Team Human by Rushkoff

Continuing this post, Chapter 33 of Ruskoff's Team Human on persuasive technology (PT) reminds me of my IR paper. A point in my paper is that typically unconscious engagement in the dominant socio-economic system, in this case capitalism, shapes our internal attitudes and opinions. The same is the case for PT, which is designed to get us to trust the platform when in fact what it provides us is sources that have paid to be highlighted. The sources that don’t pay get no promotion, hence we are presented with a self-reinforcing habit of buying ideas and products that don’t support open sourcing or shared information that might challenge the limited profit agenda. Our online and digital behavior unconsciously shapes our attitudes and opinions.



Ruskoff's section on economics is a critique of capitalism. Capitalism is the underlying operating system driving our tech. Its very purpose is to extract wealth for shareholders at the expense of everyone else. Chartered monopolies (which grew into corporations) and central currency were created to funnel wealth to the aristocratic capital owners and enslave the rest as part of its machine. It was feudalism on steroids. And constant growth is required to feed the machine, regardless of any human or environmental consequences.

Corporate person hood is the epitome of the machine over the human. They are like digital environments in that way, abstract and devoid of embodied humanity. Adam Smith saw this are realized that capital must be balanced with labor and the environment in order to avoid a purely capitalistic orientation of unending growth.

The only way the latter can be accomplished is through further abstraction. Derivatives were created to enhance growth but they are completely disconnected from concrete goods and services. They of course, in the form of worthless mortgage-backed securities, led to the financial crash.