Thanks for sharing that James - it's very exciting for the makers and
contributors of The Social Dilemma.
The article also acts as a useful reflexive prediction - a story about
popularity that drives popularity - I hope it works because I think it is
hard to overstate the importance of the docudrama.

What matters now though is not so much that The Social Dilemma is watched
but that people grasp what follows from the argument it makes. On most
complex problems, 'raising awareness' is necessary and not sufficient, and
often risks giving the wrong impression that something transformative is
actually happening. The makers have explicitly said they are modelling
their approach on Al Gore's *An Inconvenient Truth*, but in light of the
absence of commensurate climate action following from it, it is worth
asking if that documentary was, in fact, a success, or more like a kind of
distraction of displacement activity (It feels churlish to suggest the
documentary didn't help, but I do wonder...).

Similarly, the central problematic this docudrama higlights is 'the
business model' of all forms of social media (including Netflix!) and that
business model is given much greater texture and detail in Shoshana
Zuboff's model of Surveillance capitalism (she's interviewed in the The
Social Dilemma, but not, alas, for very long). As Zuboff makes clear in her
book, 'the business model' in question is historiographical in nature; a
new mutuation of capitalism at scale; it's not something that individuals
can easily resist or that can be changed in a board room, and it begs an
uncomfortable question at the level of political economy rather than merely
behaviour, culture or metapsychology. (Although I think there are
metapsychological perspectives that contextualise important metaethical
issues at stake. The underlying problem may be the incompatibility between
'the algorithim' and 'the good'; what is most precious to us is something
uncodeable beyond utilitarian or deontological logic, and that kind of
value and valuing is what struggles to find a place in this discussion.)

'The business model' that is the apparent villain in The Social Dilemma has
its own kind of investment and return model based on data-driven
behavioural prediction that is then targetted to personal and cultural
detriment, but what is happening is still fundamentally the attempt to
maxmimise profit for shareholders within the rule of law, also known as
Capitalism. It's true that it is a difficult problematic to understand,
that lobbying plays a large part in keeping the law as it is, and that 'the
product' is a frontier of extraction (our attention) that may be ethically
beyond the pale; even in the context of the world literally being on fire,
it is probably *worse* that fossil fuel extraction, though certainly not as
bad as the enforced extraction of human capital through slavery. The
problem *within* the problem of The Social Dilemma is that the extraction
in question is a data-driven psychographic hyper-intensification of what
economic and political advertising has being doing to culture for decades,
in which apparently legitimate game-winning and profit-seeking aims are
served by addiction, alienation, polarisation and ecocide.

I am not so much saying that The Social Dilemma is saying 'Capitalism as
such' is the preeminent problem (maximising profits for private gain,
within the rule of law). Indeed, I am not instinctivley ant-capitalist by
nature - I increasingly fear I might even be a little bit bourgeoise. But I
am struck by the fact that for me, this is where the documentary took us,
and yet it couldn't say so explicitly. It was a kind of epic ideological
flirtation that was not consumated, leaving this viewer at least wondering
if they had properly understood the signals.

In my own small way I tried to drive people towards the documentary with my
own stream-of-consciousness review of The Social Dilemma
earlier this month - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DatQkyda1REQ&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=xux1Svy0EGFVQlyXDK0N8gI7n0ZUxGjH5BZii2pxE6U&s=867DWQnJ6P_D3amlL24isgqeBNa2zvEzTUmYmDRwsXU&e=  - but
that's just me thinking out loud on a screen; anyone reading this who
hasn't seen The Social Dilemma yet, you should certainly watch that first!

Grey skies in London, but plenty of nimble leaves getting a gentle workout.

Dr Jonathan Rowson
Founding Director, Perspectiva <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.systems-2Dsouls-2Dsociety.com_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=xux1Svy0EGFVQlyXDK0N8gI7n0ZUxGjH5BZii2pxE6U&s=z5zCBp91eGNJH4q8Xe_O046aaSqrMNrCgPWXi7M_WAg&e= >
Research Fellow, CUSP <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.cusp.ac.uk_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=xux1Svy0EGFVQlyXDK0N8gI7n0ZUxGjH5BZii2pxE6U&s=zErruK5aOWVmdff3I1oJsZl1G1icoGGKr0n5nS6Zvyo&e= >
Open Society Fellow
@Jonathan_Rowson
*The Moves that Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life* is
published by Bloomsbury.

On Sun, 27 Sep 2020 at 15:43, James Tyler Carpenter <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Of possible interest from a social influence expert-colleague in the
> forensic think tank I’m a member of. Of relevance for many reasons.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.forbes.com_sites_travisbean_2020_09_24_the-2Dsocial-2Ddilemma-2Dis-2Dabout-2Dto-2Dbecome-2Dthe-2Dfirst-2Ddocumentary-2Don-2Dnetflix-2Dto-2Dachieve-2Dthis-2Dincredible-2Dmilestone_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=xux1Svy0EGFVQlyXDK0N8gI7n0ZUxGjH5BZii2pxE6U&s=4y9cxSbOZalMTt3Li0UBLVBX4Y-BghiGzRvmbGZOC2g&e= 
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.forbes.com_sites_travisbean_2020_09_24_the-2Dsocial-2Ddilemma-2Dis-2Dabout-2Dto-2Dbecome-2Dthe-2Dfirst-2Ddocumentary-2Don-2Dnetflix-2Dto-2Dachieve-2Dthis-2Dincredible-2Dmilestone_&d=DwMF-g&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=zXxOER7wa06KBLzG6lXk79fM4sKQ_jN_G3mpBo5M3DA&s=1p3VTz0Ap4uxzkH2gzV0GoXlNc_6JSjxYL6MNLnFMvs&e=>
>
> James Tyler Carpenter, PhD, FAACP
> www.metispsych.com
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.experts.com_Expert-2DWitnesses_search-3Fkeyword-3DClinical-2520psychology-26keywordsearchtype-3DAll-2520Words-26category-3DClinical-2520forensic-2520-26categorysearchtype-3DAny-2520Word-26name-3DJames-2520tyler-2520carpenter-26namesearchtype-3DAll-2520Words-26company-3DMetis-26companysearchtype-3DAll-2520Words-26address-3D-2520-26addresssearchtype-3DAll-2520Words-26state-3DMA-26statesearchtype-3DAny-2520Word-26country-3DALL-2520-28or-2520Choose-2520a-2520Country-29-26countrysearchtype-3DAll-2520Words-26page-3D1-26freshsearch-3D1&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=xux1Svy0EGFVQlyXDK0N8gI7n0ZUxGjH5BZii2pxE6U&s=Zwuo2qQXjO-c5cK6ol7YlfNkoIu6jMeyCnis6on1c_M&e= 
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
> following link:
> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
>

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1