Matters of Life and Death Surveillance capitalism 2: QR codes in China, privacy, the manipulation of desire, and a neo-Benedictine Rule of Life
If surveillance capitalism permeates all of modern society, how on earth can we step back to think critically about what it may be doing to us? In this episode we think through more of the implications of living in a non-private digital village in the 21st century, but is privacy even a Christian virtue in the first place? We also ponder the implications of the more deceptive and destructive aspects of addictive digital technologies and think through some initial efforts believers have made to carve out space for family time and spirituality in our disembodied always-on world.
Some extra reading:
Surveillance capitalism: the hidden costs of the digital revolution, Jonathan Ebsworth, Samuel Johns, Michael Dodson, Cambridge Papers June 2021
The Question of Surveillance Capitalism, Nathan Mladin and Stephen Williams, in The Robot will see you Now: Artificial Intelligence and the Christian Faith, ed John Wyatt and Stephen Williams, SPCK, 2021
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff, Profile Books, 2019
Atlas of AI: Power politics and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence, Kate Crawford, Yale University Press, 2021
Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked, Adam Alter, Penguin, 2017
Hooked: how to build habit forming products, Nir Eyal, Penguin, 2019
Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil, Penguin, 2017
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