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What Is Neurocapitalism and Why

Are We Living In It?
Written by ANTONELLA DI BIASE (/AUTHOR/ANTONELLADB)

October 18, 2016 // 09:00 AM EST

It's a fact: we are bang in the middle of the Anthropocene

(http://motherboard.vice.com/fr/read/pourquoi-des-chercheurs-pensent-que-nous-sommes-
entres-dans-lanthropocene). We have changed the destiny of our planet and its ecosystems,
to the point that human actions have become as powerful as that of plate tectonics or ice
ages. All this we owe to two essential elements: human stupidity, and technology. Human
stupidity is a constant throughout history, but without the help of technology, we could never
have, over the centuries, managed to do such an extraordinary thing as cram the Earth's
atmosphere full of chemicals.

But somehow, technology is also a constant in our lives. It is by using tools that we gradually
distinguished ourselves from monkeys. Today, phones are at the heart of our social life,
computers our main work tools, and biotechnology (such as pacemakers) literally have the
power of life and death over us. The more complex society becomes, the more that
technological tools intimately mix with socio-political, economic and cultural dynamics.

Image: Flickr/Ub (https://www.ickr.com/photos/jmube/3501253019/)

In his book Neurocapitalismo (http://mimesisedizioni.it/neurocapitalismo.html) (Mimesis, 2016),

Giorgio Griziotti highlights our symbiosis with technology and its impact on social life. A tool
that is essential for progress and sometimes an instrument for revolution, technology can
also act as the Warrant Ocer for anyone seeking to control others. The booksoon to be
translated into French, English and Spanishtakes capitalism, which was forged at a time
when there was only the question of surplus value and means of production, and looks at it
through the prism of a modern world that is veering towards post-humanism. If technological
advances have enabled us to transform the world to this point, who says they are not at work
transforming us too?
I met Giorgio on a sunny afternoon to talk with him about his book, Apple, trac lights and
transhumanism. He insisted that I address him with the informal "tu", because despite his
white hair, he is still, basically, the same left-wing militant from the 70s, when he was forced
into exile in France for political reasons.

Motherboard: Where did you get the idea for this book, Neurocapitalism?
Giorgio Griziotti: This book is the fruit of my two greatest passions: politics and technology. I
was interested in software from the beginning of my studies, I studied IT when these
technologies were in their infancy, and have worked for years in this eld. But I've always
been very interested in politics and I myself am still involved with it (which has allowed me to
travel the world... [laughs]), and I wanted to study more closely the links between these two
passions.

At that time, at the University of Berkeley, we were witnessing the birth of the anti-Vietnam
War movement, but also that of the rst free software. That's how I realized that all this was
deeply connected.

Technology and politics?

Yes, technology has always inuenced us, it has fundamentally changed our subjectivity since
prehistoric times. Early in the book, I mention the famous scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey with
the monkey who, by picking up a bone to use as a weapon, invented the rst tool.

Since the 90s, technology has become more invasive, and we have seen the birth of true
hybrid subjectivities. Technology is no longer just a tool, an instrument for interaction with
the world; it becomes part of our subjective experience.

What specically distinguishes neurocapitalism? Who, what, should we be wary of?

One could say that, compared to the industrial capitalism that Marx described, we are now
entering a cognitive and biocognitive era of capitalism. Factories still exist, but they are no
longer at the heart of politics. We have moved from a time when the driving force of all
activity was accumulation in the physical sense, to a society based on performance and the
exploitation of life in a broader sense. Whether you are working or just spending time in front
of a screen, it is a form of production, and cognitive capitalism exploits this for its own prot.

Our economy is based on knowledge and information. Capitalism in Silicon Valley, which is
part of the nancial machine, founded its own power on its mastery of algorithms and ability
to manipulate our attention, and even space-time.
Recently, the city of Augsburg, in Germany, installed trac signals on the ground
(https://www.urbanews.fr/2016/05/04/50855-des-feux-tricolores-pour-les-accros-du-
smartphone/) for pedestrians who have their eyes on their smartphone. What do you
think of this? Is this a way for the "system" to encourage us to stay glued to our
devices?
In a way, yes. In any case, it's certainly not an invitation to adopt a critical approach. In a
passage of my book, I write that time devours the territory: cognitive capitalism does not want
us to admire the scenery...

Smartphones are also a way to work permanently. Historically, the boundary between private
life and work disappeared along with the factory, when autonomous and precarious work
appeared. Production and living are now intertwined, precisely because of the new
technologies.

