15 Million Merits

Melody Ann Ucros, 10 Sneaky Ways Companies Are Collecting Data to Understand Customers, 

Ucros writes about the many different ways companies can learn from there customers. Some of the most interesting way include a heat map of where users eyes go and where there mouse goes when visiting a page. This can help companies learn where to put ads so they are most effective. GPS tracking is also very interesting because stores can put advertisements or promotions on your phone when you are near their store.

PJ Patella-Rey, Incidental Productivity: Value and Social Media, The Society Pages

This article is about how social media can exploit each of its users. Patella-Rey uses Marx to help get his point across that labor do not need to be intentional. The article questions if ambient production qualifies as labor and answers it by saying that is does not meet Marx’s criteria for labor but instead is incidental productivity because people can not see what they are producing.

Steve Ranger, Inside the panopticon economy: The next internet revolution, privacy and you, ZDNet

Ranger writes about how our lives and internet lives are very different in some cases. People are creating accounts on the internet that are not their real selves but the better and more advanced the internet becomes the harder it is to keep those things separate. He says that this promises to make everyday actions into data points that can be monetized. The main point of the article is that in the future everything we do is a data point and can be used to determine many different things about our lives. For example Ranger says that if you watch documentaries instead of soap operas your health insurance might be less than the other person because you are probably more informed on how to stay healthy.

Thomas McMullan, What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance?, The Guardian

This Article relates how panopticons in the past are being used now on the internet and other surveillance devices. The only difference is that now people do not have the feeling that they are being constantly watched while on the internet or being surveilled in public. This is a very scary topic to think about because it is possible and likely that people are constantly being tracked because of how many cameras there are and how people are always on their phone.

Episode Analysis

The first article by Ucros can relate to the episode by the technology used in the episode and technology spoke about in the article. If the main character “Bing” is not watching the ads somehow the Monitors know that his eyes are not open or looking away. The heat tracking maps could be used in a similar way. If it can track where users eyes are it could possibly adjust ads on the fly to constantly be in front of the person looking at the screen.

In the episode Bing and all the other workers must ride their bikes everyday to collect merits. They seem to be trapped in this place and are being forced to ride. Although it seems they are being forced to ride they do not see anything that they are creating. All they see is what is collected from them and their merits slowly going up and down. They must be riding for something that they can not see. The company or world they are in must be using that energy somehow. Most people would consider this labor but Patella-Rey might argue differently. The bikers can not see and possibly do not even know what they are creating therefore they are not actually considered labor. The way Bing and everyone is riding their bikes could be an analogy for how people are just riding on the internet creating data and things for giant companies without even knowing it.

Rangers article is very interesting because he almost gets a part of the episode spot on. Every-time Bing or anyone in his situation does something data is being collected and the audience is able to see that in the way the merits are constantly being used up just by simply brushing teeth.

The scariest and biggest mystery of the episode is where are these people? The real panopticons and digital ones spoke about in the McMullan are extremely prevalent in the episode. All the “workers” are being watched in there little cells and can not see who is watching them.

Discussion Questions

Is it unethical for big companies to take data we voluntarily are putting out there or is it just the reasonable thing to do?

Is the intangible aspect of everything in 15 million merits similar to this world or are we still a long way off?