Surveillance Capitalism

[Newbornbairn]

I like it. Two Pavlovian whistles in the title. Doubleplus good. 

 

 

[D.A.F.C]

6 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

What?

It's a theory, not in a conspiratorial sense but in that the politicians know that we know that they know the things they present are in a sense false but nobody really knows how to fix it.

This is happening in Russia with Surkov and with the banks here or Middle East wars. 

It's just a theory and personally I agree with it, politics and policies has become so fake and insincere that nobody knows how to sort it because the true power lies elsewhere anyway. Also people know there's something wrong but don't want to get involved or seem bewildered and scared at how confusing it all is. Some retreat into conspiracy theories to make sense of it all but then that blurs things even further.

So really it is all a bit fake, you only need to look to trump to see what a disaster politics has become. I dont believe that it was really a rise of the right wing or anything it was a chance for the working class of America to say f**k you we don't trust politics its all BS this guy is different we don't actually believe his politics but it might change things. Trump played on that as well get back to a better simpler time jobs for all. It was all false. You could say the same about brexit, people looking for a Britain that never existed sold to them by people who didn't really believe it either. Wave your flag, immigrants are bad. Scary monsters just like assad, saddam, communism, isis. Good vs evil.

Bit rambling but hope you understand.

[D.A.F.C]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

 

Pretty much, you can live in a bubble quite happily as long as you're OK everything else is.

 

[The Moonster]

18 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

It's a theory, not in a conspiratorial sense but in that the politicians know that we know that they know the things they present are in a sense false but nobody really knows how to fix it.

What things? 

[Shandon Par]

10 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

Interesting topic and something that all of us are involved in. In the last twenty years there's been a huge transfer of power, data and money over to a few companies all in the name of progress but is it really for our benefit?

Thinking about getting her book and looking into it further. It seems on the outside that its some sort of nutball tinfoil hat stuff but it really isn't. The next step for this could be control of towns, cities and their inhabitants. She argues that pokemon go was an experiment in this technique. Cafes, pubs, clubs rewarding people for attending and the major companies getting cash and data for it? Could that be possible?

Will probably get ripped for posting this but I find this really interesting. 

Any other good reading or vidoes/docs on this?

 

She was on the Adam Buxton podcast. She was very annoying as she was eating her lunch the whole way through it. Thought what it really showed is that people are very clever at making money from playing on the fears of others. I know my phone listens to me and emails me strange suggestions for things I might want to buy. 
 

The world really isn’t that different. Technology is simply doing the same stuff we’ve always had. Instead of tabloids influencing opinion we have social media sites. These folk get into a bit of a paranoid wormhole. What is going on in her world genuinely doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to mine. Companies want to sell you stuff. Shock horror. 

[D.A.F.C]

8 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

What things? 

Lots of things. Like the Iraq war or wars for example. Put into a simple narrative to hide the real reasons.

Or how or why hardly any bankers were arrested or put on trial for one of the biggest transfers of wealth in modern times. Every family in the uk shelled out £24k but we have to live in austerity. 

To me these are massive issues and they hardly get mentioned or do people even care? That's what I mean by false its false on both sides.

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Lots of things. Like the Iraq war or wars for example. Put into a simple narrative to hide the real reasons.

Or how or why hardly any bankers were arrested or put on trial for one of the biggest transfers of wealth in modern times. Every family in the uk shelled out £24k but we have to live in austerity. 

To me these are massive issues and they hardly get mentioned or do people even care? That's what I mean by false its false on both sides.

Right, I'm with you now I think. There's no doubt that the population are largely passive which allows these things to happen but I don't really see it as a "false world" that nobody knows how to fix. Iceland jailed their bankers and politicians because their people stood up and demanded it. We sat back and took it because largely our population don't care about politics (to quote Marshmallow here) as long as they've got their Ant & Dec's Celebrity X Factor Brother on the telly box and a holiday to look forward to. We accept complete apathy towards our politics and that creates these black holes in which politicians can essentially operate as thieves. 

There's no doubt our politics needs reformed which is why I'm such a supporter of independence. Our parliament isn't perfect but it's run far better than Westminster and I have hope we could shape a better, more accountable set of politics, closer to those in Scandinavia if left to our own devices.

