for the purpose of doing something
In order to be successful in that business, you have to have great predictions.The Social Dilemma · 2020 — Chapter 2 of 14 · 2'37" · C1
Surveillance Capitalism Explained, Explained: human futures
The pitch sounds like a business seminar: advertising that is guaranteed to work. What's underneath is a trade in people. "And it's a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures," one voice says — behaviour sold forward like pork bellies, with personal data as the raw material.
What happens
The explanation moves from advertising to prediction. A guarantee of success requires accurate forecasts; accurate forecasts require data. The data comes from tracking where people go and what they pause on, then feeding it into systems with little human supervision.
Listen for
sell certaintyimperativeprofiting off ofhuman futures
00:00 / 02:37Space play · ← → lines · R repeat
Now
Phrase of the scene
human futures
contracts on future human behavior
The speaker first calls human futures a market of their own, then later compares it to pork belly and oil futures, staying cool and analytical.
The app trades in human futures: your next click is the product.
Also in this scene
- sell certainty
offer guaranteed outcomes
- imperative
an absolute requirement
- profiting off of
making money from something
- at scale
on a large scale
- monitored and recorded
watched and logged
Everything marked in this scene
22 notes across 32 lines
Let 'to' glide; put the stress on 'successful'.
In order to be successful in that business, you have to have great predictions.making money from something
Someone describes big tech companies as making money from endless tracking, with a critical edge.
capitalism profiting off of the infinite tracking of everywhere everyone goes by large technology companies whose business model is torelative clause: The clause adds what the companies' business model is; 'whose' links it back to 'companies'.
capitalism profiting off of the infinite tracking of everywhere everyone goes by large technology companies whose business model is toas successful as can be
make sure that advertisers are as successful as possible.Stress 'successful' and keep both 'as' light.
make sure that advertisers are as successful as possible.deals only in a certain kind of thing
And it's a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures.contracts on future human behavior
The speaker first calls human futures a market of their own, then later compares it to pork belly and oil futures, staying cool and analytical.
And it's a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures.buy and sell pork belly futures
Just like there are markets that trade in pork belly futures or oil futures.pork belly contracts — Financial jargon; explain it outside markets.
Just like there are markets that trade in pork belly futures or oil futures.on a large scale
The speaker stresses that this trade is not small: it operates across huge numbers of people.
We now have markets that trade in human futures at scale,the point I want to make is
What I want people to know is that everything they're doing online is being watched,passive progressive: The structure shows an ongoing passive action: online behavior is continuously being watched.
What I want people to know is that everything they're doing online is being watched,watched and logged
Someone turns ordinary online actions into things that are watched and stored, in a serious tone.
Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded.how something comes across
Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, or what kind of neuroses you have, what your personality type is like.regardless of whether you are A or B
Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, or what kind of neuroses you have, what your personality type is like.more information on us
They have more information about us than has ever been imagined in human history.comparative clause: The 'than' clause takes 'information' as its understood subject: more information than has ever been imagined.
They have more information about us than has ever been imagined in human history.release in a steady flow
that we're just pouring out all the time is being fed into these systems that have almost no human supervision and that are making better and better and better and better predictionsput into a system
that we're just pouring out all the time is being fed into these systems that have almost no human supervision and that are making better and better and better and better predictionsimproving all the time
that we're just pouring out all the time is being fed into these systems that have almost no human supervision and that are making better and better and better and better predictionsStack the repeated 'better' with rising stress.
that we're just pouring out all the time is being fed into these systems that have almost no human supervision and that are making better and better and better and better predictionsSurveillance Capitalism Explained, explained
What's really going on
The explanation reframes advertising as a commodity market. The thing being tracked is not just where people go but how long they linger: "Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded." The examples include loneliness, depression, late-night activity, photos of ex-romantic partners. That list moves the argument from privacy to leverage: knowing when someone is lonely makes the moment usable. The line about systems with almost no human supervision, making "better and better and better" predictions, is where the explanation turns darker.
Theme
PowerTracking is framed as leverage: knowing when someone is lonely turns a private moment into something sellable.
MoneyThe product is not ads but prediction, sold to advertisers as guaranteed success.
Listen for
- In order to — Let 'to' glide; put the stress on 'successful'.
- as successful as — Stress 'successful' and keep both 'as' light.
- better and better — Stack the repeated 'better' with rising stress.
And it's a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures.This market sells predictions of what people will do next, and nothing else. The comparison to pork belly futures makes a person's future behaviour a tradable commodity.
Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded.The tracking is granular: how long you linger on an image is measured and stored, not just whether you stopped.
They have more information about us than has ever been imagined in human history.The claim is about scale: the volume of behavioural data collected now exceeds anything previously imagined, which is why the next line calls it unprecedented.
They know when people are lonely.The tracking covers emotional states too: loneliness is one of the things the systems can identify, not just where people go.
Questions about this scene
What does "human futures" mean here?
Not the future of humanity. It is the futures-market sense: contracts on what people will do next, traded the way pork belly or oil futures are traded.
What is actually being sold here?
Certainty. The promise is that an ad will work ("if it places an ad, it will be successful"), and that guarantee depends on predictions built from data.
Why compare human behaviour to pork bellies and oil?
To make the trade sound ordinary: futures markets already trade pork bellies and oil, so "human futures" frames people's future actions as the same kind of commodity, now at scale.
Why mention loneliness and depression specifically?
They show how personal the tracking gets: the dialogue says they know when people are lonely and depressed, not just where people go. That is the kind of detail the systems are said to measure.
The Social Dilemma · 14 chapters
All chapters →
Up next · Chapter 3dial up the adsTech Insiders Explain the Growth Dials
Chapter 1rakes in moneyYou Are the Product
Watching · Chapter 2human futuresSurveillance Capitalism Explained
Chapter 3dial up the adsTech Insiders Explain the Growth Dials
Chapter 4fall prey toPinterest President Can't Put Phone Down
Chapter 5let the record showBen Takes the One-Week Phone Bet
Chapter 6conflateWhy Social Media Harms Teens
Chapter 7a mind of its ownAIs Plot Ben's Resurrection
Chapter 8reckon withThe Wikipedia Analogy
Chapter 9tilt the floorFake News Spreads Faster Than Truth
Chapter 10weaponizing social mediaFacebook Weaponized in Myanmar
Chapter 11digital FrankensteinsSpeaker Reframes the Tech Threat
Chapter 12willful ignoranceThe Civil War Interview
Chapter 13put the genie back in the bottleInterviewees Call for Regulation
Chapter 14set in stoneTech Insiders Explain What Went WrongChapter 2 of 14 · about 35 min to go