JFK’s Secret Weapon – IOTW Report

JFK’s Secret Weapon

NPR

Decades before Google or Facebook existed, a Madison Avenue advertising man started a company called Simulmatics based on a then-revolutionary method of using computers to forecast how people would behave.

Formed in 1959, Simulmatics charged clients a hefty fee to access its “people machine” — a computer program that drew on polling information and behavioral science to predict mathematically the impact of an advertising pitch or political message. More

Author of the book on Simulmatics, “If Then,” Jill Lepore’s article in the New Yorker. Here

14 Comments on JFK’s Secret Weapon

  1. I apologize profusely for this OT comment, but I just read this comment on YT while listening to Shine on You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd – and it’s so funny I had to share – either that or you will all think I’m nuts… “If you listen to this song high on mushrooms, totally naked with all the lights off… your boss will tell you to go home.”

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  2. Sounds like someone was able to make Issac Asimov’s “Foundation” (1951) psychohistory work for them.
    You cannot predict the movement of a single individual, but given a large enough population, you can predict its movement.

    5
  3. …computers aren’t intelligent or intuitive.

    Computers are programmed.

    And in computer programming, it’s a one-man birthday party.

    You don’t get any presents you don’t bring.

    The algorithm will be only as predictive as the person who writes it is.

    …and THOSE guys don’t get OUT much…

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  4. The book’s title: “If Then, How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future” seems to offer a lot more than the author can probably deliver. Affecting the outcome of an election was likely done earlier, like what Wm. Randolph Hearst was able to do with his newspapers.

    These eye-catching book names are invented by publisher’s marketing sluts (male and female). This type of thing has happened before. Author Simon Winchester wrote a book about the San Andreas fault with the title: A Crack In The Edge of The World. Another one of his books was about the eruption of Krakatoa in the 1880’s, titled: The Day The World (or Earth) Exploded.

    I usually stay away from books with overly dramatic titles like that.

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