"The identity of the human being, because of

technological progress, is undergoing a profound
change"

Apple, in the controversy when it opposed the FBI over encryption, appeared to the
world as a kind of "defender of privacy." While in the end, it is they who invented the
smartphone...
In my view, Apple has taken a faade position. Would that not be because it is a company that
sells software which it owns, and which is conservative by nature? And in this case, Apple is
trying, clumsily, to embody a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist position in this debate, arguing
that individual freedom is more important than the community. And I, quite honestly, do not
agree with this view.

Your discourse is part of the debate on biopolitics, is it not?

Yes, the Empire trilogy by Hardt & Negri and Foucault's thought in general are part of my main
sources of inspiration. Drawing on their concepts, I thought about our relationship to the
smartphone and similar technologies. Foucault, for example, could not have imagined in his
time the incredible changes that would occur in this area.
I coined the concept of "biohypermedia", which I have dened as "a context in which the body
in its entirety connects to networked devices so intimately that they enter into symbiosis and
modify each other."

The old data processing centres of yesteryear, or today's computers, stimulate and
encompass the rational sphere of the brain, the left hemisphere. Items like the smartphone
or the smartwatch, conversely, speak directly to our emotions and our bodies. I explain in
Neurocapitalism that Foucault's biopolitics is taking on a technological dimension. The control
of individuals, thanks to devices, extends to their senses and emotions, it becomes granular
one has only to witness the extent of monitoring carried out through [malware] deployed by
states.

What is the impact of neurocapitalism on contemporary humans?

As I said, people and technologies have somehow merged. We are in an era in the making,
almost becoming a machine; but for now, we have no certainty about our future. The concept
of posthuman as dened by the philosopher Rosi (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosi_Braidotti)
Braidotti is a perfect example of what I mean: the identity of the human being, because of
technological progress, is undergoing a profound change. But Rosi's vision of things is
probably a bit too optimistic: if the posthuman includes a new emerging subjectivity, it is
possible (but not a given) that we will see the coming of an anti-capitalist ethic where income
and prot will not be the driving forces (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/eliminating-
money-taxes-and-ownership-will-bring-forth-technoutopia).

But in the current context, all skills, all creative abilities, are commodities. If you are recruited
to participate in a project, your skill corresponds to a commodity for which they pay you little
and which they then resell for a prot. And truth be told, without awareness and without
struggles to create lines of ight opposed to neoliberalism, there is no guarantee that we will
see the birth of a dierent ethic. And even post-humanism, assuming that we reach it one
day, will remain marked by the economic rationality which currently dominates.

What do you think then of transhumanism, which rejoices in the progressive

hybridization between humans and technology and wants to encourage it?
Transhumanism is a philosophy that is well suited to Silicon Valley's neoliberalism. A recent
article in Le Monde described it as religion 3.0: the becoming-machine turns into becoming-
God (by which is meant immortality, which we are supposed to attain by merging with
technology).
But if we look at things dierently, transhumanism continues the Enlightenment tradition that
I critique early in the book, and that I now consider outdated. This does not mean that we
cannot use technology to enhance, intensify or prolong our lives, but as psychiatrists and
psychologists teach us, to see humans as omnipotent and immortal is often a sign of serious
diseases... To conclude, I would simply say that we should not underestimate the importance
of the debate on the ethical, political and social purpose of the use of these technologies.

This story was originally published on Motherboard Italy

(http://motherboard.vice.com/it/read/neurocapitalismo-intervista-giorgio-griziotti). It was
translated by Jenny Bright (http://tlaxcala-int.org/biographie.asp?ref_aut=3423&lg_pp=en) and
edited by Fausto Giudice ( http://tlaxcala-int.org/biographie.asp?
ref_aut=2&lg_pp=en)( http://tlaxcala-int.org/biographie.asp?ref_aut=2&lg_pp=en).

--

TOPICS: economy (/tag/economy), Giorgio Griziotti (/tag/Giorgio+Griziotti), politics

(/tag/politics), culture (/tag/culture), neurocapitalism (/tag/neurocapitalism), Futures
(/tag/Futures)

Contact the author by email (mailto:antonella.dibiase@vice.com) or Twitter

(https://twitter.com/Antodb333).

You can reach us at letters@motherboard.tv (mailto:letters@motherboard.tv).

Letters may be published. Want to see other people talking about Motherboard?
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(http://motherboard.vice.com/tag/letters+to+the+editor).

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