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Signed-off-by: Danila Fedorin <danila.fedorin@gmail.com>
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Danila Fedorin
2026-05-22 22:48:12 -07:00
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---
title: "Surveillance Capitalism is not the Whole Picture"
title: "Everything's Touch"
date: 2026-05-14T18:01:27-07:00
draft: true
custom_css:
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{{< halfpage >}}
## Surveillance Capitalism is not the Whole Picture
## Everything's Touch
A couple of years ago, man walked into a university teaching lab.
"Do you guys have any deuterium water?", he said to a baffled lab manager.
"You know, heavy water?"
"Do you guys have any deuterium water?", he said.
"No... We don't have that...". She didn't recognize him as a student.
"Huh?", responded the lab manager, off guard. She had never seen the man before;
he wasn't part of the chemistry lab.
"Do you know where I can get some?", continued his barrage of questions,
"What's a good chemical company? How do I go about ordering heavy water from them?"
"You know, heavy water."
What could this guy possibly have to do with heavy water? Why is he so determined?
When he finally turned and left empty-handed, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"We don't have that." It was an unusual request.
"Do you know where I can get some?", he continued, "What's a good chemical
company? How do I go about ordering heavy water from them?"
The lab manager was uncomfortable. What could this man possibly have to do
with heavy water? He seemed determined to acquire some. After some back and
forth, the man left empty-handed.
That day, another man arrived and made the same request: he wanted heavy water.
Until, that is, another man arrived and made the same request: he wanted heavy water.
Again, the lab manager refused him. For the rest of the day, she had
a knot in her stomach. Having failed once, in order to remain under the radar,
had some shadowy cabal switched representatives, and tried again to attain
their goal?
Uneasy still the lab manager had dinner, opening YouTube on her phone to pass
Uneasy still the lab manager had dinner, opening YouTube™ on her phone to pass
the time. On the front page, a video was waiting for her: "the ice cube
is too heavy!". When frozen, you see, heavy water sinks instead of floating.
There was no plot. The students, having both seen this video, had independently
decided to replicate the trick.
To me, this coincidence is more intriguing than some human conspiracy.
There was no plot. Two men, having both seen this video, had independently
decided to replicate the trick. On the same day, believing it was their
free will, they visited the same lab and spoke to the same lab manager.
They felt the touch.
---
{{< /halfpage >}}
{{< halfpage >}}
> Roland too became conscious of the wind, as his mortality had never allowed him.
> Discovered it so. ...so joyful, that the arrow must veer into it.
>
> -- Thomas Pynchon, *Gravity's Rainbow*
Today, we live amidst an invisible ocean. It's not "real" in the strict sense;
Today, we live amidst an invisible ocean, but not in a physical sense;
its tides don't pull us out to sea or push us towards the shore; no
warm undercurrents alternate with cool water as we bob in the waves.
Standing on a hiking trail and looking out at the path ahead, the world
might look exactly as it had forty years ago. However, the ocean is
there, mediated by electromagnetism instead of fluid. Looking up at the sky,
nowadays we are reminded of this by the numerous hurtling dots, delivering
there, mediated by
{{< /halfpage >}}
{{< halfpage >}}
electromagnetism instead of fluid. Looking up at the sky,
nowadays we are reminded of this by the numerous hurtling dots delivering
the internet to practically every corner of the planet.
Reminded are we of its existence, too, when we hear it speak. During
the heavy water incident, the voice of the visitors was no longer _just_
their own, their actions not _entirely_ their will. Is an idea truly
one's own if it was redundantly planted in the minds of all who, during
the latest wave of recommendations, happened to be on YouTube?
Reminded are we of its existence, too, when we hear it speak; when people talk
about Geese and Velvet Underground; when friends repeat nearly verbatim the
top post on /r/bald; when men show up to a teaching lab and ask for deuterium.
Sometimes, these ideas are deliberately planted. Sometimes, they are analogous
to your classic trends™. Sometimes, they just appear. An enormous behemoth
stirs deep beneath the waves, and we sway with the current.
---
@@ -76,35 +72,46 @@ the latest wave of recommendations, happened to be on YouTube?
>
> -- Thomas Pynchon, *Gravity's Rainbow*
I've recently read _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_ by Shoshana Zuboff.
