Behavioral prediction markets treat people as raw material and targets, never as participants

Evidence

The commodification of behavior under the conditions of surveillance capitalism pivots us toward a societal future in which an exclusive division of learning is protected by secrecy, indecipherability, and expertise. Even when knowledge derived from your behavior is fed back to you in the first text as a quid pro quo for participation, the parallel secret operations of the shadow text capture surplus for crafting into prediction products destined for other marketplaces that are about you rather than for you. These markets do not depend upon you except first as a source of raw material from which surplus is derived, and then as a target for guaranteed outcomes. We have no formal control because we are not essential to the market action. In this future we are exiles from our own behavior, denied access to or control over knowledge derived from our experience. Knowledge, authority, and power rest with surveillance capital, for which we are merely “human natural resources.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1029

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the relationship between the ‘first text’ (feedback to users) and ‘shadow text’ (secret prediction products), and crystallizes the status of people as ‘human natural resources.’
• XREF: Extends the shadow text/first text distinction introduced earlier in the book; also parallels Marx’s concept of humans as labor-as-resource subordinated to capital. — connects to: Users are raw material suppliers whose behavior yields predictive products indifferent to their fate — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 216; Behavioral futures markets are only incidentally about advertising — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 305; Market actors are calculative without becoming amoral atomistic egotists — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1186 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Users are raw material suppliers whose behavior yields predictive products indifferent to their fate #corroborates (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 216
• Regulating surveillance capitalism depends on society rejecting behavioral prediction markets #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1537
• Behavioral futures markets are only incidentally about advertising #complicates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 305
• User refusal to share data, not technical limits, is the core obstacle to prediction #contradicts (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 248
• Market actors are calculative without becoming amoral atomistic egotists #contradicts (0.70) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1186