Deleting Dystopia: Re-Asserting Human Priorities in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Deleting Dystopia: Re-Asserting Human Priorities in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The IT revolution has brought many surprises. Among them is the fact that intensive surveillance and the related abuse of personal data have fallen into the hands of powerful digital oligarchies. Accounts of the increasingly repressive uses of advanced technologies and the subsequent ‘dumbing down’ of entire populations cast dark shadows over our future prospects that are beginning to look increasingly dystopian. Deleting Dystopia confirms that the existential threats posed by the misuse of advanced digital technologies are real. But, in place of apathy and fatalism, Slaughter explores ways of understanding the threat, conceptualising solutions and identifying strategies that lead away from digital authoritarian futures toward those founded on humanly viable values and practices.