

Surveillance Capitalism - mgunes
http://monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/surveillance-capitalism

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morsch
I thought it was a good collection of historic developments -- military
involvement and spending, the history of the Internet, the history of
(domestic) surveillance, the revolving door between government and
corporations, somewhat obliquely advertising and changes in the financial
system -- but it could have done a better job tying it together.

I already knew most of history and would have preferred to read a much more
thorough treatment of the parallels and/or relationships between these topics
and agents.

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mark_l_watson
A great historical summary. I tend to agree with the opinion stated about the
US's vulnerabilities. I probably have the minority opinion here, but in
different ways the US and China look fragile. If China has severe problems
maintaining the economic growth required for social stability, the effects on
the rest of the world will likely be less when the US dollar is phased out of
being the world's reserve currency in favor of SDRs.

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cyphunk
too many conspiracy undertones to take much of this seriously. The facts are
correct, but the framing is very grandiose. It's like watching a BBC
documentary on psychology, just missing the eerie music. On the first part (as
much as I could get through) the paring of different productive functions in
society to the military industrial complex has more to due with the increased
importance of federal institutions than some grand movement of capitalism as
the author seems to put it. I'd love to complete the article but it just seems
to be a full of more leaps and assumptions as i go on.

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woah
I see what you're saying, but the article didn't really have any sort of
accusations or theories which aren't already broad public knowledge.

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explorigin
That is a very long article. I'm glad it has sources but tl;dr; anyone?

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chillingeffect
I've been skimming it.

Grossly put, it's making the case that the U.S. is economically and
technologically vulnerable and our security services have responded to that by
initiating surveillance of citizen and corporate internet habits surrounding
consumption and other practices involving money.

The author does build up a respectable synthesis of these ideas, but then in a
sentence or two comes to the vague conclusion that we must demilitarize
internet consumption. Unfortunately, this second, major thought is not as
well-developed.

It's a fascinating concept though- that law enforcement would de-emphasize -or
expand beyond- protection of bodily harm in favor of protecting us from events
that would destabilize commerce. In other words, they might not search your
smart phone for banned porn as eagerly as they would for evidence of
cybercrime. The logic being that porn might hurt individuals, but cybercrime
could empty corporate bank accounts, leading to disruption of international
trade and therefore social instability through missing food and employment.

