On Surveillance Capitalism, Manifestation, Latency, Tangibility, and Cognizability
On why pervasive facial recognition is recognised as "creepy" in ways that other forms of surveillance, such as the massive amounts of personal and location data tracking afforded by mobile phones, is not.
In addition to the frequently noted fact that your phone is separable in ways your face, Nick Cage and John Travolta excepted, is not, there's the notion of manifest versus latent (or tangible vs. intangible) perceptions.
Humans are visual creatures. To "see" is synymous with "to understand". Vision is a high-fidelity sense, in ways that even other senses (hearing, smell, taste, touch) are not. And all our senses are more immediate than perceptions mediated by devices (as with radiation or magnetism) or delivered via symbols, data, or maths.
This is a tremendously significant factor in individual and group psychology. It's also one that's poorly explored and expressed -- Robert K. Merton's work on latent vs. manifest functions, described as the consequences or implications of systems, tools, ideas, or institutions, is about the closest I've been able to find, and whilst this captures much of the sense I'm trying to convey, it doesn't quite catch all of it.
But his work does provide one extraordinarily useful notion, that of the significance of latent functions (or perceptions):
The discovery of latent functions represents significant increments in sociological knowledge. There is another respect in which inquiry into latent functions represents a distinctive contribution of the social scientist. It is precisely the latent functions of a practice or belief which are not common knowlege, for these are unintended and generally unrecognized social and psychological consequences. As a result, findings concerning latent functions represent a greater increment in knowledge than findings concerning manifest functions. They represent, also, greater departures from "common-sense" knowledge about social life. Inasmuch as the latent functions depart, more or less, from the avowed manifestations, the research which uncovers latent functions very often produces "paradoxical" results. The seeming paradox arises from the sharp modification of a familiar popular perception which regards a standardized practice or believe only in terms of its manifest functions by indicating some of its subsidiary or collateral latent functions. The introduction of the concept of latent function in social research leads to conclusions which show that "social life is not as simple as it first seems." For as long as people confine themselves to certain consequences (e.g., manifest consequences), it is comparatively simple for them to pass moral judgements upon the practice or belief in question.
-- Robert K. Merton, "Manifest and Latent Functions", in Social Theory Re-Wired.
Emphasis in original.
Another related concept and term is cognizibility, that is, the capacity of being known or apprehended, a concept I first encountered in William Stanley Jevons's qualities of the material of money. Which has a clear relation to recognition as well.
(Adapted from an Hacker News comment.)
#Manifestation #ManifestVsLatent #tangible #cognisability #RobertKMerton #Sociology #Surveillance #SurveillanceCapitalism #SurveillanceState
