Virgil wanted his patriotic epic, The Aeneid, burned, but his dying wish was not honoured; the Augustus wanted it kept: it was just too useful as propaganda. But what kind of emperor has the time to manage every whim of a poet?

Of course, that sort of thing is delegated.

"Master Shakespeare, I hear that you are to treat of the villainous crook-backed usurper styled 'King Richard III'. I trust your play will deal kindly with King Henry Tudor; he was, after all, grandfather to our own dear sovereign lady. What were your thoughts?"

It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

Gaius Cilnius Maecenas and Sir Francis Walsingham both combined the roles of "patron of the arts" and "spy-master". Hence the first part of the idea title.

But it's hard to find just the right kind of highly-educated sociopath when you need them. And then they want paying, too.

Twitfacemazongle, alias "Surveillance Capitalism", already looms large in the intelligence-gathering space. So, why not use the same back-end software to discreetly promote the most helpful* content-creators? This is not about censorship of hostile voices; that's purely negative: no, this idea proposes the positive encouragement of genuinely talented people hoping to "make it".

Creepy? Undoubtedly. However, it would to some extent displace the existing system of having to sleep with the right people. So there's that.

*For some value of "helpful".
-- pertinax, Feb 10 2024

Walsingham https://en.wikipedi.../Francis_Walsingham
Some of you may remember Geoffrey Rush playing him in the 1998 film "Elizabeth". [pertinax, Feb 10 2024]

Maecenas https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Gaius_Maecenas
No-one knows what he really looked like. However, the "imaginary portrait engraving" from the C18th, shown in the wikipedia article, suggests that he, too, might be played by Geoffrey Rush. [pertinax, Feb 10 2024]

Structured sensory supply system Sort-of slightly similar [pocmloc, Feb 19 2024]

Perhaps this already exists? The algorithm has an agenda. That's why I try to not watch TV and get my news entirely from internet memes. If I watch, say, YouTube, and follow its recommendations for what to watch, soon enough I am being fed videos that seem to have a political message to them.

Artists are already highly aware of the algorithm; it's a small step to direct AI management as this idea describes.

The system of sleeping with the right people seems to apply to pop culture which is entirely focused on love songs, and is free from spymaster influence to the extent that it remains apolitical.

I wish I had read more biographies of interesting people in my youth. Would have been more useful than reading ~100 Hardy Boys novels.
-- sninctown, Feb 19 2024


Scientists already know which worldviews they have to push in order to be published.
-- Voice, Feb 19 2024



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