Automated surveillance threatens the open-ended self-transformative capacity that defines selfhood

Evidence

Our argument, however, tries to go deeper. The minimal self-integrity under threat is not the sort of thing that human beings can trade without losing touch with what constitutes them as selves rather than as inputs to a collective intelligence or information-processing system. Two senses of self are in play here. Capitalism affirms, for sure, the uniquely identifiable reference point on which all notions of the self hang (it is, after all, this bodily subject whose market potential gets traded in proxy form). But at the same time, capitalism invites us to lose control over a core element in the content of that identified self whose continuity (and change) we value with time. By installing automated surveillance into the space of the self, we risk losing the very thing—the open-ended space in which we continuously monitor and transform ourselves over time—that constitutes us as selves at all. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 489

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Dense claim that selfhood itself is the open-ended capacity to monitor and transform one’s identifiability — surveillance doesn’t just observe the self, it occupies the very space where self-constitution happens.
• ADDENDUM: Relates to the sacrifice article in that both treat the individual as something prior to and threatened by system-level extraction regimes.
• XREF: connects to: Public selves require constant self-monitoring and self-editing labor — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 633; Self-branding normalizes surveillance and produces strategic, edited selves — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 721; Routine bodily self-monitoring has become a competitive, profit-generating infrastructure — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 25 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism’s design aim is the extinction of autonomous selfhood #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1512
• Unpredictable surveillance produces self-surveillance and disempowerment in its targets #expands (0.82) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 482
• Surveillance capitalism’s closed loops suffocate the inwardness enabling moral judgment #complicates (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1494
• Surveillance capitalism’s behavioral modification creates heteronomous individuals contrary to democratic ideals #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1003
• Datafication may disrupt autonomy at the level of self-boundedness itself #qualifies (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 500
• Compliance with surveillance regimes can threaten the minimal integrity of selfhood #complicates (0.70) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 501