[101]

1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

politicians can essentially operate as thieves. 

Not can. They do act as thieves.

[beefybake]

5 hours ago, hk blues said:

Fair enough for those living in countries like the UK but much of what you've described doesn't apply to a large proportion of the world's population - including where I am now.  In fact, what you've described doesn't even necessarily apply to everyone in the UK!  

By quite a long way.

GordonS is describing an 'I'm all right Jack' scenario, and doesn't feel the need to ask questions.

[D.A.F.C]

5 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Right, I'm with you now I think. There's no doubt that the population are largely passive which allows these things to happen but I don't really see it as a "false world" that nobody knows how to fix. Iceland jailed their bankers and politicians because their people stood up and demanded it. We sat back and took it because largely our population don't care about politics (to quote Marshmallow here) as long as they've got their Ant & Dec's Celebrity X Factor Brother on the telly box and a holiday to look forward to. We accept complete apathy towards our politics and that creates these black holes in which politicians can essentially operate as thieves. 

There's no doubt our politics needs reformed which is why I'm such a supporter of independence. Our parliament isn't perfect but it's run far better than Westminster and I have hope we could shape a better, more accountable set of politics, closer to those in Scandinavia if left to our own devices.

Agreed, getting towards that type of system would be better. As seen with the snp though they can be corrupt and awful as well. I realise that independence doesn't mean snp, the opposite, but perhaps we can get something similar to Iceland. To be more real, accountable and for all.

[jimbaxters]

1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

Agreed, getting towards that type of system would be better. As seen with the snp though they can be corrupt and awful as well. I realise that independence doesn't mean snp, the opposite, but perhaps we can get something similar to Iceland. To be more real, accountable and for all.

Aye but it smells like farts there apparently so it's not all great.

[D.A.F.C]

19 minutes ago, jimbaxters said:

Aye but it smells like farts there apparently so it's not all great.

Aye but you get 10 magnums for a pound.

[NotThePars]

By quite a long way.
GordonS is describing an 'I'm all right Jack' scenario, and doesn't feel the need to ask questions.

Aye I didn’t know Steven Pinker posted on this website.


Anyway, this thread is reminding me of when Pitchfork slagged off M.I.A for writing a song about Google spying on you for the government then publicly apologised when the NSA leaks happened.

[NotThePars]

It's a theory, not in a conspiratorial sense but in that the politicians know that we know that they know the things they present are in a sense false but nobody really knows how to fix it.
This is happening in Russia with Surkov and with the banks here or Middle East wars. 
It's just a theory and personally I agree with it, politics and policies has become so fake and insincere that nobody knows how to sort it because the true power lies elsewhere anyway. Also people know there's something wrong but don't want to get involved or seem bewildered and scared at how confusing it all is. Some retreat into conspiracy theories to make sense of it all but then that blurs things even further.
So really it is all a bit fake, you only need to look to trump to see what a disaster politics has become. I dont believe that it was really a rise of the right wing or anything it was a chance for the working class of America to say f**k you we don't trust politics its all BS this guy is different we don't actually believe his politics but it might change things. Trump played on that as well get back to a better simpler time jobs for all. It was all false. You could say the same about brexit, people looking for a Britain that never existed sold to them by people who didn't really believe it either. Wave your flag, immigrants are bad. Scary monsters just like assad, saddam, communism, isis. Good vs evil.
Bit rambling but hope you understand.

[GAD]

20 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

 

Aye I didn’t know Steven Pinker posted on this website.


Anyway, this thread is reminding me of when Pitchfork slagged off M.I.A for writing a song about Google spying on you for the government then publicly apologised when the NSA leaks happened.

 

MIA also says vaccines have microchips in them and 5g gives you Covid. Maybe she's right about that too?

[coprolite]

13 hours ago, Margaret Thatcher said:

I have long had a theory which seems eminently sensible, but which I've never looked into substantiating academically, that basically all political/economic systems are destined to repeat each other's tyrannies. It's not because the specific system itself is evil but just a part of the human condition that we're doomed to repeat, society after society until we cease to exist.

