Mark Fielding

Big Tech convinced us smartphones are conveniences, not surveillance devices. Oxford philosopher Carissa Véliz reframes what we're actually carrying on the Thinking On Paper podcast: "If you told someone in the 1950s, we're gonna have this system, and it's gonna rely on surveillance the way we think it's okay to surveil a criminal, but not anyone else, people in the 1950s would be shocked for good reason. That's why Big Tech is so successful at the narratives—it's how they package the product. If you package it like one of those electronic devices that people on parole have to use, then it looks a lot less attractive, but it really is quite similar to that."