Thread by @doctorow

Last August, @ozm published my first nonfiction book in nearly a decade: HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM is a short book (or long pamphlet) that presents an anti-monopoly critique of the "surveillance capitalism" theory.

onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy…

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The book's a free online read, and now it's a paper artifact. Next Thursday, Onezero will launch both a DRM-free ebook and print edition of my book, and to celebrate, I'm doing a online chat with OZ's editor in chief, @dberes. It's free to attend!

medium.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

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The book's main argument is that Big Tech lies about how good it is at manipulating us with data - that its dangerous manipulation doesn't come through junk-science "big five personalities" and "sentiment analysis" but just from dominating and distorting our lives.

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It's a distinction with a difference. If these companies really can do effective, durable data-based psychological trickery then we probably shouldn't break 'em up or force them to be interoperable.

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The only thing scarier than being ruled over by five digital tyrants with mind-control rays is being terrorized by 5,000 loose cannons running around, each with their own data-based suitcase nuke.

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But if these Big Tech giants are just old school monopolists who dress up their monopolistic tactics with a word-salad of statistical, psychological and computer science jargon, then hell yeah, we should just pull out some old school trustbusting sledgehammers and WHACK 'em.

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With a new administration and a new tech agenda - which includes the most significant antitrust action in half a century - the book's become especially salient. I'm really looking forward to my conversation with Damon - I hope you can make it!

eof/

ETA if you'd like to read or link to this as a blog-post on a site without surveillance, ads or analytics, here's a permalink:

pluralistic.net/2021/01/22/pap…