It's basically the inevitable outcome of having a single "value" as the ultimate purpose of the social order. Every other aspect of society is cannibalised to reinforce that overarching value. Compare communism, wherein that value was the strength of the party, with capitalism, wherein that value is the strength of the currency.

I don't know enough about communism to feel comfortable with my comparisons, but I'll venture a couple of illustrations. For example, see the fact footballers for communist countries were often held accountable as representatives of the party/state, while footballers in capitalist countries are now held accountable for their actions as representatives of various brands. See also the emphasis in communist countries in the notion of "community" and "solidarity", so that the largest number of people can be influenced at a time, and the way more niche interests like football are sanitised and redesigned so that they can be marketed to the largest number of people at a time. Or how many communist countries implemented centralised agrarian policies which eliminated crop diversity to maximize production of a small number of basic goods, and how under capitalism crop diversity has drastically fallen as centralised corporations grow hand picked GM crops etc. These are not the most robust examples but you get my point.

Anyway, if that's the case, then the loss of privacy in favour of using intelligence about individuals to support the overarching value - whether the strength of the party or the strength of the currency - is inevitable. We may see corporations holding back from certain practices for PR reasons. For example, if the Stasi etc didn't have such a bad name, I'm sure corporations would have no issue paying people to supply detailed info in their friends' and relatives' tastes and buying habits. But in general, it makes sense that surveillance would steadily increase over time.

Likewise, the average person then and now, like a frog in a heating pot, probably won't complain. "That's just how the world is", they'll think. Then eventually, the system will disintegrate and give way to something new, and the citizens of the new system will look back at capitalism with horror. "The system literally battled to crush your autonomy so it could get you to spend money" they'll say, or "it was so hard for people to discover new things, to explore ideas, because all the advertising sought to reinforce their existing tastes". And at the same time, those people won't even realize they're trapped in the exact same thing. It's all just a weird, habitual, psycho rat race which we can never escape.

Or so goes my theory. But I'm probably talking shit.

I like your theory. I think your conclusion is a bit of a jump from the evidence you've presented but it could be worth more work. 

It's definitely an interesting point about the homogenisation of production.  Less convinced by the footballer thing though. 

I think there's an underlying truth in there. I'd guess that some things just happen under any stable system because of economic logic (the standardisation), and some things are common features that derive from human nature.  Our biology compels us to seek power over others and resources, information lets us do that, so in any system those with the power to obtain and use it will do so. 

[The Moonster]

This might be a ridiculously stupid question, but why can't we monetise our data? If Google want to track me and use the data I give them, I want paid, I don't want free use of Google Maps. I should be able to invoice these c***s every time they collect some info from me. 

Also - @Stormzy you seem disagree with what I said previously and simultaneously agree with DAFC, who was pretty much agreeing with me. I'm happy to debate.

Edited February 23, 2021 by The Moonster

[NotThePars]

MIA also says vaccines have microchips in them and 5g gives you Covid. Maybe she's right about that too?

Maybe she possesses the lathe of heaven

[SANTAN]

35 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

This might be a ridiculously stupid question, but why can't we monetise our data? If Google want to track me and use the data I give them, I want paid, I don't want free use of Google Maps. I should be able to invoice these c***s every time they collect some info from me. 

Also - @Stormzy you seem disagree with what I said previously and simultaneously agree with DAFC, who was pretty much agreeing with me. I'm happy to debate.

Aye I found your point about Independence and accountability and corruption to be incredulous considering the current state of the SG. 

I'd suggest this week would not be the best time to be singing the praises of accountability in the SG.

[The Moonster]

Just now, Stormzy said:

Aye I found your point about Independence and accountability and corruption to be incredulous considering the current state of the SG. 

I'd suggest this week would not be the best time to be singing the praises of accountability in the SG.

I think you've picked me up wrong. I'm not praising the current holders of power in government for their transparency or accountability, I'm endorsing the way our parliament elects people. The proportional representation system we use gives a fairer outlook on voter opinion and makes it easier for us to shape fairer policies, compared with the FPTP system. If we went independent I'd like to see more accountability placed on politicians. I didn't mean the current holders of power were doing a great job or that they would even be desirable in an independent Scotland.