DESIRE: About the intersex subject and revolutionary impatience. A resistance made possible by the 'potentia gaudendi', the reserve of unrestrained 'pleasure potency' which constitutes the basic assumption of the philosophy of desire from Reich to Deleuze and Guattari. 'Polemical non-fiction'? Paul B. Preciado takes up Engels' confrontation with the norms of "the family, the state and private property".
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: The book Covid-19: The Great Reset is about a transformation of a social structure where the nation state is out, and global governance is in.
SURVEILLANCE:State surveillance would not have been possible without the services of Silicon Valley's technology companies. For example, Google in Surveillance Valley is described as "a full-fledged military contractor, who sold versions of the company's consumer data and analytics technology to police departments, city councils, and major U.S. intelligence and military organizations."
PANDEMIC: Perhaps the fear of bacteria and viruses in the future will increasingly lead to a disease preparedness characterized by totalitarian surveillance and control. A blind trust in vaccinations can lead to a phasing out of the human own immune system.
CHRONICLE: Science has made rapid progress in producing a vaccine against Covid-19. But can vaccine programs be based on active consent and autonomous choice by citizens? And does scientific rationality now go hand in hand with creative forms of irrationality?
COVID-19: There is no real skepticism from the public sector about the coronary vaccine – vaccination is recommended, and the people are positive about the vaccine. But is the embrace of the vaccine based on an informed decision or a blind hope for a normal everyday life?
Will increased control or monitoring in this decade eventually leave more to algorithms that carry out actions themselves based on so-called "actionable intelligence"?
China's digital social credit system operates with a form of gamified control, which rewards users as they score points for behavior inside and outside the network. Within 2020, Chinese authorities are planning to establish a nationwide system. Western commentators react with disgust, but is our own social media really that much better?
Per Sandberg did not need to go to Iran to be monitored. New monitoring techniques make it possible to locate mobile users – regardless of where they are. We take a closer look at these developments.
George Orwell's 1984 is still relevant, but "Big Brother" is an outdated and misleading metaphor for today's surveillance, according to author David Lyon. He claims "Big Data" is a more up-to-date linguistic picture.
