
If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future - sandwall
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/912644819/long-before-cambridge-analytica-and-facebook-simulmatics-linked-data-and-politic
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jrochkind1
Recent lengthy New Yorker article on the same topic, Simulmatics in the JFK
presidential campaign: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-the-
simulm...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-the-simulmatics-
corporation-invented-the-future)

And a couple subsequent letters from readers on the article:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/letters-
from-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/letters-from-the-
september-7-2020-issue)

The New Yorker article was odd to me for a New Yorker article, it had a lot of
historical context without a lot of details of what Simulmatics actually did
for the Kennedy campaign. Perhaps there isn't a lot of historical
record/people who want to talk about it. I was left feeing like I had learned
that the Simulmatics founders had an idea, and successfully sold it to the
Kennedy campaign and made some money, but not sure to what extent it actually
provided value in that actual campaign.

With some people suggesting the same might be true of Cambridge Analytica....
the more things change? (I have no opinion on what value either CA or
Simulmatics actually provided, I don't know enough).

I haven't listened to/read the NPR piece yet.

~~~
drewda
FYI, these are all excerpts or reviews of the same book by the historian Jill
Lepore. (I've quite enjoyed her writing over the years and highly recommend
it.)

~~~
jrochkind1
Jill Lepore is also a staff writer at New Yorker, whose writing appears
regularly in it.

But I guess her recent book is one reason why all these media outlets are
covering the same historical topic right now!

------
jgalt212
Her podcast, The Last Archive is good.

I enjoyed the following episodes. I have not listed to the entire season, so
the list below is not comprehensive.

[https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-5-project-x](https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-5-project-x)

[https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-7-the-
comput...](https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-7-the-computermen)

[https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-10-tomorrowl...](https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-1/episode-10-tomorrowland)

~~~
ngold
Groovy, always looking for a new one and this looks good. I wonder when Dan
Carlin is coming back?

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lazycrazyowl
Sentimetrix is another major player, who were the winner of DARPA competition
in this domain and have customer across public and private sectors.

[http://www.sentimetrix.com/](http://www.sentimetrix.com/)

------
dang
The CA aspect is distracting from the interesting part of this story, i.e. the
part that hasn't been discussed before. Curiosity wants diffs
([https://hn.algolia.com/?query=diffs%20by:dang&dateRange=all&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=diffs%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment)).

I've changed the title to be that of the book under review. Actually we've
started doing that for most book review posts (e.g.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24474073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24474073)).
It seems to make for better discussion.

------
andy_ppp
The problem back then I guess was there’s no feedback loop and a limit to the
propaganda you can produce.

------
mc32
What’s fascinating is that prior to CA helping targeting in the previous
election cycle, this capability was kind of embraced by politicians and
industry as the next evolution in political campaigning... but few recognized
an issue with that kind of data usage at the time...

~~~
dominotw
I remember media singing praises for Obama campaign about how effective they
were with social media. Using that to contrast him to mccain who apprently
didn't know how to use email.

~~~
dsaavy
This realization really pushed me away from mainstream media entirely. I
explicitly remember and can still find articles about Obama's campaign being
cutting edge by using "behavioral data"
([https://theweek.com/articles/451328/how-obama-won-
internet](https://theweek.com/articles/451328/how-obama-won-internet)). Yet
when the same actions were taken by conservative candidates it was ridiculed.
As an independent I just couldn't trust these sources any longer.

Yes the methods of data collection were slightly different between Obama's
campaign and what Cambridge Analytica did and sold to conservative candidates.
Obama's campaign claimed they didn't do as much with the data and it was
within the FB ToS, but these claims don't change the ethics and since 2004
both parties have been building their data infrastructure out to sway voters
([https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/10/obamas-secret-
we...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/10/obamas-secret-weapon-
democrats-have-a-massive-advantage-in-targeting-and-persuading-voters.html)).

Both parties are nefarious in their use of data and attempt to persuade voters
through micro-targeted outrage, and it makes me wary of ever voting for either
of the two parties' candidate.

~~~
loceng
The solution is to not allow targeting for political ads. Costs will go up as
you'll be competing for same eyes, and you'll have to spend more to reach
everyone you want - plus has added benefit of allowing to see what messaging
and narratives opposition is perpetuating.

~~~
xxpor
How is this even remotely practical? You're only allowed to have political ads
on nationally shown TV programs? Choosing to show an ad in Wisconsin and not
California is "targeting".

~~~
richardwhiuk
I think only allowing the advert to be targeted at the level that the campaign
is being run in is reasonable.

i.e. if you are campaigning for Governor of NY, you can target New York state,
but you can't target Manhattan, or Long Island, or men over 50, or people who
liked the NRA.

~~~
dillondoyle
that would kill list building and fundraising which are large digital
expenditures. non-presidentials barely spend on digital persuasion but they
will spend on fundraising if it raises

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Killing those things might not be a negative...

~~~
andrewjl
Doing so would destroy the ability of non-establishment candidates
representing salient issues, e.g. police violence in particular communities,
from effectively running grassroots campaigns.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Only if money remained the engine of political campaigns. But if others can't
raise money either, then I think that _helps_ the grass-roots candidates.

~~~
nitrogen
People who already have money could just spend it directly in that world,
couldn't they?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
They already do in this one. I will admit it would give the rich more of an
edge.

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lanevorockz
It's very silly to imagine that CA was the only player on the market. They are
just the one that worked for the incorrect candidate.

~~~
colordrops
Yes, we only ever hear about CA, and never about David Brock and Share Blue /
Correct the Record.

------
hardlianotion
Apologies for not reading the article, but the key feature of Cambridge
Analytica seems to have been that their stuff didn’t appear to work.

~~~
fsflover
Yes, it did work:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733)

Cambridge Analytica were the tip of the iceberg (graphcommons.com)

~~~
specialist
Thanks, I somehow missed this, will read shortly.

Meanwhile, one aspect of the 2016 presidential coverage that drives me nuts is
the omission that HRC's voter file was stolen and likely used by GOP, Trump,
Russia.

Meaning they knew _exactly_ who to target.

A campaign's voter file is it's Crown Jewels, it's secret sauce. It is the
campaign.

HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out what
was going on in time. Plus a zillion other things going on.

Again, will read your link soonest. It might help me fill in a few more of the
puzzle pieces.

~~~
xienze
> HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out
> what was going on in time.

Yeah, the problem is that they took those states (and it’s MI not MN) for
granted as safe blue states (which they had been for decades) and bought into
the “Hillary is so far ahead in the polls she doesn’t even think about Trump
anymore”[0] hype that they didn’t see the need to campaign there.

0: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-
clinton-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-so-
far-ahead-in-polls-that-doesnt-even-think-abo/)

~~~
specialist
That's among the least of my criticisms. But it's easy to criticize.

One unintuitive thing I wish was more easily explained:

Any given move to gain votes will lose other votes. It's a wicked hard
optimization problem.

------
dariusj18
There's nothing new about using data and analysis to attempt to target voters.
The issue with CA was the methods they used to obtain that data.

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ryanmarsh
Cambridge Analytica was a pissant compared to the data political parties
easily buy from advertising data companies. The whole controversy surrounding
them is like getting upset about grocery store discount cards but ignoring
that Facebook exists.

Also, campaigns don't have to buy or amass that data anymore. Facebook is the
largest purchaser of consumer data. So now if you use Facebook for campaign
ads you get all that "for free".

Lastly, wait until you find out what the NSA knows about you. Surely that data
would never be used for nefarious purposes...

