Kortsluiting

Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority, and has, I think, three critical characteristics.

Precisely because it is such a convenient receptacle for our hopes and dreams, real estate, like baseball, is a national pastime. The American obsession with property and land is as old as the country itself; its most recent symptoms have included, but not been limited to, television channels devoted to home décor, house hunting, and renovations, magazines and websites devoted to the same, and a housing bubble that finally popped and tanked the economy. New York, in particular, is famous for its real-estate fetish. You can’t walk five blocks in many parts of the city without passing a real-estate office and New Yorkers are notorious for shamelessly asking one another how much they pay—or paid—for their permanent accommodations.