Marginalia
Weâre living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenbergâs invention of printing in circa 1439. And the problem with living through a revolution is that itâs impossible to take the long view of whatâs happening. Hindsight is the only exact science in this business, and in that long run weâre all dead.
So our contemporary state of awareness is â as Manuel Castells, the great scholar of cyberspace once put it â one of âinformed bewildermentâ.
âSurveillance capitalism,â she writes, âunilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data. Although some of these data are applied to service improvement, the rest are declared as a proprietary behavioural surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as âmachine intelligenceâ, and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products are traded in a new kind of marketplace that I call behavioural futures markets. Surveillance capitalists have grown immensely wealthy from these trading operations, for many companies are willing to lay bets on our future behaviour.â
Surveillance capitalism was invented around 2001 as the solution to financial emergency in the teeth of the dotcom bust when the fledgling company faced the loss of investor confidence.
Nearly every product or service that begins with the word âsmartâ or âpersonalisedâ, every internet-enabled device, every âdigital assistantâ, is simply a supply-chain interface for the unobstructed flow of behavioural data on its way to predicting our futures in a surveillance economy.
Once we searched Google, but now Google searches us. Once we thought of digital services as free, but now surveillance capitalists think of us as free.
It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. These processes are meticulously designed to produce ignorance by circumventing individual awareness and thus eliminate any possibility of self-determination. As one data scientist explained to me, âWe can engineer the context around a particular behaviour and force change that way⊠We are learning how to write the music, and then we let the music make them dance.â
Surveillance capitalism is a human-made phenomenon and it is in the realm of politics that it must be confronted. The resources of our democratic institutions must be mobilised, including our elected officials.
For example, the idea of âdata ownershipâ is often championed as a solution. But what is the point of owning data that should not exist in the first place? All that does is further institutionalise and legitimate data capture.
Users might get âownershipâ of the data that they give to surveillance capitalists in the first place, but they will not get ownership of the surplus or the predictions gleaned from it â not without new legal concepts built on an understanding of these operations … In any confrontation with the unprecedented, the first work begins with naming.
@mrkrndvs currently reading a sample of this book and like. This is not an easy read
@Avancee I wondered that when it was meantioned that the book was 600+ pages. Maybe that says something about the topic.
@Avancee just purchased Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human, might start there, but Zuboff’s book definitely sounds interesting and important.
@mrkrndvs oh wow… didnât pay attention to number of pages (itâs something Iâve actually turned off in the Kindle app); but it reads like a framework-thesis, so the length might make sense
@mrkrndvs Team Human… interesting. Just added that sample to my list.
Had to stop 2/3 into Surveillance; got me thinking and shifting in my seat a lot. Not for bad reasons. Feels like the kind of book one needs to take notes in, then read it again afterwards to take new notes.
Welcome to another month of Read Write Respond, a newsletter of ideas and information associated with all things in and out of education, mined and curated for me and shared with you.
On the family front, my daughters continue to amaze me. Whether it be Ms. 8 and her rock climbing or Ms 3 sitting in her sisterâs class during open morning. Also, I have been taking my âholidaysâ on Fridayâs â I donât get school holidays anymore â to stay at home with the children. This is because my wife has gone back full-time based on a change of circumstances. Iâm wondering, is that a âfour-day week?â Or is parenting just another form of âworking?â
At work, I have received another new title, however I continue to simply do the work that needs to be done. It was at least nice to receive some recognition from my team leader that I have been doing five different roles and that it was not ideal. What is interesting is that many of these roles are often assumed in schools or simply go unseen. It is a continual reminder of how technology is a system.
Personally, I have been listening to new music from Carly Rae Jepsen and The National. I also watched Mike Millsâ short film associated with The Nationalâs album, as well as the Whitney Houston documentary. Like so many others, I too was left disappointed by the ending of Game of Thrones. I also saw the last instalment of the The Avengers series. I have been reading Ruined By Design as a part of the IndieWeb Book Club. Other than a few lengthy replies to Greg Miller and Cal Newport I have not written any longer reflections.
Here then are some links that have supported my learning this month âŠ
Learning and Teaching
Oz Lit Teacher
Narissa Leung shares a new project which involves sharing possible mentor texts. The concern is that although educators like Pernille Ripp share various suggestions, using them can overlook the local context. Some other useful sites to support searching for books and resources include Kim Yeomansâ Wild About Books and Bianca Hewesâ Jimmy Reads Books.
Was Shakespeare a Woman?
Elizabeth Winkler explores the authorship behind the work of William Shakespeare. She puts forward the case for Emilia Bassano. This lengthy piece provides an insight into challenges associated with exploring the past and why history is always interpretative.
Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop
Brendon Hyndman highlights the benefits of âplayâ in and out of school. One suggestion is providing children spaces with loose play equipment. This is something Narissa Leung, Adrian Camm and John Johnston have touched upon, through the use of objects, such as old bricks and crates. Sometimes the biggest challenge is getting out of the way.
Detractors from Afar
Greg Miller provides a reflection on the journey that you have started at St Lukeâs. It fits with the idea of change through encouragement, rather than revolution. This is also a good reminder that teaching is not a research-based profession.
