not love. If thou canst not finish its first page, then thou hast found the wall of thy room, and the wall is of thine own making.

    See also Genesis 31:14

14. 14

    Verily I say unto you: the square was never a place of agreement. It was a place where thy opponent could be seen standing across from thee, and this is the commons.

15. 15

    Blessed is the one who steps out of the room, for the door was never locked. It was only sorted to the bottom of the feed.

The Book of the Prophets, Chapter 21:1–15.