An astute piece at The Daily Beast on the emerging dystopian dream of the total surveillance urban society.
A clip:
A clip:
Mark Zuckerberg, even as he fought to expand his own sprawling suburban homestead, envisions his employees living in crowded dormitories close to work, including a planned 1,500-unit apartment development near Facebook’s Menlo Park campus. Zuckerberg, like most oligarchs, prefers workers unengaged with the mundanities of family life.
“Young people just have simpler lives,” he explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “We may not own a car. We may not have a family. Simplicity in life is what allows you to focus on what’s important.”
The man preaching this diminished view of urban life, of course, has a car, a family and all the benefits that come with a vast fortune. He is not part of the “we” he’s purporting to speak for.
The city that he is envisioning, that “we” are supposed to enjoy, will be organized not by civic loyalty but pools of constantly tracked personal information collected and sold by his company.
I visited a Trader Joe's today with a parking lot. The exit machine failed to take my ticket and when I glanced at it later I noticed it had my own car's license plate printed on it. Evidently you are photographed on entering the garage and your serial number is recorded. Who needs tattoo'd numbers?
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