Surveillance capitalism operates through Big Other to engineer behavior rather than souls

Evidence

Surveillance capitalism is the puppet master that imposes its will through the medium of the ubiquitous digital apparatus. I now name the apparatus Big Other: it is the sensate, computational, connected puppet that renders, monitors, computes, and modifies human behavior. Big Other combines these functions of knowing and doing to achieve a pervasive and unprecedented means of behavioral modification. Surveillance capitalism’s economic logic is directed through Big Other’s vast capabilities to produce instrumentarian power, replacing the engineering of souls with the engineering of behavior. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1196

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and defines the term Big Other as the connected apparatus of behavioral modification, a core concept of the book.
• XREF: connects to: Industrial society’s liberties themselves capture populations as a captive audience — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2582; Surveillance capitalism moves from predicting behavior to actively shaping it in real time — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 481; Surveillance capitalism’s prediction imperative modifies behavior using secret means beyond awareness. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 612 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism continuously intensifies the means of behavioral modification #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 37
• Surveillance capitalism’s closed loops suffocate the inwardness enabling moral judgment #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1494