Similarly, British mathematician and entrepreneur Clive Humby said, "Data is the new oil." What he means is that data people used to perceive as worthless could become extremely valuable when refined and analyzed.

What's your take on all this?

Doug Casey: Data banks know practically everything about everybody. Trillions of microchips are increasingly interconnected. The Internet of Things lives in The Cloud. They're controlled by algorithms and increasingly by artificial intelligence. They're so complex that I wonder if they won't take on a life of their own. If SkyNet exists, it's bound to be growing larger and more powerful every day.

"They" know everything about us, both as individuals and as groups. It's very much like what Larry Ellison said 30 years ago, to the effect of "Forget privacy, it doesn't exist." And that was decades ago. It's orders of magnitude more true today.

Most of where we go, who we see, how we feel, what we do and have, say and write, believe and think, might seem trivial and of no value to others. But when thousands or millions of bits of these things are aggregated and analyzed, they form a pattern which "they" can use. And use it they do. Mostly in a subtle more-or-less benign way right now. But conditions can change.

International Man: Cellphones, computers, smart TVs, cars, Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and countless other devices and platforms collect enormous data about our interactions, preferences, and actions.

All of this information is stored and can be refined and analyzed.

What are the commercial implications of monetizing this data?