Episode 79
Surveillance Capitalism in the Age of the Unprecedented | Shoshana Zuboff
Episode 79
Shoshana Zuboff
Surveillance Capitalism in the Age of the Unprecedented | Shoshana Zuboff
summary
In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri speaks with Shoshana Zuboff, whose career has been devoted to the study of the rise of the digital, its individual, organizational, and social consequences, and its relationship to the history and future of capitalism.
In 1609, while in search of a rumored, northeast passage to Asia on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, the English explorer and navigator Henry Hudson, landed on what is modern day New York City.
Though written accounts exist of Hudson’s encounters with local tribes, native accounts have been handed down to us through oral tradition, often transcribed much later by missionaries and settlers. In 1765, a Moravian missionary who lived for many years among the Delaware and Mohican tribes recorded a native account of the first meeting:
“A long time ago, some Indians who had been out fishing, where the sea widens, spied at a great distance something remarkably large swimming or floating on the water. It was agreed among those who were spectators, that as this phenomenon moved towards the land, it would be well to inform all the Indians on the inhabited islands. Chiefs, from scattered tribes who arrived in numbers, concluded the strange appearance to be a large canoe or house, in which the great Supreme Being himself was coming to visit them.“
Such descriptions by native peoples of their first encounters with white settlers were common throughout the Americas. The first man to bring news to the great Aztec King Montezuma of Spanish ships described what he saw from the Gulf coast as “towers or small mountains floating on the waves of the sea.” In other accounts, natives looked from the shore and thought the awesome, approaching ships were giant, white seabirds or floating islands. There are even theories that the Arawak – the first tribe to encounter Columbus’ ships off the coast of Hispaniola – could at first, see only their ripples across the horizon. They were unable to picture what was for them, unprecedented. Unimagined. Alien.
What all these people had in common was that they were unable to name, let alone recognize a force of creative destruction so vast and boundless that it would make their worlds unrecognizable, their homes uninhabitable, and their lives unlivable. They were unable to see the ships and their crew for what they were – the vessels of conquerors, pillagers, and looters of unsullied lands. Unable to name them, they welcomed them, agents of their own annihilation.
This week, on Hidden Forces, we explore the unprecedented force of surveillance capitalism – how it threatens to dispossess us of our experiences, our sanctuaries, and our very lives.
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
bio
Shoshana Zuboff joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1981. One of the first tenured women at the school, she was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration. In 2014 and 2015 she was a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Her career has been devoted to the study of the rise of the digital, its individual, organizational, and social consequences, and its relationship to the history and future of capitalism. She also founded and led the executive education program, Odyssey: School for the Second Half of Life.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Neque solum ea communia, verum etiam paria esse dixerunt. Nunc agendum est subtilius. Vos autem cum perspicuis dubia debeatis illustrare, dubiis perspicua conamini tollere. Quasi ego id curem, quid ille aiat aut neget. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Aeque enim contingit omnibus fidibus, ut incontentae sint. Qualem igitur hominem natura inchoavit? Quae quidem sapientes sequuntur duce natura tamquam videntes;
Ait enim se, si uratur, Quam hoc suave! dicturum. Quamvis enim depravatae non sint, pravae tamen esse possunt. Videamus igitur sententias eorum, tum ad verba redeamus. Ita enim vivunt quidam, ut eorum vita refellatur oratio. Hoc ille tuus non vult omnibusque ex rebus voluptatem quasi mercedem exigit. Vitiosum est enim in dividendo partem in genere numerare. Nunc haec primum fortasse audientis servire debemus. Vos autem cum perspicuis dubia debeatis illustrare, dubiis perspicua conamini tollere. Quamquam ab iis philosophiam et omnes ingenuas disciplinas habemus; Etenim nec iustitia nec amicitia esse omnino poterunt, nisi ipsae per se expetuntur. Quae contraria sunt his, malane?
Quid ergo attinet gloriose loqui, nisi constanter loquare? Contemnit enim disserendi elegantiam, confuse loquitur. Antiquorum autem sententiam Antiochus noster mihi videtur persequi diligentissime, quam eandem Aristoteli fuisse et Polemonis docet.
Obsecro, inquit, Torquate, haec dicit Epicurus? Illa tamen simplicia, vestra versuta. Claudii libidini, qui tum erat summo ne imperio, dederetur. Quae quo sunt excelsiores, eo dant clariora indicia naturae.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quamquam tu hanc copiosiorem etiam soles dicere. Hinc ceteri particulas arripere conati suam quisque videro voluit afferre sententiam. Erat enim res aperta. Quid, quod res alia tota est? Commoda autem et incommoda in eo genere sunt, quae praeposita et reiecta diximus; Ita ceterorum sententiis semotis relinquitur non mihi cum Torquato, sed virtuti cum voluptate certatio. Id et fieri posse et saepe esse factum et ad voluptates percipiendas maxime pertinere. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Duo enim genera quae erant, fecit tria. Ne in odium veniam, si amicum destitero tueri. At ille pellit, qui permulcet sensum voluptate.
