The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

andbenn reviewed The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

I knew it was bad, but ... wow

5 stars

I had no idea this book was this large when I borrowed it from a library. It somehow hit my list and came up in rotation. It's 700 pages, but just over 500 pages of content. The rest is reference material, notes and bibliography.

The author does a fantastic way of describing the recent history of data surveillance and how it's been monetized. We aren't really the product, but are the objects where raw material is mined for prediction engines that attempt to figure out how we will act or nudge us to act.

The first part deals with big tech. There's a part about totalitarianism, then moving into recent psychology and how all these are tied together.

Expect 10-15+ hours of reading with this. Value!

This made me and keeps me thinking. Wonderful book, but probably not for all.

filippodb bkwrm reviewed The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

il libro fondamentale per chi è nel fediverso

5 stars

IL saggio che ha coniato il termine "capitalismo della sorveglianza". Imprescindibile.

imagineutopia@wyrms.de reviewed The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Vital Analysis; Uninspiring Dreaming

3 stars

I've been making my way through this (audio)book for a year or so. I realised some 15 hours in that it didn't make sense because the files weren't organised correctly (my bad). Because I listened to bits and pieces out of order, I had to work extra hard to get the concepts, which I'm glad for now even though it sucked. Zuboff's analysis here is fantastic. Her breakdown of the machinations of "surveillance capitalism" is one of the most significant contributions to understanding how this particular "species" of capitalism works that I think we are likely to get this half of the twenty-first century. And "we" sure need it.

The book falls short on political solutions however, and the way it's written was frustrating to say the least. Zuboff's faith in markets, even market capitalism, knocks more creative solutions out of her grasp reacting to attacks on liberal democracy, rather …

I've been making my way through this (audio)book for a year or so. I realised some 15 hours in that it didn't make sense because the files weren't organised correctly (my bad). Because I listened to bits and pieces out of order, I had to work extra hard to get the concepts, which I'm glad for now even though it sucked. Zuboff's analysis here is fantastic. Her breakdown of the machinations of "surveillance capitalism" is one of the most significant contributions to understanding how this particular "species" of capitalism works that I think we are likely to get this half of the twenty-first century. And "we" sure need it.

The book falls short on political solutions however, and the way it's written was frustrating to say the least. Zuboff's faith in markets, even market capitalism, knocks more creative solutions out of her grasp reacting to attacks on liberal democracy, rather than straining for more democratic ways of governance and being in the world.

This book makes a fantastic comparison read alongside Jairus Victor Grove's thrilling/disturbing/enlightening/strange optimism generating Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World (wyrms.de/book/79246/s/savage-ecology). Stay tuned for my review of that whenever I finish it.

Lumii

rated it

Jul 20