The Algorithm That Changed What You Believed: Recommendation Engines, Filter Bubbles, and the Architecture of Epistemic Drift

Right now, without your awareness, a piece of software is deciding what version of the world you see next.

It is not a coincidence that your feed always seems to know exactly what will hold your attention. It is not luck that certain ideas feel more plausible than they did a year ago, or that the people who disagree with you seem increasingly unreasonable. These are the predictable outcomes of systems built to do one thing with extraordinary precision: keep you engaged, at any epistemic cost...