The man speaks:

case specific data driven verdicts are already superior to human judgment in many critical sectors, medical, legal, financial and military (de Kerckhove, 13)

The man continues: 

When I announce my “data driven verdicts” in any of these areas (to mention just these) you must give me your mind, your purse, your life, your child.

McLuhan to Harold Innis, March 14, 1951:

The diagnosis of [t]his type [of authoritarian political manipulation] is best found, so far as I know, in Wyndham Lewis’s The Art of Being Ruled. That pamphlet is probably the most radical political document since Machiavelli’s Prince. But whereas Machiavelli was concerned with the use of society as raw material for the arts of power, Lewis reverses the perspective and tries to discern the human shape once more in a vast technological landscape which has been ordered on Machiavellian lines. (Letters 222)

In the 18 months Innis had to live, he found time to read Lewis’ book and to reference it in his last work, The Changing Concepts of Time (1952). But Prof de Kerckhove, the head of the UT McLuhan Centre for 25 years, appears not to have received the memo. 

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Prof de Kerckhove’s essay¹ gives a snapshot of the digital present (often presented in the mode of the foreseeable future) — which is, however, entirely a replay of past times as seen in the RVM. 

A series of posts here will delineate 3 points in regard to it:

1. how far the man is already in our heads and speaks through us;
2. how the multilevel historical dimension (as opposed to the RVM single surface level) is completely absent from de Kerckhove’s essay so that (for example) no note is made of how Lewis already found such “a new social order” (6-7) menacing, crazy and comical all at once (and so became McLuhan’s Virgilian guide into the new inferno whose circles become radio waves were already bending minds and the whole social environment for the man);
3. how de Kerckhove’s descriptions point via Socratic eristics to the sort of answer McLuhan attempted unsuccessfully to communicate.

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That the man is firmly lodged in de Kerckhove’s descriptions of our Digital Transformation² may be seen in citations from his essay which are so dystopian and yet so funny at the same time that it is hard to know what he was thinking. Surely not what he himself was writing! So, for example, where he opines that our

a new social order will self-organize and fall into place. It will be driven by survival to respond first to the threat of environmental annihilation and second, by the need to protect humans from rampant terrorism, tax evasion and utter poverty. (de Kerckhove, 6-7)

“The need to protect humans from (…) tax evasion” as “driven by survival”! That is, you must become your own thought police as regards your taxes (to mention just these) — if the planet is to survive! So pay up! And while you are at it, sniff out whether your neighbour is paying up! Or we will all die! (Lower on the list of threats, apparently, are nuclear war and mind-death through incessant virtue signalling.) 

Again:

The question, as in all political systems, would be how to counter efficiently or prevent human abuse of the system. (de Kerckhove, 14)

Not system abuse of the human but human abuse of the system! Yikes! Help!

And finally: 

assuming that data analysis steered by Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), including mood and sentiment [assessment], would focus on the community, instead of addressing mainly [typo for ‘merely’?] individuals (…) Automated policy–making, regulation and execution of different measures would guarantee increased social good [just ask us!] and thereby reach a higher consensus in the community [whereby alien thought and alien individuals would have to be corrected or eliminated — despite what McLuhan may have said on the artist as outlaw!]. In a political system that is yet to be invented,[but fervently to be desired] for anyone to be entitled to participate  [entitled to participate!] in any policy-making, voters would have to provide evidence [provide evidence! to whom? or, rather, to what machine controlled by whom?] that they were informed, competent and ethical [informed, competent and ethical!]. This could be assessed by analytics. [Miracolo divino!] Access to decision-making would be given [given!] according to the level of competence every citizen achieved [the level of competence achieved!]. (…) In a political system grounded in AGI, [Artificial General Intelligence!] a mature SAS [Symbiotic Autonomous Systems] environment (local or global) would have to emulate for the whole system in real time the kind of survival alertness and opportunity awareness [survival alertness and opportunity awareness!] that each one of us possess[es] individually. [Or might possess individually if these had not been assigned/alienated to the man and his “analytics” team.] That would mean, for example, not recommending [“not recommending”! wink, wink!] a decision that would harm the environment in the long term or identifying and presenting opportunities for improvements to (…) personal processes. (de Kerckhove, 15-16)

This is Plato’s φύλακες (guardians), la Inquisición española, Rousseau’s volonté générale, Marx’s Diktatur des Proletariats and the FAANG stock brotherhood all rolled into one! And now algorithmized! “Automated policy-making, regulation and execution of different measures would guarantee increased social good“. Yes, sir!

Side note: Any problems with this vision may be taken up with the citizen feedback facility. Thank you for calling. Our menu has recently changed so listen carefully to the following options. Push 1 at any time to return to the main menu; push 2 for your options (push ‘1’ for yes and ‘0’ for no); push 3 for further options (push ‘1’ for yes and ‘0’ for no); push 4 if you wish to leave a message for our attention; push 5 if you wish to hang up now to answer your door where the gentlemen there will assist you with your further options. 

But surely I have wildly misunderstood de Kerckhove’s essay and associated interview! Surely I have missed the irony at play here! Surely this is the indirect communication manoeuvre described by Kierkegaard as ‘dropping the guitar’! Surely this is a dire warning and not enthusiastic anticipation!