Industrial capitalism followed its own logic of shock and awe, taking aim at nature to conquer “it” in the interests of capital; now surveillance capitalism has human nature in its sights. We have only gradually come to understand that the specific methods of domination employed by industrial capitalism for more than two centuries have fundamentally disoriented the conditions that support life on Earth, violating the most basic precepts of civilization. Despite the many benefits and immense accomplishments of industrial capitalism, it has left us perilously close to repeating the fate of the Easter Islanders, who wrecked the ground that gave them life, then fashioned statues to scan the horizon for the aid and succor that would never come. If industrial capitalism dangerously disrupted nature, what havoc might surveillance capitalism wreak on human nature?

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 1099