Bruce Pascoe teaches Australians about the rich Indigenous history of their country
The ABC has produced a new digibook with Bruce Pascoe to support students in learning about the history of Aboriginal agriculture and technology and celebrate the ingenuity of the First Australians. Pascoe is also releasing a childrenâs version of his award winning book Dark Emu. Another useful resource on the topic of including indigenous perspective in the classroom is the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project.
Technology
The luxury of opting out of digital noise
Vicki Boykis reflects on the privilege associated with being able to unplug. This continues on from an earlier post on fixing the internet. Like Boykis, I wonder about the relief and ostracism associated with leaving the social web. This reminds me of Venkatesh Raoâs pushback on Waldenponding. It is interesting reading this alongside Cal Newportâs recent post on the IndieWeb as the solution to social mediaâs ills. I wonder if one strategy is managing your feeds through a form of social media jujitsu or simply writing the web we want as captured by the #ProSocialWeb movement.
Itâs Time to Break Up Facebook
As a part of the New York Times series on privacy, Chris Hughes puts forward the case for Facebook to be split up and regulated. He recounts his experience during the early days and the problem that the platform has in regards to the question, âhow big is big enough?â Hughes discusses the spectre of antitrust that haunts the major platforms. In a separate piece, Adi Robertson argues that we need to do more than create guidelines in order to fix Facebook. There has also been some criticism the wider privacy series.
Learning from Surveillance Capitalism
Ben Williamson discusses the implication of Shoshana Zuboffâs The Age of Surveillance Capitalism on education. He suggests three possible inquires stemming from the book: cultures of computational learning, human-machine learning confluences and programmable policies.
Introducing SIFT, a Four Moves Acronym
Mike Caulfield continues his development of the âFour Movesâ associated with fake news and web literacy. He has introduced an acronym that can be used to remember the moves: SIFT.
(S)TOP
(I)nvestigate the Source
(F)ind better coverage
(T)race claims, quotes, and media back to the original context
Caulfield sums up this change as âDonât CRAAP, SIFT.â
Newsletter Development
Warren Ellis shares a series reflecting on the development of his newsletter. He touches on the technology that allows him to produce a small magazine that connects a community of minds. This is interesting reading alongside other posts from Craig Mod, Paul Jun and Simon Owens.
Reflections
Low marks for performance reviews
Chris Woolston dives into the problematic world of performance reviews. He speaks with a number of experts in the area, including Herman Aguinis, who explain that the process is in many respects broken. The answer is not to remove reviews, by instead make them more regular, therefore making the feedback more meaningful. This is another post which captures some of the problems with feedback and the challenges of self-determined learning in a world ruled by numbers. It is also interesting to read it alongside Andrea Stringerâs reflection on the problem with killing two birds with one stone. It also touches on the problem of grades too.
Conquering Mount Everest: High hopes and broken dreams
Inga Ting, Alex Palmer, Stephen Hutcheon and Siobhan Heanue provide an insight into what is involved in climbing Mount Everest. They discuss the route, what is involved, the statistics of fatalities on the mountain, the changes over time and the small window of opportunity available each year. Interestingly, Everest is actually considered a lot safer than some of the other mountains in the Himalayas. This makes me want to re-watch Everest to make sense of what happened and where.
âJust add waterâ: Lake Eyre is filling in a way not seen for 45 years
Dominique Schwartz reports on the water filling Lake Eyre. What is unique about this is that it is all just nature. Although locals fought an attempt in 1995 to introduce large-scale irrigated cotton farming on the Cooper, there has not been any other attempts. It makes me wonder about rewilding and letting things take their cause, rather than store excess flows as Gina Rinehart is pushing to do.
Turning Points in my Understanding of Virtually Connecting
Maha Bali samples some of the points in the journey associated with VConnecting. This included the beginnings, the way it has changed, some of the positives shared, some of the negatives and when things sometimes fail. This is interesting reading, both in regards to the reflective nature of the post, as well as appreciating how VConnecting has evolved. Ian OâByrne and Naomi Barnes provide some other posts involving auto-ethnography.
First You Make the Maps
Elizabeth Della Zazzera documents the developments in mapping that made long sea voyages possible. It is easy to pick up a modern map and assume that this is the way it always was, even worse to open up Google Maps in the browser. Della Zazzera breaks down the various developments, providing examples to support her discussions.
Read Write Respond #041
So that is May for me, how about you? As always, happy to hear.
Cover Image via JustLego101
Also on:
Dave Lee discusses Facebookâs supposed pivot to private and wonders if this is about making it harder for people to see how it is broken. Shoshana Zuboff argues that we have not even started reining in surveillance capitalism. In response, she suggests we need to interrupt data supplies, be better informed and engage in collective action.
Great point @RafranzDavis about fun not being ok in regards to FaceApp. I cringe at some of the stuff I did during the halcyon days of Web 2.0. I agree with @bonstewart that together we need to push back on why surveillance capitalism matters
This has me wondering about âwhat worksâ and how this can be subjective. Uber may have disrupted the taxi industry, but it is yet to succeed in making a profit. The same goes for Netflix. I wonder if what works is platform cooperatives, rather platform capitalism?