Description
Dialogues on Transforming Society & Self (DoTS)
hosted by Otto Scharmer
Shoshana Zuboff is our special guest speaker in a dialogue with Otto Scharmer, on the topic: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - The New Economic Coordinates
We are thrilled to announce that Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and author of 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power' will be our very esteemed guest speaker at the September episode of our interactive online Dialogue series, hosted by Otto Scharmer.
ABOUT SHOSHANA ZUBOFF
Shoshana Zuboff is one of the world’s most authoritative and prescient thinkers – and has devoted her career to studying the rise of the digital.
She looks at individual, organizational, and societal consequences of this new era, and its relationship to the history and future of humanity. She has previously published two seminal works The Age of the Smart Machine and Support Economy and has been called by the Financial Times: The true prophet of the digital age. Her new book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is already a sensation. It explores the emergence of surveillance capitalism as the dominant form of information capitalism and its implications for individuals, society, and democracy in the twenty-first century. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled 'hive' of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit--at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.
She has concluded that we currently find ourselves in the midst of a surveillance capitalist reality, and that surveillance capitalism commodifies our most private, human experiences and sells them to the highest bidder not only to predict our behavior, but to control it. As Naomi Klein has put it: 'Everyone needs to read this book as act of digital self-defence.'
USEFUL LINKS & PRE-READS
We strongly encourage you to take some time to explore the following links to familiarize with Shoshana’s work and get the most out of the DOTS session:
Guardian article of July 2019 “It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried”: Shoshana writes “It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. (...) At the grassroots, systems are designed to evade individual awareness, undermining human agency, eliminating decision rights, diminishing autonomy and depriving us of the right to combat. (...) Surveillance capitalism thrives in the absence of law. In a way, this is good news. We have not failed to rein in this rogue capitalism; we’ve not yet tried. More good news: our societies successfully confronted destructive forms of capitalism in the past, asserting new laws that tethered capitalism to the real needs of people.”
NPR (National Public Radio) podcast of 8th August: https://dcs.megaphone.fm/BUR2947410147.mp3?key=6be7ee783a0f48ddd437dfab50e40e40
Shoshana Zuboff’s website
Special Webinar Format
Episode #4 will follow a slightly different format from the previous DoTS sessions. First, we will host a 60-minute webinar-style dialogue during which Otto and Shoshana will have ample time to tackle the complex issue at hand, while participants engage by submitting their questions.
After the webinar, participants will then have the option to immediately move into a 30-minute breakout session on Zoom, in which they will have time to engage with each other about the webinar and their own thoughts and connection to the topic of surveillance capitalism.
Episode #4, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - The New Economic Coordinates,” will take place on 4th September at 10am EDT.
With a variety of guests, stories and breakout sessions, these Dialogues on Transforming Society and Self (DOTS) provide an ongoing space for coming together and sensing into inspiring examples of societal renewal.
You can find more information on previous episodes of the Dialogues on Transforming Society & Self on this page.
More information on the Presencing Institute
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