How digital technology is destroying our freedom
There’s a whole genre of literature called “technological utopianism.”
It’s an old idea, but it re-emerged in the early days of the internet. The core
belief is that the world will become happier and freer as science and
technology develops.
The role of the internet and social media in everything from the spread
of terrorist propaganda to the rise of authoritarianism has dampened much of
the enthusiasm about technology, but the spirit of techno-utopianism lives on,
especially in places like Silicon Valley.
Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist at Queens College in New York, is the
latest to push back against the notion that technology is driving social
progress. His new book, Team Human, argues that digital technology in
particular is eroding human freedom and destroying communities.
We’re social creatures, Rushkoff writes in his book, yet we live in a
consumer democracy that restricts human connection and stokes “whatever
appetites guarantee the greatest profit.” If we want to re-establish a sense of
the community in this digital world, he argues, we’ll have to become conscious
users of our technology — not “passive objects” as we are now.
But what does that mean in practical terms? Technology is everywhere,
and we’re all more or less dependent upon it so how do we escape the pitfalls?
I spoke to Rushkoff about this and much more. I wanted to know why he
thinks the revolutionary potential of the internet was destroyed by commerce,
why the tools that ought to liberate us often imprison us instead, and what we
can do to restore a sense of connection in a world of alienating technologies.
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing
You write in the book that our society is being threatened by a “vast
antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect.” What does
that mean?
Douglas Rushkoff
What I mean is that before digital technology, we were already on the
brink of extreme alienation. We already had an economic system that was
starting to burn itself out, which was built increasingly on constant
consumption and the exploitation of labor.
And then digital technology came later in the century and offered an
opportunity to do things differently. It offered the possibility of
retrieving a common space and a way for people to share and connect. It was a
chance to build an economy that wasn’t based purely on the extraction of
resources and capital.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, digital technology was used to
double down on industrialism. And industrialism was always about getting the
human being out of the equation. It was about assembly lines and automation and
separating workers from the value they’re creating. It was about business
owners paying their workers less money and gaining more control over them at
the same time.
Once we decided that digital technology would be used in further service
of that, in further service of extracting value from labor and manipulating
consumers into buying stuff they don’t need or doing behaviors that aren’t in
their best interests, we created a worse monster than we had before.
So, I’m not saying that we invented this anti-human agenda with digital
technology, but that we’re using digital technology to perpetuate an anti-human
agenda that was already there.
Sean Illing
At some point, technology ceased to be a tool to help us get what we
want and instead became the only thing we actually want. We stopped using it
and it started using us.
Douglas Rushkoff
I think that’s basically right. In some ways, we’re all hostage to our
technologies, or we’re simply at the mercy of this system. We’re being
steamrolled by our devices, and the result is a kind of emotional slavery. And
we know that billions of dollars are going into applying everything, every
nasty trick we know about behavioral finance, to the digital realm.
This is what I mean when I call digital technology “anti-human.” If we
were using digital and behavioral technologies to help people eat better or not
smoke, then at least we could be arguing that it’s intended to help people.
When we’re using technology to get people to revert to their most reptilian
impulses, to get them to buy stuff they don’t need or to react angrily to
stories, we’re in deep trouble.
“We’re being steamrolled by our devices, and the result is a kind of
emotional slavery” Sean Alling
You argue that using technology in this way, and really, we’re talking
about algorithms here, effectively destroys human autonomy. Can you layout the case you make in the book?
Douglas Rushkoff
The easiest way to understand what’s happening is to think of something
like autotuning. Autotuning works by quantizing the human voice into the
particular correct notes. Without getting too artsy here, I’ll just say this
process shaves off the weird peculiarities that make humans human. It strips
the human expression of its unique weirdness. It obliterates what makes us
different from a machine, which makes life different from plastic.
In a more practical sense, the way it works with individuals is you go
on a platform like Facebook, and Facebook is using data from your past to dump
you into a statistical bucket. Once they know what bucket you’re in, they do
everything to keep you in that bucket and to make you behave in ways that are
more consistent with all the things about that bucket.
So, if they know there’s an 80 percent chance, you’ll go on a diet next
month based on your search habits, then they’ll start peppering your newsfeed
with articles and stories that are designed to get you to really go on that
diet. So, you’ll see stories of people getting too fat or whatever. And that’s
to get you to behave more consistently with your statistical profile.
Sean Illing
The algorithm thing is tricky for me. On the one hand, algorithms are
making our lives easier by predicting what we want and giving it to us. On the
other hands, our wants are so manipulated, so curated, that at some point it’s
no longer a meaningful choice and the algorithms are just doing our thinking
for us.
Douglas Rushkoff
And what if you don’t want anything at all? That’s the thing: That’s not
one of the choices you have online. So, in that sense, they’re not even giving
us what we want. They’re trying to trigger whatever they can get us to want.
It’s about stoking consumption, about convincing us that we need another
gadget, another toy, another device that will make us happy.
Sean Illing
And part of your argument is that these forces are turning us into atoms
of consumption and consequently eroding our connections to other people.
Douglas Rushkoff
Right, and again, the roots of this go back way before digital
technology emerged. TV and consumer advertising want us to be unsatisfied and
disconnected from other people so that we look to products to fill that void.
And products can never fill that void, which is great for the marketer because
then we’ll keep buying stuff to fill an ever-expanding void.
So digital technology comes along and, rather than trying to replace our
human connections with product purchases, it mediates our human connections in
ways that make them less satisfying. So, if you engage with someone, certainly
via text and email, you’re never going to get fulfilled. If you engage with
them even on Skype or video, you don’t get the same rapport.
When you engage with someone in real life, the oxytocin rushes through
your blood when you see their pupils getting bigger and their breathing rate
syncing up with yours. These are painstakingly evolved mechanisms for achieving
social harmony. And we’re losing them by spending all our time buying shit on
Amazon or poring over our newsfeeds.
Sean Illing
Can we overcome the anti-human agenda embedded in our technology without
also overturning the civilization that produced those technologies? Because we seem
to be stuck in this paradigm. And the values of that paradigm are reflected in
our technologies, so it’s difficult to get rid of one without getting rid of
the other.
Douglas Rushkoff
It is, isn’t it? I mean, what do we go back to? People have been doing
shitty things to each other since the beginning of time. The thing is, we’ve
never quite had the capacity to destroy ourselves like we do today. And we’re
doing it in this slow, cigarette-like fashion by gradually eroding our
connections to one another. This is what makes our technological threats so
insidious.
But I think each of us, in our daily lives, can experience a different
view of each other and humanity. There is a moment on the subway when you see a
person and make eye contact and smile for a second. And I know right now it’s
the exception rather than the rule. And you’re just like, “Oh, I’m never going
to see that person again in my life, but there was something there, something
real.” And it feels exhilarating.
We have to build on these experiences because it’s the only way to
engender a real community over time. I’ve written previous books about how we
need systemic changes to corporations and government regulations and tax
policies and all that. But this book is more about the way individuals
experience the world, and why we need to stop seeing the object of the game as
trying to earn enough money to insulate ourselves from reality, and instead
realize that that’s not even possible.
I guess what I’m saying is that we’ve pushed far enough in this
direction with mechanism and capitalism and industrial progress, and I believe
we will be on the beginnings of a path toward something better if we start
engaging with one another again and looking at each other and talking in real
ways.
Sean Illing
Is capitalism the fundamental problem here? Because this seems to be
baked into the argument you’re making, and it’s the primary force driving all
these technologies.
Douglas Rushkoff
Capitalism is the actual problem. But it’s not a matter of getting rid
of capitalism so much as balancing capitalism with some other “ism.” Capitalism
was originally a way of getting funds to businesses that needed them to start up, and now businesses and people are serving capital. It’s fine to
capitalize on a company. It’s not fine to surrender an entire civilization to one
financial principle.
Sean Illing
I guess this is where I have to push back a little because I’m not sure
capitalism can coexist with the sort of morality or ideology, you’re after
here. Capitalism only works in a society drunk on consumerism, and consumerism
is unavoidably “anti-human” in the way you’ve defined the term here.
Douglas Rushkoff
It’s a fair point. Capitalism is the closest “ism” to mechanistic world
domination. It views human beings as resources to be exploited, not served.
It’s inherently cannibalistic in that way. And it allows us to convince
ourselves that we’re actually advancing civilization when, in reality, we’re
destroying the very things that make civilization possible in the first place.
Sean Illing
I keep wondering what we’re supposed to do. These digital technologies
have uprooted us from each other, from our communities, and yet it feels
unavoidable. How do we participate in this system without reinforcing it? How
do we escape the machine?
Douglas Rushkoff
Slowly. There are a lot of people who don’t want to believe that
reconnecting with other people in real life will make a difference. And this
sort of nihilism is part of the problem. If you really want to believe that you
can’t make a difference, if you really want to believe that connecting with
other people in the real world is going to have no effect on the real world,
then you’re welcome to believe that. But you’re wrong. You’re absolutely wrong.
Every connection with other people is an opportunity for conspiracy. We
have to believe that. We have to believe that gathering together locally can
make a difference. If we stop believing that, then we’re truly lost. Then
humanity doesn’t matter anymore. But I don’t buy that. I think every classroom
is an opportunity for conspiracy. Every town meeting, every street corner. I
think it happens that way.
Sean Illing
Technology is going to progress whether we want it to or not. So how do
we fold the human values we need into the technologies we’re clearly going to
keep building?
Douglas Rushkoff
Well, one way is if they are owned by the workers. I do believe that
platform cooperatives offer an alternative to these platform monopolies. If the
workers own the company, then they’re going to care about how the company
functions. Especially if it’s local to them. It’s going to matter in that way.
And then it comes down to whether or not people are willing to stand up
for what it is that they believe in. When Google’s workers walk out because
they don’t like the company’s China policy, that’s a good sign. That’s the
workers standing up saying, “No, fuck this, we won’t be complicit.” We need
more of that.
Sean Illing
Does that mean you’re optimistic about the future?
Douglas Rushkoff
I don’t know if I’m optimistic, but I do feel hopeful. I think there is
a strong possibility that we can avert the collapse of our civilization. But it
starts with every day people waking up and taking a stand.
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