Stephen Baker: The Numerati (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · advertising, algorithm, blogging, computing, data, data mining, internet, mathematics, privacy, psychology, social media, surveillance, technology
An urgent look at how a global math elite is predicting and altering our behavior — at work, at the mall, and in bed.
Every day we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, drive through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell phone calls. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the twenty-first century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is beginning to sift through this data to dissect us and map out our next steps. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior — what we buy, how we vote — without our even realizing it.
In this tour de force of original reporting and analysis, journalist Stephen Baker provides us with a fascinating guide to the world we’re all entering — and to the people controlling that world. The Numerati have infiltrated every realm of human affairs, profiling us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists — and lovers. The implications are vast. Our privacy evaporates. Our bosses can monitor and measure our every move (then reward or punish us). Politicians can find the swing voters among us, by plunking us all into new political groupings with names like “Hearth Keepers” and “Crossing Guards.” It can sound scary. But the Numerati can also work on our behalf, diagnosing an illness before we’re aware of the symptoms, or even helping us find our soul mate. Surprising, enlightening, and deeply relevant, The Numerati shows how a powerful new endeavor — the mathematical modeling of humanity — will transform every aspect of our lives.
Publisher Mariner Books, Boston/New York, 2008
ISBN 0618784608, 9780618784608
256 pages
review (Marcus du Sautoy, The Guardian)
review (Rob Walker, The New York Times)
review (Tim Walker, The Independent)
Thomas Frank: The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (1998)
Filed under book | Tags: · advertising, business, consumerism, counterculture
While the youth counterculture remains the most evocative and best-remembered symbol of the cultural ferment of the 1960s, the revolution that shook American business during those boom years has gone largely unremarked. In this fascinating and revealing study, Thomas Frank shows how the youthful revolutionaries were joined—and even anticipated — by such unlikely allies as the advertising industry and the men’s clothing business.
Publisher University of Chicago Press, 1998
ISBN 0226260127, 9780226260129
322 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-6-13)
Comment (0)Adbusters, 90-99 (2010-2012)
Filed under magazine | Tags: · activism, advertising, culture jamming, ecology, graphic design, mass media, occupy movement, politics, protest, visual culture
“Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters is a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Our work has been embraced by organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, has been featured in hundreds of alternative and mainstream newspapers, magazines, and television and radio shows around the world.
Adbusters offers incisive philosophical articles as well as activist commentary from around the world addressing issues ranging from genetically modified foods to media concentration. In addition, our annual social marketing campaigns like Buy Nothing Day and Digital Detox Week have made us an important activist networking group.
Ultimately, though, Adbusters is an ecological magazine, dedicated to examining the relationship between human beings and their physical and mental environment. We want a world in which the economy and ecology resonate in balance. We try to coax people from spectator to participant in this quest. We want folks to get mad about corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy, and any industry that pollutes our physical or mental commons.” (source)
Publisher Adbusters, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
ISSN: 0847-9097
PDF No 99: The Big Ideas of 2012
PDF No 98: American Autumn
PDF No 97: Post Anarchism – #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
PDF No 96: Apocalyptic Boredom
PDF No 95: Post West
PDF No 94: Post Normal
PDF No 93: Capitalism’s Terminal Crisis
PDF No 92: The Carnivalesque Rebellion Issue
PDF No 91: I, Revolution
PDF No 90: Whole Brain Catalog