In it, Zuboff powerfully reframes the actions of tech giants like Google
from the perspective of _behavioral surplus_: information gathered from
human action that can be used to build
In _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_, Shoshana Zuboff
powerfully reframes the actions of tech giants like Google
from the perspective of _behavioral surplus_. Google
and Meta's gluttony for traffic patterns, written sentiment, satellite data,
identified faces seen by smart glasses, all of it is the endless hunger of an
influence-machine. Zuboff decries the "priests of the shadow texts",
Skinnerian manipulators bent on seizing human agency for utopian or,
more likely, capitalistic ends.
I don't think that's the whole picture.
The surveillance-manipulation machine, running at incredible scale and
nudging us every moment we search or share or scroll, is ultimately
unconcerned with truth. Truth is secondary to human behavior. While it
reaches and connects a double-digit percentage of the world's population,
the machine lacks any constraint or fundamental purpose beyond engagement.
It's driven by unfathomably large probabilistic models entangled through
several orders of interactions with other models.
This enormous amalgamation, joined nowadays by (probably) well-intentioned
and only-moderately-grounded-in-reality AI™ agents™, is armed with state-of-the-art
tools and unprecedented influence. With "engagement" its only loose target,
it ceaselessly perturbs our daily thoughts like Maxwell's demon. Whole
cliques of people revisit old shows, "discover" a new band, and try Science™.
{{< /halfpage >}}
{{< halfpage >}}
a model of people, predict what they
do and what might sway them. Viewed through this lens, many actions taken
by Google and Meta fall into place. Traffic patterns, written sentiment,
satellite data, always-on facial recognition in smart glasses, are all
sources of data to be integrated and applied. The economic value
of being able to understand and manipulate people is immense; immense too
is the magnitude of influence this grants to governments. The result is
a centralized, opaque and ever-expanding surveillance-industrial complex.
I've also recently finished _Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon. Among
the numerous subjects and themes of the book is an intricate and densely
---
Among _Gravity's Rainbow_'s
numerous subjects and themes is an intricate and densely
connected network of markets, influences, and hidden agendas that overlays
the political conflicts of World War 2. The Rocket was given life not by
any one country, but by a international amalgamation of individuals,
organizations, businesses, and subsidiaries. There were economic misdeeds;
dealers replaced cocaine with powdered milk, Phoebus intentionally limited
the lifetimes of lightbulbs, Lazlo Jamf experimented on infant Slothrop
with a mystery Imipolex G. All of this, though, the whole system, took
on the life of its own: it was the Rocket-state, and it acted in
ways that were inscrutable, mysterious, and yet behind which, in moments
of panic or paranoia, one could begin to see intent.
the political conflicts of World War 2. Individuals pursued their own economic
gains; dealers replaced cocaine with powdered milk; Phoebus intentionally limited
the lifetimes of lightbulbs; a man dressed like a Rocket smuggled hash past
an international gathering on behalf of one Sour Bummer. All of this, though, the whole system, took
on the life of its own: it was the Rocket-state. It acted in ways that were
inscrutable, mysterious, and yet behind which, in moments of panic or paranoia,
one could suspect intent.
The Rocket-state, as Pynchon described it, may or may not have existed.
It certainly does not exist today. However, beyond Zuboff's cycle of
@@ -112,6 +119,26 @@ dispossession, beyond the powerful surveillance state exposed by Snowden,
today lies the Attention-state. It is the entity stirring occasionally under
the surface of the internet's ocean.
post-truth allows room / degrees of freedom for odd behavior
I think this is the missing piece. Yes, Google and Meta are selling your
Gmail inbox's contents to the highest bidder. Yes, the US government is
in on this. Yeah, Meta's Ray-Bans™ are going to be cataloguing every face
you encounter on the street, and yeah, the age verification laws are probably
going to be used to further associate your identity with the rest of
your data point-cloud. But these are just glimpses of the larger system.
Those "priests of the shadow texts" are like GR's Freemasons: they perform
the rituals, but the magic is elsewhere.
This is the closest we've ever been to a truly "unified consciousness".
We've built ourselves a noosphere, but it's not what we thought it would
be. It's not _just_ the "world at our fingertips".
It's not entirely a reflection of human minds. There is an impurity,
an additional active force that decides which whispers are carried across
the ocean and which shouts succumb to the inverse-square law.
There it sits, this impurity, mixed in with most human knowledge, with the
immediate awareness of nearly every event as it occurs in most of the developed
world. It coats our facts like film, and when an acquaintance hands you
his packaged opinion, it remains in his handprints, and your heart sinks
like deuterium ice.
{{< /halfpage >}}

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color: black;
font-family: "Times New Roman";
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h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
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