Scio enim esse quosdam, qui quavis lingua philosophari possint; Iubet igitur nos Pythius Apollo noscere nosmet ipsos. Quod quidem nobis non saepe contingit. Quae quidem sapientes sequuntur duce natura tamquam videntes; Quid est, quod ab ea absolvi et perfici debeat? Quis enim confidit semper sibi illud stabile et firmum permansurum, quod fragile et caducum sit? Fortasse id optimum, sed ubi illud: Plus semper voluptatis? Quamquam id quidem, infinitum est in hac urbe;
Quae contraria sunt his, malane? Ex quo, id quod omnes expetunt, beate vivendi ratio inveniri et comparari potest. Nec vero alia sunt quaerenda contra Carneadeam illam sententiam. Ergo opifex plus sibi proponet ad formarum quam civis excellens ad factorum pulchritudinem?
Itaque haec cum illis est dissensio, cum Peripateticis nulla sane. Inquit, dasne adolescenti veniam? Nemo igitur esse beatus potest. Esse enim, nisi eris, non potes. Et ais, si una littera commota sit, fore tota ut labet disciplina. Ex ea difficultate illae fallaciloquae, ut ait Accius, malitiae natae sunt. Atque his de rebus et splendida est eorum et illustris oratio. Theophrastus mediocriterne delectat, cum tractat locos ab Aristotele ante tractatos?
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Itaque primos congressus copulationesque et consuetudinum instituendarum voluntates fieri propter voluptatem; Hanc quoque iucunditatem, si vis, transfer in animum; Quid, si non sensus modo ei sit datus, verum etiam animus hominis? Ergo hoc quidem apparet, nos ad agendum esse natos. Quaesita enim virtus est, non quae relinqueret naturam, sed quae tueretur. Quid autem habent admirationis, cum prope accesseris? Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Si stante, hoc natura videlicet vult, salvam esse se, quod concedimus;
Utrum igitur tibi litteram videor an totas paginas commovere? Sed eum qui audiebant, quoad poterant, defendebant sententiam suam. Cur id non ita fit? An hoc usque quaque, aliter in vita?
Itaque hic ipse iam pridem est reiectus; Est tamen ea secundum naturam multoque nos ad se expetendam magis hortatur quam superiora omnia. Inde sermone vario sex illa a Dipylo stadia confecimus. Videmusne ut pueri ne verberibus quidem a contemplandis rebus perquirendisque deterreantur? Vadem te ad mortem tyranno dabis pro amico, ut Pythagoreus ille Siculo fecit tyranno? Id enim volumus, id contendimus, ut officii fructus sit ipsum officium.
Serpere anguiculos, nare anaticulas, evolare merulas, cornibus uti videmus boves, nepas aculeis. Nisi autem rerum natura perspecta erit, nullo modo poterimus sensuum iudicia defendere. Esse enim quam vellet iniquus iustus poterat inpune. Nam si quae sunt aliae, falsum est omnis animi voluptates esse e corporis societate. Eam si varietatem diceres, intellegerem, ut etiam non dicente te intellego; Suam denique cuique naturam esse ad vivendum ducem.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Non autem hoc: igitur ne illud quidem. Sed nonne merninisti licere mihi ista probare, quae sunt a te dicta? Ut pulsi recurrant?
Duo Reges: constructio interrete. An tu me de L. Potius inflammat, ut coercendi magis quam dedocendi esse videantur. Nihilne te delectat umquam -video, quicum loquar-, te igitur, Torquate, ipsum per se nihil delectat? Hanc ergo intuens debet institutum illud quasi signum absolvere. Theophrastus mediocriterne delectat, cum tractat locos ab Aristotele ante tractatos? Neque solum ea communia, verum etiam paria esse dixerunt. Nulla profecto est, quin suam vim retineat a primo ad extremum.
Inscite autem medicinae et gubernationis ultimum cum ultimo sapientiae comparatur. Iis igitur est difficilius satis facere, qui se Latina scripta dicunt contemnere. Eodem modo is enim tibi nemo dabit, quod, expetendum sit, id esse laudabile. Vitae autem degendae ratio maxime quidem illis placuit quieta. Hoc enim identidem dicitis, non intellegere nos quam dicatis voluptatem. Ex ea difficultate illae fallaciloquae, ut ait Accius, malitiae natae sunt.
Deinde dolorem quem maximum? Atqui, inquam, Cato, si istud optinueris, traducas me ad te totum licebit. Quid, si reviviscant Platonis illi et deinceps qui eorum auditores fuerunt, et tecum ita loquantur? Qui non moveatur et offensione turpitudinis et comprobatione honestatis? Quae diligentissime contra Aristonem dicuntur a Chryippo. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio.