PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO

FACULTY OF HUMAN SCIENCES AND HEALTH

GRADUATE STUDIES PROGRAM
IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Luis Henrique do Nascimento Goncalves

Automagic Machines:
work, extended mind and subjectivity
under the commodity fetish

DOCTORATE IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

São Paulo

2023

1
 Luis Henrique do Nascimento Goncalves

Automagic Machines:
work, extended mind and subjectivity under the commodity fetish

PhD in Social Psychology

Thesis presented to the Examining Board

of the Pontifical Catholic University of
São Paulo as a requirement to obtain the
title of DOCTOR in Social Psychology,
under the guidance of Prof. doctor Odair
Furtado.

São Paulo

2023

2
Automagic Machines: work, extended mind and subjectivity under the commodity fetish
Luis Henrique do Nascimento Goncalves
Thesis presented to the Examining Board of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo as
a requirement to obtain the title of DOCTOR in Social Psychology, under the guidance of
Prof. doctor Odair Furtado.

Approved in:

Examination Board:

________________________________________________
Prof. doctor Odair Furtado - PUC-SP (supervisor)

________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Maria da Graça Marchina Gonçalves - PUC-SP

________________________________________________
Prof. doctor Diogo Cortiz da Silva - PUC-SP

________________________________________________
Prof. doctor Marcos Dantas Loureiro - UFRJ

________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Roseli Aparecida Figaro Paulino - USP

São Paulo/SP - Brazil

May 2023

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To the real funders of this research, the Brazilian working class.

4
This work was carried out with the support of the National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development (CNPq) - Process nº 140169/20199. Without this support, the
work could not have been carried out.

5
THANKS

In 2015, I met professor Odair Furtado at the XVIII National Meeting of ABRAPSO ,
when I asked for his help to give theoretical quality to my master's thesis. He told me to go to
the newsstand in front of us and buy his book, Trabalho e Solidariedade . In it, Odair made a
dedication in which he predicted our future: “a great and happy meeting of intellectual
partnership”. So, I thank the master for this incredible journey, full of attention, exchanges
and affection. Long live our partnership!
With this partnership came others. I would like to thank my colleagues at the Nucleus
for Studies on Work and Social Action (NUTAS) for having grown and continuing to grow
together. I also thank Professor Graça Gonçalves for the unforgettable and invaluable lessons.
This journey, full of challenges, became healthier and more hopeful thanks to my
beloved partner, Brena Marinho. In the construction of the thesis and our life together, in
common, the search and the experience of the truth. One of the happiest moments of my
entire life. Thank you for teaching me, for your patience and for your partnership.
This work would not have happened without an intellectual turn that began in 2015,
when I took a course in my master's degree with Professor Fred Loureiro, who then became
my advisor. By waking me up from a long intellectual sleep, it brought me back to the path of
the truth of the world and to Marxism. Thank you very much.
I thank my friend José Carlos Nunes for the opportunities we shared. Without them, I
would hardly be able to invest in this endeavor.
Since I was 12 I wanted to understand why the world was so unfair. Thanks to my aunt
Ana Maria, at the age of 14 I ended up on a “philosophy course” organized by Val Carvalho,
the greatest Marxist and militant of the people with whom I lived. When I finished my
master's, I asked him what I should research for my doctorate. He told me something like “go
study the new technologies”. Here is my task accomplished, comrade. I dedicate this work to
you.
Finally, I would like to thank all my family and friends who helped me to be who I am.
Mom, you would be proud.

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ABSTRACT

In this integrative review of the scientific literature, of an exploratory and qualitative nature,
we start from the phenomenal appearance of the products of the extended mind (digital
technologies) in search of their concrete, multidetermined and contradictory reality. For this,
we reviewed digital marketing, interface design and user experience manuals, in addition to
the academic literature on Human-Computer Interaction, behavioral and cognitive
psychologies and behavioral economics. With this, we trace deeper determinations and
contradictions, which led us to study the scientific literature of the sociology of technologies,
certain elements of computing (the so-called artificial intelligence, big data and predictive
analysis, among others) and political economy of information and communication
technologies (which includes the so-called attention economy). We demonstrate that all these
elements exist as a totality that, in turn, mediates other, even deeper, human-social
determinations and contradictions. To reach them, we reviewed parts of the literature on
epistemology, philosophy of science, critique of political economy, ontology of social being,
as well as different approaches to studies of consciousness - in particular, cognitive sciences,
neuroscience, paleoanthropology and socio-psychology. -historical. The set of these revisions
pointed to the referred totality as a new other link of causalities and mediations that seek to
realize and reproduce the ontonegative social relations of appropriation without work, of the
complex of capitalist alienation and its structural crisis of profitability. For this totality to
move and thus exist, the products of the extended mind create and mediate needs that can only
be partially satisfied and in the form of a simple false exchange, where, in the act of
consumption, its users work and act, ultimately. instance, as productive and/or reproductive
forces of capital. Through corporate secrets, alleged computational inexplicabilities and the
fetish of the commodity, all these determinations and contradictions are “encrypted” in
algorithms, interfaces and user experiences and their rewards. This whole detour allows us to
return to the surface of the products of the extended mind, now aware of their concrete
existence, which, however, presents itself fetishized as automagic machines. This allows us to
understand more adequately that the enchantment and dependence that these products provoke
are, to a large extent, phenomena related to estrangement ( Entfremdung ). For all these
reasons, we conclude that these mystifications and their confrontation are new forms of class
struggle and that new interdisciplinary studies are needed to understand and transform this
reality.

Keywords: user work; extended mind; social psychology ; commodity fetish.

7
ABSTRACT

In this integrative review of scientific literature, which is exploratory and qualitative in nature,
we start from the phenomenal appearance of extended mind products (digital technologies) in
search of their concrete, multidetermined and contradictory reality. To do this, we reviewed
digital marketing, interface design, and user experience manuals, as well as academic
literature in Human-Computer Interaction, behavioral and cognitive psychology, and
behavioral economics. With this, we traced deeper determinations and contradictions, which
led us to study the scientific literature of the sociology of technologies, certain elements of
computing (such as artificial intelligence, big data, and predictive analysis, among others),
and the political economy of information and communication technologies (which includes
the so-called attention economy). We demonstrate that all these elements exist as a totality,
which in turn mediates other human-social determinations and contradictions that are even
more profound. To reach these, we reviewed parts of the literature on epistemology,
philosophy of science, the critique of political economy, the ontology of social being, as well
as various approaches to the study of consciousness – especially cognitive sciences,
neuroscience, paleoanthropology, and socio -historical psychology. The set of these reviews
points to the referred totality as a new other link of causalities and mediations that seek to
realize and reproduce the onto-negative social relations of appropriation without work, the
complex of capitalist alienation, and its structural crisis of profitability. For this totality to
move and thus exist, extended mind products create and mediate needs that can only be
partially satisfied and in the form of a false simple exchange, where, in the act of
consumption, their users ultimately work and act as productive and/ or reproductive forces of
capital. Through corporate secrets, alleged computational inexplicabilities, and the fetish of
the commodity, all these determinations and contradictions are "encrypted" in algorithms,
interfaces, and user experiences and their rewards. All this detour allows us to return to the
surface of extended mind products now aware of their concrete existence, which, however,
appears fetishized as automagical machines. This allows us to better understand that the
enchantment and dependence that these products cause are, to a large extent, phenomena
related to estrangement (Entfremdung). For all these reasons, we conclude that these
mystifications and their confrontation are new other forms of class strug gle, and that new
interdisciplinary studies are necessary to understand and transform this reality.

Keywords : prosumption; extended mind; social psychology ; commodity fetish.

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AMT Amazon Mechanical Turk

API Applications Programming Interface

AWS Amazon Web Services

BERT Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers

CSC Computational Social Sciences

EPTIC Political Economy of Information and Communication Technologies

ESD28 Brazilian Digital Health Strategy

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation

AI Artificial intelligence

IBM International Business Machines Corporation

iso International Organization for Standardization

IHC Human-Computer Interaction

GDPR General Data Protection Law

LaMDA Language Model for Dialogue Applications

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PSSH Socio-Historical Social Psychology

RNDS National Health Data Network

SMD Surface Mounted Device (surface mounted component)

SNSs Social Networking Services

sdk Software Development Kits

OK Activity Theory

UX User Experience (User Experience Design)

UI User Interface

YOU Venture Capitals

9
SUMMARY

1. The Socio-Historical Social Psychology method 1

2. The interdisciplinarity of the theme and the exhibition 3
3. Goals 4
4. Discussion 6
4.1. Extended mind and humanization 6
4.2. Psychotechnologies 10
5. Research methodology 15
1.1 The gnosiological path – reification as construction of the world 19
1.2 Negentropy, cybernetics and social homeostasis 22
1.3 Ontological reductionism – part 1 26
1.4 Should-be and become – part 1 31
1.4.1 Causality and transformation 31
1.4.2 Probabilism and the “active side” 33
1.4.3 The archer’s tale – must-be and become 37
1.5 Structures of consciousness 44
1.5.1 Myths of ontonegativity 44
1.5.2 Socio-Historical Awareness 54
a) Of reflex to consciousness 55
b) Stimulus-response and instrumental act 57
c) cognitive fluidity 61
1.5.3 Psychotechnologies – part 1 63
a) Neurochemistry of psychotechnologies 64
b) Multitasking, transactive memory and metamemory 67
c) attentions 69
1.5.4 The reality that escapes us – part 1 72
1.6 The reality of appropriation without work 75
1.6.1 Realization and intellectual optical illusion 76
1.6.2 Work, humanization, exclusion 77
1.6.3 The human use of human beings – part 1 80
1.6.4 Appropriation societies and their division of labor 83
1.7A reality that escapes us - part 2 85
1.7.1 Real abstraction and ideal abstraction 85
1.7.2 Second-order mediations 87
1.7.3 Pseudoconcreticity 88
1.8 The issue of method 89
1.8.1 Crisis of replication of ontonegative psychologies 90
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 1.8.2 Neuromania 93
1.8.3 Qualitative research in HCI 93
1.8.4 Computational social sciences 94
1.8.5 Science and denial of denial 95
2.1 The alienation complex and the reality that escapes us – part 3 98
2.1.1 Alienation and estrangement 98
2.1.2 The human use of human beings in capitalism – part 2 101
a) Work and workforce 101
b) mystification of capital 103
c) Subjective condition of production and abstract work 103
d) labor force commodity 104
e) plus-value 105
2.1.3 Can estrangement exist outside the production of surplus value? 106
2.1.4 The commodity fetish 107
a) Fetishism and capitalist productive alienation 108
b) Fetishism, equivalence, representation and realization 110
c) Fetishism as a form of humanization 111
2.1.5 The fetishization of the extended mind 113
2.2 The labor power commodity 118
2.2.1 Social needs and value of the workforce 119
a) Subjective dimensions of social needs 119
b) Needs and production 122
c) Needs and externalization 123
d) Needs and estrangement 124
2.2.2 Variable capital in the game of mirrors between commodities 126
2.2.3 Variable capital, prosumption and the false simple exchange 129
a) Origins and purposes of prosumption 130
b) Prosumption information work 132
c) Prosumption and capitalist alienation 135
d) The false simple exchange and the three-way market 138
2.3 Automagic machines as means of production 143
2.3.1 The context of the structural crisis of capital 143
2.3.2 General intellect and capitalist production 147
2.2.4 Mining, surveillance or data production work? 149
2.3.5 The question of the transfer of work in the product, or in the commodity 155
2.3.6 Platform capitalism and its “clouds” 162
a) Technological, institutional and market innovations 163
b) artificial artificial intelligence 164
c) “Immaterial” Goods 165
d) californian ideology 166
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 e) Productive, cumulative and epistemic restructuring 166
f) Platforms and apps 167
g) Cloud 169
h) network effect 169
i) Platformization of sociometabolism 170
3.1 Ontological reductionism – part 2 176
3.1.1 Predictably irrational 176
3.1.2 Systems 1 and 2 181
3.1.3 Libertarian Paternalism 185
3.1.4 Architecture of choices 192
3.1.5 Modulation 194
3.2 Digital needs 200
3.2.1 Design of demands 201
3.2.2 Uses and Gratuities 202
3.2.3 Hook model 205
a) triggers 207
b) Action 208
c) variable rewards 210
d) Investment 212
3.2.4 Attention economy and the colonization of free time 215
3.3 Subjective Dimensions of Human-Computer Interaction 220
3.3.1 The role of psychology in HCI 220
3.3.2 Activity, interface and awareness 222
a) Activity models in HCI 226
b) Mental models in HCI 232
3.3.3 Restrictions and affordances 234
3.3.4 User Interface Design 238
3.3.5 User experience 242
3.3.6 Gamification 250
3.4 Duty and Becoming – part 2 253
3.4.1 Social physics 254
a) Social complexity, emergence and control 256
b) “Social Pressure for Harmony” 258
3.4.2 Dataism 259
3.4.3 Predictive analytics 261
3.4.4 Techno-solutionism and algorithmic regulation 264
3.4.5 The realism of the objective function 267
3.5 Critical Information Competency 271

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INTRODUCTION

[8:00] (alarm clock sound, followed by Google Assistant voice 1) – Good morning,
Luis. Time to get up. It's 8 am. At the moment, in Vila Buarque, it is 25 degrees.
Your commute to work is 23 minutes. Don't forget to water the plants. Today your
appointments are…

What are the transformations in human-social reality resulting from the omnipresence
of digital technologies and the internet about? What is this reality in which “[...] pressing the
finger against images in a rectangle of metal and glass makes a means of transport, a useful
object, a person, appear in front of me so that I can do something with them that I previously
wanted ” (GONÇALVES, 2021, p. 206)? What, among these transformations, is continuity or
rupture of previous social and productive forms and relationships? How do they reshape or
reproduce the (internal and external) structures of our consciousness, ontology,
intersubjectivity and sociability? What do they represent for work, in their universal,
particular and unique senses? How, why and for what are these technologies so captivating
and irresistible and why, because of this, do they increase our capacities, at the same time that
they can create and increase our sufferings?

1. The Socio-Historical Social Psychology method

This research, an integrative review of the scientific literature (MARTINS, 2018),

exploratory and qualitative, is aimed at audiences from different fields of science and political
action. Therefore, before seeking to answer the questions that introduced this thesis, it is
necessary to methodologically insert into the discussion an issue that is rarely adequately
considered by the social sciences in studies of technology (and other themes of capitalism),

1
Real audio performed on 2/18/2022 by the researcher's Google Assistant. According to Wikipedia, “Google
Assistant is available in more than 90 countries and in more than 30 languages and is used by more than 500
million users monthly”. Available from: < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Assistant >. Accessed on: 22
Feb. 2022.
According to the Statista website, “By 2020, there will be 4.2 billion digital voice assistants being used on
devices around the world. Forecasts suggest that by 2024, the number of digital voice assistants will reach 8.4
billion units – more than the world's population.” Available at: <
https://www.statista.com/statistics/973815/worldwide-digital-voice-assistant-in-use/ >. Accessed on: 22 Feb.
2022.
1
namely, the objective materiality -subjective of human-social reality (MARX, ENGELS,
2007; LUKÁCS, 2013; BOCK, GONÇALVES, FURTADO, 2015; LESSA, 2012).
In the case of historical and dialectical materialism, to a large extent the not always
adequate consideration of social reality arises from its own tragic development. In short,
materialist studies of subjectivity were dramatically compromised, early on, by the global rise
of Stalinism.
From the long period in which this rise took place and even later, while its reflection
was present, the issue of subjectivity was minimized, ignored, or labeled as bourgeois by a
large part of the theoretical and political development of this field, making it incomplete and
problematic (LÖWY, 1978; TOASSA, 2016; 2020). However, especially after the last decades
of the 20th century, when such objectivist approaches no longer accounted for socioeconomic
phenomena, once again tragically many authors in the field began to resort to theoretical
repertoires outside of Marxian theory to try to explain subjectivity and its effects. links with
these phenomena.
Although the critical re-reading of external repertoires is part of the historical and
dialectical materialist method, its own theoretical production about subjectivity – and its
existence in unity with the objective conditions of life – is an unfinished and unavoidable
task.
This research takes place within the collective efforts to carry out the resumption of
this task that, in Brazil, begins mainly with the work of Professor Silvia Lane, at the Pontifical
Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and her then advisees, currently professors at the
said university. Therefore, this work has as one of its methodological drivers the analytical
category of the subjective dimension of reality (BOCK, GONÇALVES, 2009; FURTADO,
2011), which is constituted precisely as a way of enabling us to recognize that the field of
subjectivity it is not only the one that captures, reflects and justifies the inherited causalities,
but also the one that integrates and participates in these causal pores.
Certainly, we are not talking about an equality or dichotomy between these
dimensions, nor about an organization of objectivity designed and realized from the world of
ideas. We refer to the human dynamics of transformation of its own reality that exists in the
unit and in the movement between the objectively posited and the abstraction of this
objectivity through historically determined structures of consciousness (teleology, concepts,
language, emotions, neurochemical structures, etc.). Such structures exist, on the one hand, in
the sharing and reproduction of social meanings – which, in turn, are decisively placed in and
2
by the superstructure of society (laws, customs, ideology, institutions, etc.) – and, on the other
hand, , act as a substance with which each individual, in their class position and other social
identities (color, gender, etc.), together with their life stories and needs, lives, interprets and
modifies their reality ( FURTADO , 20 11 ) .
The individual and collective subject does this through its externalizations (goods, art,
ideas, etc.), which recompose the field of objectivity, incessantly remaking the non-linear and
non-sequential, but bi-univocal flow (FURTADO, 2011). With the analytical tool of the
subjective dimension of reality, we can become more apt to recognize both the objective
determinations that co-produce subjectivity and our objectivity, as it is posited and
impregnated by affects, intentions and their teleologies.
The description of human-social reality, as a unit and movement, presupposes another
central category that structures this thesis, namely, mediation . It allows us to observe that the
structures and phenomena of reality that are presented to us (such as the extended mind 2) are
not given causalities, they do not have an immediate existence , without a history of which
they are a product, but exist linked to other materialities not necessarily perceived.
As Kosik (2002, p. 50) describes, “[...] the whole creates itself in the interaction of the
parts”. With this category, we can also see that the factors presented here can act as an
organizing center for the way in which the singular “[...] is built in universality and, at the
same time and in the same way, how universality is concretized in singularity”, having
particularity as mediation (OLIVEIRA, 2001, p. 302).
The category of mediation allows us to recognize that apparently distinct, autonomous
and separated elements by historical time, in fact, make up the totality that this thesis seeks to
describe: as certain elements of the historical process of humanization, certain epistemologies,
the capitalist mode of production and efforts to control of subjectivity mutually mediate their
existence through the extended mind, realizing the totality that centrally characterizes our
present and possibly our future.

2. The interdisciplinarity of the theme and the exhibition

Based on Socio-Historical Social Psychology (PSSH), this thesis seeks to validate, in

its primary object – namely, the extended mind – certain categories and issues participating in

2
Extended mind, in a simple and initial definition, is any artificial object that increases the human capacity of
storage and cognitive processing. Its details will be given throughout the thesis.
3
different disciplines that are not necessarily familiar with each other. Readers from the
cognitive sciences will follow discussions on pseudoconcreticity and surplus value; those on
Political Economy of Information and Communication Technologies (EPTIC) will deal with
social meanings and neuroplasticity; and social psychologists will tackle Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) and platforming. Therefore, the thesis adopts a mode of exposition that
seeks to present these various elements in the most didactic way possible – especially in its
footnotes and in the presentation of some main authors. Eventually, this can make reading
sometimes excessive, sometimes necessarily explained for some or for others.
We hope, with all this, to accomplish a double objective. First, as already explained,
we intend to expose the dynamics of mediations that articulate the totality described in the
thesis. Second, by doing this through the lens of PSSH, we propose to demonstrate the
objective and subjective existence of these elements – from Congo cobalt mining to
globalized data “mining”; from inducing dopamine production to the competitive struggle of
venture capitalists; from ontonegative to emancipatory social relations.
Additionally, in the search for elements of the realities that pervade the theme of the
thesis and for the methods for this apprehension, we will deal with certain transversal
questions that challenge our research. Among them, we highlight two: 1) what is the validity
of historical-dialectical materialism in face of the datified reality of the cognitive sciences?; 2)
what is the validity of the labor theory of value for the critique of the political economy of the
21st century?

3. Goals

This research has as its theme a complex of objects, concepts and phenomena that we
summarize in the term automagic machines 3, often studied in a relatively separate way. It
happens that, although they are generally enlightening, these studies cannot always facilitate
the apprehension of the totality in which these parts are inserted, as well as the dialectic
between them, failing to apprehend their existence in the relationship . Therefore, this work

3
According to ZUBOFF (2021), the term automagic was first used by Google founder Larry Page at an event
with his shareholders in 2011. According to him, “[...] our ultimate ambition is to transform the Google
experience as a whole , making it wonderfully simple, almost automagical, because we understand what you
want and can deliver it instantly ” (PAGE, 2011). From this, the term was developed by Natasha Schüll in 2012
in her book Addiction by design and, in 2019, by the social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff in her book The Age of
Surveillance Capitalism . From this, we infer the term “automagic machines” which, in general, refers to the
mystified presentation of the extended mind, a hypothesis that will continue to be detailed in the next pages.
4
has three multiple and interdependent objectives and a fourth, more specifically linked to
PSSH.
First, our interest is to understand if and how the extended mind would act in the
mediation between the base of social reproduction – the political economy (MARX, 2013;
DANTAS, 2019) –, its superstructure – the forms of social conscience (MARX ; ENGELS ,
2007) –, sociability – from the public sphere to individuation (ALVES; GONÇALVES;
CASULO, 2020) and subjectivity – singular, shared and socio-historically determined
(GONÇALVES, 2015). That is, we aim to understand what are the social materialities of
automagic machines and what are their roles in sociometabolism (MÉSZÁROS, 2002) and in
humanization, addressed in three chapters of this thesis.
As a result, secondly, we want to know if and how the objective and subjective
phenomena resulting from capitalist alienated work can be identified in automagic machines
and in the social practices mediated by them. In this research, the presentation of the extended
mind as an automagic machine synthesizes the hypothesis that it would be today, to a large
extent, the main mediation for the financialized extraction and concentration of value; the
relevant element of capital's structural crisis; the one that assumes a renewed form of
subsumption of living work; and the renewal of reified and ontonegative concepts and social
relations, in addition to their consequences in the various forms of estrangement (
Entfremdung ). We advance this objective in the second and third chapters.
Thirdly, we want to know if and how capitalist determinations and sociometabolic
mediations are presented before the eyes and fingers of singular subjects through certain
hardware and software . In other words, we want to investigate the role of cognitive sciences,
social and behavioral psychology, sociophysics, marketing and especially user experience (
User Experience – UX ) and user interface ( User Interface – UI ) design in attempts to
engage individuals and populations in carrying out capitalist determinations and mediations.
Accumulated in the previous chapters, this discussion ends in the third chapter and in the
conclusion.
As a specific objective for PSSH, we intend both to validate and introduce new
categories and approaches – real abstraction, the critique of Sohn-Rethel's epistemology and
the concept of psychotechnology – and to verify those that are already part of our theoretical
repertoire. In particular, we intend, on the one hand, to verify the relevance that the theory of
labor value has for the understanding of our research objects and, on the other hand, to
reinforce that these objects, to a large extent and in different ways, are matrixly crossed by the
5
commodity-form and by estrangement , since such phenomena play a decisive role in the
functional structures of consciousness in capitalism (FURTADO; GONÇALVES, 2022).
Finally, we emphasize that in the first chapter we introduced these categories and
made our arguments.

4. Discussion

4.1. Extended mind and humanization

The extended mind had its concept established by the field of cognitive sciences by
authors such as Chalmers (2010) and Engelbart (1962), among many others –; perhaps,
centuries before, by Socrates and Llull (GARDNER, 1958; ECO, 2017 ) and, even 90 years
ago, by Vygotsky (2004).
In this work, the extended mind will also be discussed considering the cognitive
epistemological field, as we will see in the first and third chapters. However, this specific type
of human product (paper and pencil, ruler, book, mainframe , smartphone , etc.) has even
more striking characteristics than just the externalization and expansion of memory, cognition
and the industrial production of information 4.
Focusing on the birth of human history, the extended mind adds to the role played by
the first tools when, with both, we create the act and the instrumental method (VIGOTSKI,
2004). In this human and peculiar way of metabolizing with nature, we substitute certain
natural and immediate processes for other artificial and mediated ones, revolutionizing the
structures of these activities and, consequently, producing a radically new psyche. The activity
on the tool – and, through it, on the object – occurs unitarily and continuously in objectivity
and subjectivity, thus demanding the development of respective internal psychological tools
(VIGOTSKI, 1997; 2004), as well as their modes of use – language, concepts, teleology.
As confirmed by paleoanthropology, the success and development of the instrumental
method was expressed in the need to expand and externalize these psychological tools in
objects and specific artificial forms – symbols, images, knots, etc. (MITHEN, 2002).
Although the set of tools and other human objects was decisive for our ontological leap
(LUKÁCS, 2013), it was, above all, with the extended mind that we were able, in an external

4
In chapters 1 and 2 we will address the confusion about information as a product instead of (as we understand it)
a work process (DANTAS, 2017).
6
and intersubjective way, to control and direct our individual and collective behaviors
(VIGOTSKI , 2004). And it was with this control that we opened ourselves to our freedom
(HEGEL, 1978; LUKÁCS, 2013) to, with both, create the human-social reality, from which
we enhance knowledge and activity about nature and, thus, produce an even more complex
form of organization of matter, beyond the inorganic and organic – the social (LUKÁCS,
2013; LESSA, 2012).
In this becoming ontocreative potentialized by the extended mind, we can become
open to the “[...] understanding of the being on the basis of praxis”, becoming, “[...] therefore
an anthropocosmic being” (KOSIK, 2002, p 226). That is, with an extended mind 5we can
know from the laws of astrophysics – and, in this way, imitate the nuclear fusion of stars,
creating incalculable amounts of clean energy 6, down to those of the molecular level –,
predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins, enabling advances in medicine 7and
reaching subatomic and quantum dimensions – accessing unknown forms of reality and
bringing them to us in the form of new computers 8. We can also, considering the
controversies involved, build smart cities that optimize, enhance and socialize resources 9.
These and many other applications of the extended mind can be summarized in what
Marx (2011, p. 943-944) called “general intellect”. As the author defines it,

The development of fixed capital [machinery] indicates the extent to which general
social knowledge, knowledge, has become an immediate productive force and,
consequently, the extent to which the very conditions of the life process of society
have come under the control of the general intellect and have been reorganized into
compliance with it.

With an extended mind, we bring new forms of exteriorization, individuation, social

relations and institutions into our world. For example, starting from the same Hegelian matrix,

5
Although in order to know the extended mind, we need to consider it in many of its forms (pencil and paper,
ruler, etc.), the one that interests us is the automatic computational machines – hardware and software that make
up, among others, computers, smartphones and smart objects, such as certain automobiles, watches, speakers,
and medical devices.
6
IPEN - Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research, 2020. “China successfully activates 'artificial sun' powered
by nuclear energy”. Available at: <https://bit.ly/3olIZ5j>. Accessed on: 2 Feb. 2022.
7
BRIGGS, Helen. "How one of biology's great mysteries was solved with artificial intelligence". BBC News
Brazil, 2020. Available at: < https://bbc.in/3L6ICVU >. Accessed on: 2 Feb. 2022.
8
LU, Dona, “What is a quantum computer?". New Scientist. Available at: <
https://www.newscientist.com/question/what-is-a-quantum-computer/ >. Accessed on: 11 Feb. 2022.
9
BRAZIL. “Brazilian Charter for Smart Cities”. Ministry of Regional Development (MDR); Ministry of Science,
Technology and Innovation (MCTI); Ministry of Communications (MCOM); Deutsche Gellschaft Für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GMBH, 2021. Available at: < https://bit.ly/3KYxaff >. Accessed on: 2
Feb. 2022.
7
Boldyrev and Herrmann-Pillath (2013) and the Marxists relate, in different ways, the
objective spirit and the extended mind. For the former, the objective spirit could be
“essentially a collective activity”, “shared intentionality”, “through which this externalization
takes place in intersubjective contexts” and for mutual recognition “as a mechanism by which
institutional structures are constituted and reproduced ” (BOLDYREV;
HERRMANN-PILLATH, 2013, p. 21). For the latter, we can understand the intersubjective
and institutional role of the objective spirit projected into the extended mind through the
category of superstructure , according to which social consciousness is (re)produced and
sedimented – “[...] the legal, political forms , religious, artistic or philosophical” (MARX,
2008, p. 48).
In this sense, for the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács (2013) and for the Soviet
psychologist Lev Vygotsky (2004; 2013), the externalization of thought (through language,
symbols and artificial objects) denotes, to a large extent, the need for people to exchange,
communicate, individuate, integrate and have social cohesion (FÍGARO, 2018). Therefore,
based on Marx, sociologist Sebastian Sevignani (2019, p. 531) proposes the use of the term
computerization as a more “[...] broader and general process of objectifying mental activity,
knowledge or the psyche ”, as “[...] a double activity of objectivation/externalization and
appropriation/internalization” of knowledge that can be shared. For him, then, the internet
emerges as “[...] a means of spatial, temporal and informational convergence” for this process
(SEVIGNANI, 2019, p. 524).
In addition to this more universal perspective, the extended mind would have
implications and forms at the level of the particular and singular that are not always explicitly
presented. The first is that, regardless of the consciousness of its users and as a machine of
universal utility 10(TURING, 1936), the extended mind also exists as a means of production or
as a means of reproduction of its productive condition (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a; MARX ,
2011; ANTUNES, 2018; FÍGARO, 2018). We are dealing with a given development of the

10
Roughly speaking, computer science coined the term universal Turing machine or universal computing
machine for computing machines that, unlike those developed until the mid-twentieth century, could simulate
other fixed-program machines (which only perform one function, like calculators). In other words, it is about the
devices that led to computers and gadgets as we know them today – which serve as calculators, text editors, edit
and display audiovisuals, etc. and that, more recently, produce biodata of their users (NOBLE; ROBERTS,
2016). Observing this concept and its objectifications from the point of view of the critique of political economy,
we are actually talking about a kind of universal means of production . That is, a machine that, as fixed capital
(or commodity, as we shall see) and dead labor, constantly expands its capacity to produce (or co-produce)
countless commodities and other different use values. This, with the difference that, in this way, its products
approach zero marginal cost in a way that is incomparable to fixed-program machines.
8
productive forces that would have the potential, as is innate to capitalism, to revolutionize
certain relations of production. In this context, more than ever, the interaction between the
social being and a means of production can be both potentially superproductive and intricately
mediated between countless machines, their purposes and interfaces (ANTUNES, 2018;
GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b).
We are dealing with a historical period of capitalism in which the contradictions
between the tendency to fall in the rate of profits, hyperproduction, autonomization of
financial capital and concentration of capital, among other factors, project and drive its “flight
forward” (MÉSZÁROS, 2002; HARVEY, 2018; ROBERTS, 201 6 ). In addition, as we
discussed in the second and third chapters, it is precisely in the extended mind controlled by
big techs and their capital market that this escape places and replaces its material and
intellectual base.
Under capitalism, the extended mind would tend to be 11animated by the fetish of the
commodity – the process by which the humanizing power of labor is objectively and
subjectively transferred to its products, making them appear as autonomous, alien to us,
uncontrollable and uncontrollable. even seeking to control ourselves (MARX, 2013) 12. This
one, which we can name as a spell, however, is part of a chain of objective and subjective
structures and phenomena matured by the capitalist mode of production that gives life –
apparently – to automagic machines – the alienation complex ( Entäusserung ) that we will
detail in the next section . second chapter.
One of the elements of this complex, central to this thesis, is the commodity form – the
social form assumed by human products when they exist as a useful object and as a value
(MARX, 2011). Of course, the commodity form is not merely the counterfeit of a
profit-seeking utility. As we described in the second chapter, the commodity-form is, in part,

11
The categories of presentation ( vorstellung ) and representation ( darstellung ) are used here based on the
following discussion by Grespan (2019, p. 12, emphasis added), based on Marx (2011): [ vorstellung :] “ [ ... ] to
bring something forward, or to place it before something else; promote someone in a hierarchy; make someone
known or make oneself known; put before the eyes; form a mental image, an idea about something; to imagine.
In addition to these meanings, another more significant one emerges, in which vorstellen has the meaning of
representing in a plastic way in painting or drawing, but also in theatrical exhibition. In this case, there is an
overlapping of meaning with darstellen , which is also important in Marx's texts. Making a copy of something,
exposing it in a text or in a theatrical scene would be equivalent to representing it through a presentation ”. For
this reason, whenever we use the word present and its derivations with this overlapping meaning, which refers to
“[...] a set of economic practices and perceptions of reality” capitalist (GRESPAN, 2019), we will accompany it
of the German word vorstellen in parentheses, in order to emphasize these meanings.
12
Fetishism, as one of the conceptual masks that stand between us and the extended mind – making them
automagic machines – runs through this presentation and all chapters of the thesis. Thus, in the course of this
work, its meaning and its application to digital goods continue to become clearer.
9
the psychosocial displacement, in the product, of the contradiction posed by alienated labor
(unpaid and de-effective) called surplus-value – whether this product is a medicine, a space
station or a social network. It is mainly this contradiction – value as the a priori right to work,
its results and the possibilities of humanization (MARX, 2004) – that makes it possible for the
extended mind to be presented ( vorstellen ) and socially experienced as a commodity and its
fetish.

4.2. Psychotechnologies

We have seen so far that, on the one hand, the extended mind helps us to realize our
contradictory relations, exteriorizations and concrete teleological pores – metaverses, SPUR ,
13
particle accelerators, fake news, TikTok dances . On the other hand, like any other causality
posed, it also tends to make the opposite sense, that is, to act on our forms of internalization
and interpretation of reality (VIGOTSKI, 2004).
In this thesis, we named as digital psychotechnologies14 certain sets of theories,
techniques and technologies developed mainly by capitalists, governments and cognitive
scientists who, through the extended digital mind, seek to favor the occurrence of
predetermined effects in the dynamics between experience, interpretation, motivation and
activity of groups and individuals.
As we argued in the first and third chapters, psychotechnologies want, in a previously
idealized way, to produce culturally and neuropsychologically transformations of the

13
Unmanned Special Purpose Rifles (SPUR) are lethal long-range weapons mounted on a Vision 60 quadruped
robot (robotic dogs) from the company Ghost Robotics. Available at: <https://sworddefense.com/spur/>.
Accessed on: 26 Jul. 2022.
14
The term psychotechnology has been used polysemically by several authors. Its meaning varies from
mnemonic, police or therapeutic artifacts (“[...] mental tests, personality tests, polygraphs, opinion polls,
teaching machines, tachistoscopes, psychological drugs, implanted electrodes, etc.” – MILLER, 1970, p. 996) as
a natural consequence of human-machine interaction (“[...] how relationships in the social fabric change, they
also restructure or modify psychological aspects” – DE KERCKHOVE, 1997, p. 282); as expansions of the self
and the body (“[...] create a condition for an expanded self, leaving my personal self to the most distant confines
[...] in constant expansion, perceptual and motor extensions” – DE KERCKHOVE, 1997, p. 282); as mediations
of attention (“[...] this relationship of retentions and protections whose result is attention is always mediated by
tertiary retentions – of which psychotechnologies and sociotechnologies are instances.” – STIEGLER, 2010, sp);
or as technologies of psychopower and social control (“[...] after the destruction of traditional social networks,
psychotechnologies become social technologies, and tend to become a new means and a new reticular condition
of transindividuation grammatizing new forms of social relations” – TERRANOVA, 2012, p. 12 –; and yet “[...]
a behavioral technology [...] comparable in power and precision to physical and biological technology [...]” –
SKINNER, 2002, p. 4-5). This polysemy allows us to appropriate the term psychotechnology as described earlier
in this thesis. Furthermore, although not all psychotechnology is digital, when we use this term in this paper, we
refer to it only in this sense.
10
 15
functional structure of consciousness (LEONTIEV, 1978; LURIA, 1992 ; VIGOTSKI,
1997). For cognitivists such as Norman (2008), Eyal (2014), Thaler and Sunstein (2018) not
only behaviors, but also mental models and habits derived from them can be constrained or
psychotechnologically stimulated to influence, for example, work, consumption, health or
political attitudes.
The continued use of digital technologies as psychotechnologies – in fact, as with any
other instrument and activity – “[...] stimulates the alteration of brain cells and the release of
neurotransmitters, gradually strengthening new neural pathways in our brain while weakening
the old ones” (SMALL; VORGAN, 2008).
Neuroscientific research (MILLER, 1970; WARD et al., 2017) has suggested that the
everyday use of digital technologies and their interfaces can be designed to generate cognitive
overload, which, in turn, could contribute to what Miller (1970 ) names as epistemic
distraction . From both, it would become more difficult “[...] to integrate associations in many
different experiences to detect common structures” that “[...] form abstractions, general
principles, concepts and symbolisms" necessary for structuring objectives (MILLER , 1970)
16
.
Writer Nicholas Carr (2020) has a very illustrative metaphor for this process. For him,
with the internet, it is as if we had several faucets of information, all wide open and,
underneath them, a thimble that represents our working memory. As all this volume exceeds
our ability to process the information received – when the water overflows from the thimble –
we are unable to retain it and connect it with that information already stored in our long-term
memory. Along with that, we were only able to transfer a small part of this flood to long-term
memory “[...] and what we transfer is a miscellany of drops from different faucets, not a
continuous, coherent stream from a single source” ( CARR, 2020, p. 136). Finally, “[...] we
were unable to translate the new information into schematics. Our learning ability is impaired,
and our understanding remains superficial” (CARR, 2020, p. 136). As a consequence, Ward et

15
As we detailed, the ability to transform the functional structure of consciousness, exposed by the research of
the Soviet psychologists Vygotsky, Leontiev and Luria, among others, later confirmed by countless other
researchers under the concept of brain plasticity. For more details, see Luria (1970), Damásio (1999), Mithen
(2002), Kandel (2007), Malabou (2009), Firth et al. (2019) and Carr (2020) among others. This phenomenon is
also discussed from an epistemological perspective by Sohn-Rethel (1978), as discussed in the first chapter.
16
Remembering that the word distraction comes from the Latin distractio.onis , which means separation.
11
al. (2017) suggest that this could favor affective-rich choice alternatives, simple solutions,
attribute concessions, and increase susceptibility to anchoring effects 17.
This will lead us, in the third chapter, to the most visible layer of psychotechnologies,
user interface design – the set of semiotic, cognitive and programming structures (and their
underlying intentions) that mediate human-computer interaction (HCI) – or yet, the
human-means of production interaction.
The IHC and its interfaces are for this research the phenomenological starting point
and the arrival point as concrete thought and synthesis of the multiple determinations and
contradictions indicated so far (MARX, 2008). Therefore, we sought to delve as deeply as
possible into these interfaces in order to understand their implications in the transformations
of consciousness that occur at its structural-individual (senses, affections, neuroplasticity) and
sociometabolic (superstructure and meaning) levels.
According to IHC researcher and theorist Victor Kaptelinin (1996), the “[...] interface
in the traditional sense is not just a boundary that separates two entities, but also a link that
provides the integration of a computer tool in the structure of the human activity” (p. 56). For
this, according to Fuller et al. (2008, p. 149), the software and its interfaces – including video
and sound cards, mouse, keyboard, screen, etc. – act as “[...] tactical constraints [...]” that
reduce the “[...] abundant possible system states for the function of a word processor, a
18
calculator, a video editor, etc. ” . More than that, for the media philosopher and UX
specialist Florian Hadler (2018), as a mediation between “[...] human, machine and
environment, the interface is not just a process or device, but a way of see, understand and act
in our ubiquitous techno-ecological environment, providing access to a mediated world” ( n
.p.).
For Fuller et al. (2008, p. 150), to the extent that “[...] 'interfaces' are the point of
junction between different bodies, hardware , software , users and what they connect or are
part of”, they '[. ..] describe, hide and condition the asymmetry between the united elements”.

17
Anchoring bias occurs, according to Kahneman (2012), when exposure to information influences our decisions
and subsequent estimates, even if there is no relationship between them. Although this theory is, according to the
author, “[...] one of the most reliable and robust results of experimental psychology”, attempts to replicate it have
failed at compromising rates, as discussed in the first chapter.
18
In a way, the reverse direction of what we described in the tenth footnote occurs here. This is because, if the
universal machine absorbs and creates countless tools, its tactical restrictions (interfaces, software and certain
devices) show only one of them at a time, hiding the universal character of computational machines, as well as
their “abundant system states”. This impossibility of becoming aware of these possible states from our activity
on such systems is another central element in the thesis, which will be developed in topic 3.4 of the second
chapter - namely, “the question of the transfer of work in the product, or in the merchandise".
12
Still, in an extra-technical and more socio-historical layer, “[...] the asymmetrical powers
conjugated through man-machine interfaces are also arranged in other relations that articulate,
filter and organize the activities modeled and modulated by the interface. " (p. 151). That is,
users do not always know what are the “[...] condensations of computational power that
computers incorporate and that are articulated” through these “tactical restrictions” (FULLER
et al., 2008). , p. 152) In this sense, for Rubio and Fogué (2015, p. 2), interface design could
emerge “[...] as a sui generis form of 'material politics', that is, as a form of making politics
through things that offers the possibility, or at least the promise, of making power tacit,
invisible and therefore unchallengeable”, a power far from the control of “the sphere of
formal politics and institutions”.
All this may be in line with our previous discussion about how fetishism would be a
way of relating to the unknown (or hidden) realities of the means of production and human
products. For Fuller et al. (2008, p. 150), the interfaces that make asymmetric condensations
invisible “[...] are of intense fascination and generate such productivity and, at the same time,
are radically strange to most human experiences in the world”. And, as an ingredient of
automagic machines, “[...] it is this strangeness that allows the software [...] to engender the
delicious moments of feedback between the styles of perception and ordering, logic and
calculation, between the user and the user. computer, [that] is so seductive and attractive”
(FULLER et al., 2008, p. 150).
As for Carr (2020, p. 227), “[...] there is another reason, perhaps deeper, for our
nervous system to 'merge' so readily with our computers. Evolution has imbued our brains
with a powerful “social instinct” to infer what people in our group think and feel. According
to Mitchell (2019), in the computer age, chronic overactivity in these brain regions involved
in social thinking can make us perceive minds where they do not exist, even in inanimate
objects. And, arguing that “[...] there is more and more evidence that our brain naturally
emulates the states of other minds with which we interact”, Carr (2020, p. 167) concludes that
“[...] such ' Neural 'mirroring' helps explain why we are so likely to attribute human
characteristics to our computers and computational characteristics to ourselves”.
This leads us to the broad set of psychotechnologies via extended mind used by agents
that compete with each other for the appreciation of capital invested in their operations
(ZUBOFF, 2021; SEAVER, 2019; BRUNO; BENTES; FALTAY, 20 21 ; WARD, 2022 ;

13
 19
GONÇALVES , 2021) . We refer specifically to the concurrent use of UX and UI
approaches that explore and reproduce the productive capabilities (of use and exchange
values) of the extended mind; the unknowability of its complexity; the fantastic and normative
appearance with which such characteristics cover it; the characteristics of human
neuropsychology and the behavior of the alienated social being; as well as the growing
concentration of digital mediations of sociometabolism in the hands of a select group of big
techs and their investors.
Before all of this sounds a bit over the top or ideological, let these agents speak for
themselves. Chris Nodder (2013, p. 256, emphasis added), author of the bestseller Evil by
Design , argues that commercial design creates purposefully designed interfaces that involve
controlling users' behavior in an emotional way to "[...] do something that offers an equitable
benefit to the designer and the user". For him, however, many of the standards they use for
equitable benefit “[...] become easier to implement when they are disguised or when they use
misleading direction” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 254). However, the author admits that “[...]
somewhere, there is a boundary that distinguishes good business practices from bad design .
There is a line to draw. [...] However, the line is wavy. It moves based on public sentiment,
political will, judicial powers and personal moral imperatives” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 255).
Another competing agent, psychologist and venture capitalist Nir Eyal (2014), author
of the book Hooked: how to build habit-forming products , gives tips on behavioral
economics and digital marketing applied to UX and UI design . Frankly, the author states that
“[...] the experience we are talking about is more similar to an itch, a sensation that manifests
itself in the mind and causes discomfort until it is satisfied” and that the function of its wares
is 20“ [...] simply to provide some kind of relief”, creating habits that will be a commercial
differential (EYAL, 2014, p. 26).
For the success of these intentions, through architectures of choices and their promises
(THALER; SUNSTEIN; BALZ, 2013), these agents reduce the system of needs to uses and
gratifications (MCQUAIL, 1994; KATZ, 1959). These, in turn, would be carried out through

19
For different critical views, see: Terranova, 2012; Grosser, 2014; Seaver, 2019; Bruno et al. 2019; Zuboff,
2021; Gonçalves, 2021; Gonçalves and Furtado, 2021 a; Gonçalves and Furtado b. For a positive view of this
competitive use, see: BJ Fogg (1998), Krug (2006); Nir Eyal (2014), Alex Pentland (2015), Donald Norman
(2008), Chris Nodder (2013a) and Burke, Cheng, Gant (2020).
20
As indicated in another work (GONÇALVES et al., 2022), “'Commodity' will be used here in the sense of
objects (physical or not) offered on the market and appropriated upon purchase (eg digital medical devices), and
[also] the way in which the product is used through the provision of services (eg: AI embedded in medical
devices). In these cases, the product continues to exist in its commodity form (simultaneously as utility and
capital)” and under its fetish.
14
journeys, funnels, hooks, nudges 21, triggers, reinforcements and distractions guided by the
information architecture and the interfaces (EYAL, 2014; JIANG et.al., 2020; KRUG, 20 0 6;
MCNAMEE, 2019; NODDER, 2013a; ZUBOFF, 2021) – in-depth hypotheses in the third
chapter.
As we can see, the interface contradictorily increases and makes humans lose power
over machines. We do more, but we don't know how. This sentence can also be read in
reverse: the interface increases the power of machines – and their controllers – over humans
and they make us more and more, but we don't know how.
For all these reasons, a vision of the totality of this intricate process needs to be carried
out interdisciplinarily – EPTIC, epistemology, cognitive sciences, social psychology,
neuroscience and HCI, among other areas of knowledge. This research is an effort and a call
in this direction.

5. Research methodology

The materiality of the research object (theories, concepts, data, documents, techniques,
experiments, etc.) led to the methodology of the integrative literature review. In this case,
according to Martins (2018, p. 4), it is a planned review that “[...] uses explicit and systematic
methods to analyze trends, synthesize results, identify, select and evaluate not only primary
studies (research ), such as theoretical reviews, reports, and other types of studies”. This work
was thus initiated, in an exploratory manner, from the pre-research project phase, in 2017.
From the research project (2018/2019), the review became more systematic and followed
certain needs along the way.
It is necessary to mention that the researcher reached the doctorate seeking a greater
theoretical density from the point of view of the objective of the research. Thus, within the
time and the research program, it was necessary to immerse oneself in the theoretical
production mainly related to the PSSH, the historical-dialectical materialism and the labor
value theory (within and beyond the disciplines of the postgraduate course and the meetings
of the research core). Although the other contents were also studied in this first stage, only
after this training could they be more and better reviewed. Until the conclusion of the thesis,

21
Nudges are approaches, suggestions or pressures that allegedly seek to influence people in certain behavioral
directions without taking away their freedom to decide otherwise. We discuss this theory in the first and, mainly,
in the third chapters.
15
580 titles were reviewed, including articles, chapters, books, technical and corporate
documents, not counting the contents published in specialized media. We adopt the following
major search repositories and search engines:

● CAPES Journal Portal

● Academic Google
● the-syllabus.com
● z-lib.org
● Cambridge University Press
● Mailings from researchers, academic institutions and companies

In addition, the research used the references cited in the titles themselves, monitoring
the profiles of researchers, academic institutions and companies on Twitter, as well as the
acquisition of books and the sharing of texts by anonymous Internet users. Still, given the
current situation and the accelerated transformation of our object, specialized vehicles (mainly
in English) were indispensable for the research, including for the identification of themes,
authors and their relevant publications. By the way, all quotations from texts in foreign
languages were freely translated by the author with the help of Google Translator and DeepL
Translator tools .
At the same time and as a complementary methodological strategy, the researcher
sought to carry out academic productions that tried to synthesize each of these steps. With
that, until the closing of the thesis, were published:

● One article as a single author;

● Three articles as first author, one of them international;
● One article as second author;
● Two book chapters as sole author;
● A book chapter as second author.

Still in this auxiliary strategy, the researcher disclosed the progressive state of the art
of research in eleven academic events, three of which were international, six national and one
regional, making more than fourteen presentations, three of which as a lecturer or professor.

16
In most of these and other academic events, the researcher also acted as a listener, seeking
contact with professors, authors and researchers with the aim of correcting/validating these
research states of the art.
The whole course was sewn between the doctoral student and his advisor in forty-one
guidance meetings. The research, then, followed the following steps defined in its project:

a. Definition of the object: The object moved from the economy of attention (according
to the approved doctoral project) to the fetishism of automagic machines. This
transition not only did not generate problems in the search flow, but was a result of it.
b. Primary identification of the macro themes: The macro themes Historical-Dialectic
Materialism, Labor Theory of Value, PSSH, EPTIC, Epistemologies, Cognitive
Sciences and Psychotechnologies were identified. The related topics that were
reviewed were grouped under the “others” macro topic. This order reflects the cited
need for theoretical and categorical qualification of the researcher.
c. Deployment of the macro themes: The review process organized by the macro themes
confirmed or emerged its specific themes and questions that, in general, were
sedimented in the thesis items listed in the summary. There was no single criterion for
selecting the reviewed literature. Thus, we combined as criteria the most referenced
works according to Google Scholar, reference works in the publishing market (works
not necessarily academic, but with scientific, technical and market impacts), prestige
to Brazilian production, approaches that reflected the macro themes and their specific
issues among others.
d. Research schedule and execution: A period was defined for the research of each
macro-theme, as shown in the table below. It is important to point out that the schedule
was a strategy for concentrating the analysis effort on the macro themes. This does not
mean that certain literature referring to a given macro theme has been revised
exclusively in its planned period. That is, the review also followed certain
opportunities and unforeseen circumstances without, however, losing sight of the
strategy expressed in the schedule. Despite the natural setbacks and chance, the
schedule and the productions and academic participation were carried out
satisfactorily.

17
 The main tool for the systematization of the reviewed literature was the Spreadsheets
software from the Google Drive suite. It proved to be able to gather, in a single worksheet,
citations, bibliographical references, other necessary data and notes, referring to all the
reviewed titles. Thus, for example, searches for authors, keywords, citations, terms, etc. have
become practical, including filtering them by macro-themes when necessary.
In the final writing stage of the thesis, the cells with citations and respective notes
were copied and pasted into the base file of the Documentos software of the aforementioned
suite, directly into their respective chapters, topics and subtopics, making the work of
interpretation and synthesis sufficiently operational and safe.

Table 1 : Schedule of macro themes

1 two 3 4

MAIN THEMES/EMPHASSES 1/19 2/19 1/20 2/20 1/21 2/21 1/22 2/22

PSSH
MAT. HISTORICAL-DIALETIC
VALUE-WORK THEORY
QUALIFICATION
EPTIC AND THESIS

EPISTEMOLOGIES/COGNITIVE
SCIENCES
OTHER TOPICS*
PSYCHOTECHNOLOGIES
* Other topics: communication theories, marketing, social networks, digital methodologies, philosophy,
psychology and computer science/AI.

18
CHAPTER 1: THE QUESTION OF THE REAL

This thesis crosses themes and hypotheses that require, introductory, a few steps back
in search of the notion of reality, more specifically, the human-social reality, that is, the one
that is placed from the dimensions of the natural world that we come to mean (from the
galactic to the subatomic), to social materiality (from the contents of work to those of the
22
imagination) . This is important because our research object – the relationship, under
capitalism, between the social being and his extended mind – is understood in a profoundly
different way between different theoretical fields and these differences arise precisely from
their respective definitions of what is (and what is not) the real. More than that, as we argue,
certain beliefs about the real (and the social forces they represent) participate in the design
and realization of the extended mind as automagic machines; they express themselves through
them before our eyes and fingers. Therefore, what is real and the means and motives for
characterizing it in this or that way must be our starting point.
Given the scope of this theme, we touch it only on its main points of contact with the
research object.

1.1 The gnosiological path – reification as construction of the world

According to philosopher Ivo Tonet (2013, p. 14), “[...] the problem of knowledge
boils down, in its most essential terms, to the relationship between a subject and an object”.
More specifically, it is “[...] the answer to the question: who [among them] is the ruling pole
of the knowledge process”? Roughly speaking, if the conductor is the subject, the point of
view is epistemological; if it is the object, the point of view is ontological 23. Correlated to this
position, according to social scientist Mario Duayer (2019), “[...] in the philosophy of science
[...] the substantive difference between theoretical systems or, by extension, between radically

22
Social materiality occurs when we attribute “[...] meanings and utilities to objects of nature that are different
from their natural existence”; when we confer “[...] reality and power of concrete action to certain abstractions”
(FURTADO; GONÇALVES, 2022, p. 130); and when we impose ideal forms on the properties of substances
(VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a). We will continue to develop this category throughout the thesis.
23
To the extent that, in a certain way, this thesis is also a critique of the epistemological complex of which the
epistemological approach is a part, we do not directly enter into a detailing of the ontological point of view,
keeping the focus on the aforementioned critique. On the other hand, the ontological point of view, where the
object “[...] is not limited to empirical elements, but also, and mainly, to those that constitute its essence”
(TONET, 2013), presents itself throughout this research.
19
different ways of picturing the world is resolved on the ontological plane.
Thus, we have two interdependent questions as a starting point for knowledge about
reality: what is the ruling pole of this process and who is its subject. Tonet (2013) discards a
merely dichotomous answer to these questions: it itself must be answered within its historical
process. This is because “[...] the problems that mark a culture can influence the content and
development of scientific theories” (PRIGOGINE; STENGERS, 199 7 , p. 8). With this
reality about knowledge in mind, “[...] its origin, its nature and its social function may be
better understood” (TONET, 2013, p. 15), something far beyond the Greco-Medieval
idealization and modern of an exempt process – and, therefore, legitimate in itself – of
enunciation of the real.
Knowing reappears, then, as an instrument for social intervention on nature and on the
subject(s) themselves. Consequently, it is the social classes that concretely emerge as this
24
subject, “[...] both from history and from knowledge” (TONET, 2013, p. 15) . As an
instrument of social intervention, science becomes not only a form of knowledge of the real,
but a source of its legitimation; it is science – although not only science – that will determine
which postulate corresponds to what is real, natural, and which is considered false.
This preliminary discussion helps us to proceed with the understanding of the
epistemological point of view, as well as the relationship of this discussion with the theme of
the thesis. Let us resume the debate based on how at least part of the cognitive sciences
describe epistemological knowledge:

The science model becomes effective in the world to the extent that the substratum
of material reality is abstracted, creating the faculty responsible for knowing. Human
knowledge starts from the conception of calculating reason with the help of logic
and transcends its simplistic relationship, opening space for the individual
interpretation of the knowing subject. However, the rational model of knowledge
implies systematization and representation in order not to fall into the extreme of
subjectivity. (NEUFELD; BRUST; STEIN, 2011, p. 108, emphasis added).

24
“We are obviously referring to the period of history in which social classes exist. During all the time they did
not exist, [...] there was no explicit and systematized reflection on the problematic of knowledge. There was
certainly knowledge, but not a reflection on it” (TONET, 2013, p. 15).
20
 As for the Afrocentric critique of the anthropologist Ani Marimba (1994) 25, through
the “[...] total detachment of ourselves from what we want to know [...]”, the world “[...]
becomes an Object , a 'this'”, a not-me; the phenomena of the world thus become the
antithesis of the subject. Referring to Plato's Republic as the projection of this subject who
takes possession of the objectified world, the author asks:

The Republic is perfect because it is absolute. But what if human realities are not
absolute? Plato solves this problem simply by "eliminating" the ambiguous nature of
our existential reality, by pretending it isn't there. Who, after all, is creating
"illusion" and who is dealing with "reality?" ( ANI , 1994, p. 64)

In contrast between these quotes, the issue of subjectivity stands out. For the modern
sciences - including part of the cognitivists - “[...] subjectivity appears as a contingency, a
source of errors (the ' noise ' of computer language, the noise that is absolutely necessary to
eliminate)” (MORIN, 1994). At the same time – and this is fundamental – the “calculating
conception of reason” does not find empirical support; it is itself a product of the “extreme of
subjectivity” 26in its search for solutions to social intervention between classes.
This is a discussion that we will develop over the course of this chapter, but we can
already state that the epistemological point of view, as a method of reification of the world
and its separation from the rational being, solves or justifies certain challenges posed in the
historical process of humanization that we will see in this chapter. However, the
socio-historical thread to be initially pulled here is the product of the imagination presented
by Neufeld, Brust and Stein (2011) as the conception of calculating reason .
Presented by the Greeks and in modernity as inherent and ahistorical, this reason had
its origins already clarified by Marx, Lukács and Sohn-Rethel – the exchange relations of
goods between independent producer-owners. It is mercantile objectivity – which expels the
natural and sociometabolic qualities of these objects from consciousness, replacing them with
socio-imaginative elements such as quantity and equivalence – that becomes a model for the
25
We will have specific participations of authors not necessarily from the field of historical-dialectical
materialism who have, in some way, relevant contributions to the critique of the epistemological complex of
which the epistemological point of view is part. In this case, it is especially interesting to contrast it with
perspectives that were most disqualified by such a complex, such as African perspectives. At the same time, we
cannot fail to register its limits, as in the case of the culturalist axis of Marimba Ani (1994), which loses sight of
the determination of the modes of production and reproduction of material life as an articulator of these
Greco-modernist complexes.
26
This conception is not even consensual within the scope of cognitivism. This can be observed both in the crisis
of rational and interested homo economicus , triggered by the equally problematic behavioral economics, with its
predictably irrational subject (ARIELY, 2008), and in neuroscientific research on the role of emotions in human
cognition (DAMÁSIO, 1999; PICARD , 1997).
21
natural and mathematical sciences and, later, for the social sciences with the decisive
contribution of the extended mind (FURTADO; GONÇALVES, 2022).
As we will see, the need to expel ourselves from nature is the need to break the link
with what the Soviet psychologist Alexei Leontiev (2004) called integrated primitive
formation . It so happens that, in its place in this formation, the class of beings self-declared
as rational has permission, given from the epistemological point of view, to reify both nature –
as private and surplus property – and gender itself – as we have argued, “[...] the human use
of human beings” (WIENER, 1970). In this new society, the real needs to exist under new
social forms that reflect and justify these characteristics and reproduce and develop them, as
we observe in the topics and chapters that follow.

1.2 Negentropy, cybernetics and social homeostasis

We discuss, at this point, how natural reality in certain essential aspects flows and
transforms, as well as how knowledge in this regard can be transverted and extrapolated to
social reality, in order to support the social forms mentioned at the end of the topic. previous.
According to EPTIC professor and researcher Marcos Dantas (1996, p. 58), by the
laws of thermodynamics, “[...] every set of matter, if isolated and closed in relation to its
external environment, tends irreversibly towards entropy [ maximum], state in which [...], due
to the absence of internal thermal imbalances, [...] it does not produce or undergo
transformations; is dead". However, between the closure and death of this system, it can work
to maintain its relatively initial state, temporarily negating its entropy – the so-called
negentropy . This negentropic work occurs when the increase in entropy creates certain
characteristics in the system that fulfill some signal function. From it, the system will manage
to “[...] give its still available work capacity an orientation, in the sense of absorbing free
energy in the environment that restores its initial imbalance” (DANTAS, 1996, p. 59). As an
elementary concept and phenomenon of the material physical world, “[...] the signal that
triggers and guides this non-spontaneous work is information” (DANTAS, 1996, p. 59) 27. For
27
These informational processes were the subject of Soviet psychology research (more detailed in the fifth topic
of this chapter). This is because in certain living organisms such processes occur under neuropsychic subsystems
that capture different stimuli, process them and generate new energetic and informational exchanges for the
appropriate subsystems of the organism (synaptic signals, hormones) or the system in which it is inserted
(vibration of the web that informs the spider that there is prey). According to Vygotsky (2004) and Leontiev
(2004), these phenomena of matter, in turn, show that the psyche is not born by itself (or by deities), nor does it
have essentially its own purposes (Kant's a priori) and that its existence it is a part of nature itself; from an
evolutionary point of view, it arises as a response to the negentropic/homeostatic challenge.
22
the mathematician, psychologist and computer scientist Robert Wiener (1970, p. 17),
information would be that “[...] that we exchange with the outside world when adjusting to it
and that makes our adjustment to be perceived in it”.
This characterization of information as the work of giving shape and meaning to
dispersed signals that offer new orientation to organisms (living or not), is one of the main
references for the development of cybernetics . Systematized from 1942 by Wiener (2017), it
would be “[...] the scientific study of control and communication in animals and machines”.
To a certain extent, his studies derived from his work in the US Armed Forces ( United States
of America) to improve the accuracy of projectiles that needed, from the moment of firing, to
anticipate the trajectory of the target. According to Wiener (1970), cybernetic organisms
function based on their effective (adjustable) performance, rather than their desirable (fixed)
performance. This ability is due to its mechanisms of “[...] feedback and involves sensory
members that are triggered by motor members and perform the function of detectors or
monitors” (WIENER, 1970, p. 24), the servomechanisms ( WIENER, 2017).
Although currently the term cybernetics has its meaning made flexible by common
sense, for Bateson (1972), its principles were fundamental for the development of theories of
systems and information, for cognitive sciences and also for computers as we know them
today. Still according to this author, cybernetics is “[...] the biggest bite in the fruit of the tree
of knowledge that humanity has taken in the last 2000 years” (p. 481). Such scope and
importance are due to the fact that cybernetics proposes a common negentropic existence
among animals – including humans and their minds –, machines and societies, based on their
ability to regulate their behavior (output) in the face of information coming from the
environment . environment ( input ) (WIENER, 2017; 1970). In his cybernetics, Wiener
(1970; 2017) also argued that the specific way in which living organisms regulate themselves
to negate their entropy is homeostasis .
Philosopher of technology Álvaro Vieira Pinto (2005b), however, has revised this
definition. For him, on the one hand, homeostasis is “[...] the capacity of living organisms to
conserve [...] the variation of the determining factors of the physiological state, in order to
maintain in satisfactory conditions the regulation of the metabolic processes that they ensure
their health and survival” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b, p. 429). Thus, if the living organism
undergoes alterations that exceed its normal capacity (contamination by the COVID virus, for
example), this organism seeks to return to homeostasis “[...] by virtue of the action exerted on
other variables” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b, p. 429) (activation of immune defenses). If such
23
action is not sufficient, the changes may be irreversible or lethal. On the other hand,
completes the author, “[...] there is still the possibility of preserving the set through the partial
or total replacement of the primitive structure by another, in the form of an adaptive leap to
the new conditions” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b, p. 429, emphasis added), what happens with a
vaccine, which alters the immune system to recognize and fight the virus. In this case, the
author draws attention to the fact that there was not homeostasis – survival through
restabilization of the previous state –, but heterostasis – survival through transformation .
The distortion of this difference is the bridgehead through which Wiener (1970; 2017)
inserts in his cybernetics what he names as certain semantic slips, extrapolations and
generalizations (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b). First, Wiener will argue that “[...] the physical
functioning of the living individual and that of some of the most recent communication
machines are exactly parallel in the analogous effort to dominate entropy through feedback”
(WIENER, 1970, p. 26 , our emphasis) – a synaptic saturation that determines a hormone, a
thermostat that regulates an air conditioner, a profitability rate that determines wages. For
him, the complex social behavior “[...] ignored by the common man [...]” derives from the
fact that, “[...] just as individual physical responses can be seen from this point of view, so can
the they may be the organic responses of society itself” (WIENER, 1970, p. 26, emphasis
added) – what the author calls social homeostasis .
We can recognize four characteristics of the conception of calculating reason that run
through all automagic machines in this thesis. Firstly, the fragmentation of a totality until its
parts behave “parallel in the analogous effort” of negentropy/homeostasis – and then conclude
that this is the reality of this totality –, which is in continuity with the utilitarian reductionism
provided by the point of reference . gnosiological view. As media researcher Taina Bucher
(2018, p. 59) reminds us, Wiener's cybernetics, as part of the complex of reifying and
functionalist sciences already introduced, “[...] is not concerned with what things are, but with
what they do”.
With that, secondly, cybernetics creates conditions not only to observe the analogous
homeostatic effort between organisms, but, mainly, to control them. as if its purposes and
possibilities were reduced to such a condition. As Vieira Pinto (2005b, p. 432) denounces,
Wiener (1970) also disregards the fact that social organisms do not regulate themselves as
free forces in reciprocal action , as occurs in the natural world. In this sense, Williams (2018,
p. 27) recalls that “[...] cyber- in 'cybernetics' and gov- in 'government' derive from the same

24
Greek root: kyber -, 'to direct or guide' , originally used in the context of ship navigation” –
more exactly the Κυβερνήτης ( kubernetic 28, governor in Greek).
For Guillaumaud (1970, p. 152, emphasis added), “[...] when defining the 'cybernetic
instances', [...] a servomechanism of fixed connections must necessarily be regulated by an
external captain transcendent to it ” ; entry and exit motivations are arbitrated by the captain
and are ignored by the servomechanism. Thus, in the social and historical concrete, regulation
is forced and “[...] exercised by a center of power [...] that arbitrarily dictates, according to its
interests, the limits within which variation is allowed. the intensity of the impulses present
(VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b, p. 432). And, as we will see in the third chapter, the transcendent
exterior captain of cybernetics will be present in the interfaces of automagic machines
29
through resources such as affordances , architectures of choice and behavioral design ,
among others.
Thirdly, if society is the sum of living human organisms and the purpose of both would
be the conservation of previous living conditions, positivist cybernetics is authorized to
crystallize in the sciences (especially in the cognitive sciences) the assertion of “[.. .] that
social change, although real, instead of altering society [...], contributes to keeping the essence
of the system invariable” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b, p. 431).
Fourthly, as Vieira Pinto (2005b, p. 430) warns, “[...] it is important for us to indicate
the erroneous meaning and hidden intentions behind the translation of this concept from the
field of biology to that of sociology and of politics” – that is, to indicate social homeostasis as
30
a vorstellung – representation as presentation – or even as the very realization of this
contradictory social form through this vorstellung , as Ani (1994) denounced in his own way
in the previous topic.
As we will argue until the seventh topic of this chapter, the analogies, the metaphors,
the how outside this scientific field express what the German philosopher Alfred Sohn-Rethel
(1978) calls ideal abstractions , the set of cognitive structures derived from the abstraction of
merchandise and its fetishism. In them, we act as if the money-form were the personification
of the human-social generic objective (MARX, 2004). Along the same lines, Grespan (2019)
28
Also translated as kibernetic , or kubernetes, derived by Wiener (1970) as cybernetics.
29
According to the creator of the term, the psychologist James Gibson (1979, p. 127), “[...] the affordances of the
environment are what it offers the animal, what the environment provides or has, either for good, or for evil. [...]
It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment [...]”. Thus, affordances can be explained as
the possibilities of interaction between the characteristics and capabilities of a being and those of an object or
environment. This is a key concept for the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and UX and UI
design .
30
See note 11.
25
discusses representation – in the theatrical sense – through a presentation – as if it were real,
not theatrical –, generating a genuine belief among everyone, including the actors. Thus, the
as if does not refer to mere falsehood, but to the practical experience of the objective and
contradictory conditions in which the human race is placed as a means of private
humanization, it acts as a necessary mechanism for the cognitive closure that participates in
the reproduction of this contradiction.

1.3 Ontological reductionism – part 1

One of the many constant controversies in the Philosophy of Science refers to the
degree of independence and subordination of the forms of organization of matter among
themselves. According to Labarca and Lombardi (2012, p. 368), the article The Structure of
Science (NAGEL, 1961) was the classic locus for the maturation of ontological reductionism,
an old hypothesis according to which “[...] the items of a particular domain are ultimately
items of a more basic domain”. According to Abrantes (1993, p. 13), in ontological
reductionism “[...] the causal powers of the reduced thing are 'fully explainable' in terms of
the causal powers of the reducing phenomena”. Furthermore, according to Cupani (2016, p.
49), the desire for this reductionism would have a pragmatic-positivist origin , given that,
unlike the “[...] biological and psychic spheres, [...] of the inorganic lends itself better to
methodical rational analysis and experiment”.
Even though this proposition can encompass all forms of organization of matter, our
interest is certainly in the attempt to reduce the ontology of the social being. This is
fundamental in our research, as it is one of the main epistemological and cultural pillars for
the fetishization of the extended mind. It is worth noting that this is a complex topic that
presents itself at different levels. Therefore, the reduction (or denial) of the ontology of the
social being will need to be discussed in four different moments. In this topic, we introduce
the issue only at the level of the matter itself. Continuing on, in the fourth topic that follows,
reductionism is discussed from the perspective of the problem of the development of social
materiality. In the fifth topic, we saw how reductionism is expressed in definitions about
human consciousness. Finally, in the first topic of the third chapter, we find all these ways of
reducing our ontology applied in psychotechnologies and user interfaces.
In a way, reductionism was born with modern science itself and with the development
of mathematics as, for example, one can observe in the maxim attributed to Galileo “count
26
what is countable, measure what is measurable, and what is not”. measurable, make it
measurable”. For Comte (1978, p. 13), “[...] now that the human mind has founded celestial
physics, terrestrial physics [...] and organic physics [...] it remains only to complete the system
of sciences observations with the foundation of social physics”.
In the same direction, according to Zuboff (2021, p. 432), scientist Max Planck “[...]
insisted on the unity of the physical world and on the possibility of discovering natural laws
that would reveal their secrets only through a mathematical analysis”. According to Cestari,
Gazoni and Nöth (2014, p. 32), Peirce participates in this discussion by bringing up a
non-anthropocentric approach , in which “[...] nature, in an autonomous and authentic way,
also develops and works based on on its own logical resources”.
Based on this Peircean framework, Nöth (2007, p. 170) speculates that alleged
similarities between human and computational thinking stem from “[...] the common
evolutionary heritage of biological and physical nature: both the human brain and the laws of
nature. of mechanics, are under the same cosmological constraints. This is the same
reductionist development that Wiener (1970) arrives at. As already mentioned, for him, due to
the alleged negentropic parallels between the living individual and certain machines, if we
could develop them from a “[...] mechanical structure [that] reproduced human physiology,
then we would have a machine whose intellectual capacity would be a reproduction of that of
human beings” (p. 57).
For readers coming from critical social studies, these postulations sound
uncomfortable to say the least. But, for that, there is still one last argument against any
so-called anthropocentric views. Historian Bruce Mazlish (1993) starts from Freud's idea of a
narcissistic wound to discuss four discontinuities of human beings in their world. As the
author recalls, Freud analyzed the shocks of reality that humanity has suffered throughout its
history. First, with Copernicus, we discover that we are not the center of the universe and that,
in fact, we just live on one of the planets that revolve around one of the trillions of stars in an
infinite universe. This is the moment when the laws of the inorganic form of matter would
have put us in our proper place. Centuries later, Darwin hurts our narcissism by demonstrating
that, quite the opposite of being children of some god, created in his image and likeness, we
descended from other anthropoids that lived up in trees. Now, in this interpretation of
Darwin's discoveries, it is the laws of the organic forms of matter that frame us, as behavior
becomes a homeostatic and genetically determined function, paving the way for a behaviorist
ontology. So, Freud himself chooses his theories about the unconscious as the third
27
narcissistic wound, since we would not be as conscious and rational as the Enlightenment
characterized us, being, in fact, dominated by hidden and uncontrollable internal forces. At
this point, Mazlish proposes a fourth wound, when he states that, given the determination of
our ontology by the laws of physics and given the directions of our technological
development, the possibility would be posed that logical intelligence would not be a human
exclusivity, and could be replicated (or surpassed) by computers 31.
This is an interesting provocation that, in a way, summarizes the reductionist logic. In
it, natural laws are used in a scientific discourse to attest that the social being, rather than the
protagonist, tends to be a supporting actor of its own ontology. However, the social scientist
Sérgio Lessa (2016, p. 349) points out another scientific method problem in this approach.
According to the author, modern sciences “[...] 'respect' their objects with a (correct)
obsessive compulsion [...]”, as a way to prevent the researcher's ideas and prejudices from
contaminating their conclusions. However, “[...] they proceed in exactly the opposite way by
projecting laws of different forms of their material organization onto the world of social
beings” (GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 46). Thus, “[...] since they cannot explain social processes,
they expel them from science and convert them into objects of mythologies or opinions”
(LESSA, 2016, p. 349).
There is yet another fundamental problem with reductionism, already introduced in the
first topic of this chapter, namely, the fact that research and scientific theorization are about
the subject-object relationship. Regardless of the conceptual interpretations that the subject
may make of the thing and of himself, as we have already pointed out in another work
(GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 47), both:

[...] they are tied in time; what is understood as real exists in its relationship with the
subject, permeating the degree of complexity of knowledge, social organization and
interests of that observer (PRIGOGINE and STENGERS, 199 7 ; KOSIK, 2002 ) .
In this relationship, the object also shapes the subject and his thinking in each
historical period and, finally, changes the complexity of knowledge and the social
(NETTO, 2009 ).

The positivist subject-object relationship could also be recognized in the convergence,

31
To facilitate the understanding of how this discussion will take place in this thesis, our response to Mazlish's
provocation (2013) begins in this topic and ends in the next one. Certainly, at least part of this answer has already
been anticipated, from which we can reiterate here that ontological reductionism, before being a logical and
scientific conclusion, is itself an extreme of subjectivity, an ontological and socio-historically determined choice
( DUAYER, 2019). We also anticipate that this choice contributes decisively to the remarkable historical
consequences that we will address in the sixth topic of this chapter.

28
accused by the social psychologist and philosopher Shoshana Zuboff (2021), between the
reductionisms of Planck (1949), Skinner (2002) and the computer scientist and psychologist
Alex Pentland (2014) , such as the so-called view of the Other (PLANCK, 1949), or even the
view of God (PENTLAND, 2015). Transposing the scientific pattern of understanding the
inorganic and organic to the social, these authors propose that we be observed from the
outside. According to Zuboff (2021, p. 433), “[...] the human being is reformulated as
'something', an 'other', a 'they' of organisms: an 'organism among organisms'”.
In the words of Planck (1949, p. 75): “[...] we are studying the Other instead of
Ourselves”. It is noticed that such hypostasies are in continuity with those that Wiener (1970)
presented in the previous topic. This is because the Other or the vision of God fits the role of
the helmsman or government that regulates the winerian servomechanism – a subject external
to the object that claims the power to study it in order to instrumentalize it.
At this point in the debate, it seems sufficient to understand that ontological
reductionism is another form of reification, both of natural and social reality. But, as we will
demonstrate in the sixth topic, the references to “Us” and “Other” are more than references to
the subject and the object from the point of view of modern gnosiology. As we indicated,

A world where man is a physical-mathematical element is a world without human

praxis, a given, pre-organized world [...]. In fact, the more one can understand the
laws of this world without man , the more power one has over this world and over
men – and this is the ideological backdrop against which the cognitive sciences
perform. The shape of its scientific evidence stems, to a large extent, from the fact
that men see themselves and the world that way. And, by attributing their challenges
outside their powers and their history, what is theirs and in which they act is seen as
an expression of a “final causation” [PEIRCE, 1974] external to the conflicts
between social classes, and not as a part of them. (GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 50).

For Garcia (2014), this instrumental and reductionist form of presentation ( vorstellen )
of the real integrates what she calls decontextualizing strategies . Such strategies focus on
“[...] the patterns of organization and functioning of phenomena in terms of their structures,
processes, interactions and underlying laws” (p. 756). Leaving out everything else, that is, the
social ontology and its own laws, such approaches place themselves as exempt “[...] from
investigation [by] their own assumptions, as well as the human meanings of the social uses of
the results of their research, [...] strengthening the unilaterality of the historical development
of reason and weakening the scientific ideal of comprehensiveness” (GARCIA, 2014, p. 756).
Finally, we conclude this layer of ontological reductionism with two points that remain
recurrent throughout the chapter. First, reification, supported by the epistemological approach
29
and decontextualizing strategies, elides the distinctions between the means and end positions
that occur in the social and natural world. Obviously, the laws of the social organization of
matter are made possible and limited by its inorganic and organic laws; at the same time that
in the social these forms are found suppressed – conserved, but overcome as a determination
of becoming –, giving rise to new regularities that are not found in other organizations and
generally cannot be explained by them (VIGOTSKI, 1997; LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA, 2016).
This claim can be observed empirically in two examples involving the extended mind.
On the one hand, social work supported by AI and big data is capable of identifying hitherto
hidden pathological patterns, in addition to guiding the breakdown and reorganization of
molecules producing drugs that can increase a patient's negentropy (FORNAZIN et al., 2020)
– the aforementioned heterostasis. On the other hand, a delivery man subordinated by
platforms (ABÍLIO; AMORIM; GROHMANN, 2021), black, who cycles up to fifty
kilometers a day for less than a minimum wage (ALIANÇA, 2019), may be unable to
adequately deny his own entropy. Not because his environment is nutrient-poor – in fact, he
32
could have enough in his backpack – but because social laws prevent this ecologically
necessary and possible outcome.
The second point begins with a legitimate question on the part of the cognitive
sciences or any school that bases its postulates on empiriocriticism. Some of the statements
made here by historical-dialectical materialism are not accompanied by supposed empirical
proofs – which did not go through laboratories, mathematical formulas or algorithms. Are
they pure idealism, a metaphysical escape from the harshness of an inescapable socio-natural
reality? As we continue to argue, the answer, in part, lies in the very way this type of question
is formulated. As social materiality has different laws from the others, it requires equally
different instruments for its apprehension (LESSA, 2012; 2016). A war cannot be understood
by analyzing the physical-chemical reactions provoked by its weapons – even though its
causality can leave its traces in these materialities. But the biunivocal objective-subjective
character of human-social reality requires, as its main instrument, abstraction (whether it
requires an AI and its big data or not ).
The use of scientific instruments capable of capturing natural reality can only
compromise the understanding of the social, due to the fact that the social is not given , it is

32
“Do you know how much it is torturing a hungry motoboy having to carry food on his back?”. Testimony of
the delivery man by Paulo Galo apps on 3/21/2020. Available at: <https://youtu.be/UqLNJmg_gzE>. Accessed
on: 11 Apr. 2022.
30
not an echo of nature – and the current climate crisis, where the capitalist social, in order to be
realized , deleteriously denies the organic, is one of the many empirical results of this reality.
The social is posited by its agents, individuals and classes in their contradictory acts of
humanization.

1.4 Should-be and become – part 1

The previous discussions lead us, in this topic, to deal with another complex of
characteristics and consequences of the social reality that is distinguished from the natural
one. Specifically, it deals with the legalities of the relationship between past, present and
future in social materiality 33. Far from sounding too abstract, this relation is structuring in
automagic machines; it expresses itself, as we have argued, in our fingertips and in the social
consequences of our touching these objects.

1.4.1 Causality and transformation

According to Lessa (2016), since Aristotle, Augustine and Newton, the essence of
matter was considered eternal and changes would only occur in its apparent forms. However,
with Hegel's ideas and Darwin's discoveries, among other events, it became noticeable that
“[...] every process is [...] the transformation of something into something different” and that
“[.. .] the way the components of a complex are articulated can change the quality of the
complex as a whole” (LESSA, 2016, p. 322). Such approaches thus kept discussions about
being and becoming open .
However, for Lessa (2016) and Sohn-Rethel (1978), in addition to the belief in the
separation between essential immutability and phenomenal change deriving from the
influence of metaphysics and scientific development in given historical moments, such
hypostasis also plays a relevant role in social reproduction of those moments. The structural
needs of supplying resources, wealth and labor from the colonies and enslaved people to the
Greek metropolis demanded the presentation ( vorstellen ) of natural-social laws that made
positive such a reality of production relations.

33
We will use the term “becoming” differently, for example, from Deleuzian approaches. Our intention is to
contrast the idea of a predictable and predictable future (to come) with the category of trend, active side and
others, which project a future open to multiple alternatives.
31
 Parmenides, for example, creates one of the first landmarks of these assertions when
he postulates that “being is, non-being is not”. The ingenuity of this statement, apparently
obvious and still inspiring for many today, is that of acting as a mediation for the interdiction
of the new – such as the cessation of slavery and its replacement by free and associated
production. The new, the becoming, by not existing, cannot be; and its possibility (argued by
historicity) would be a mere illusion of the unstable apparent forms of the world. Whether in
34
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau or Kant – and later, in certain ways, in Skinner and Pentland
among others – such a social ontology was not only maintained but extrapolated. For them,
we would be “[...] forever wolves of man himself, for the sole reason that our immutable
nature makes us bourgeois by essence” (LESSA, 2016, p. 320).
In the midst of this debate, Marx proposed the ontological leap category , according to
which “[...] there are moments in the development of matter in which the continuity of
development takes place through the emergence of a new essence” (LESSA, 2016, p. . 323)
superseded from earlier stages. However, the leap in quality that the social organization of
matter took place did not happen by the mere recomposition of its inorganic and organic parts
– or at least not by the determination of these organizations. This leap was due to the way in
which the specifically human form of organic materiality denied its entropy – work –, thus
affirming, at the same time, this new organization and its own needs, possibilities and
historicity (LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA, 2012; 2016). And more: as part of the work complex,
consciousness – individual and social, incorporated and extended – becomes a new locus for
the maturation of the possibility of the new (mathematics, design, art, laws, feelings, etc. ) . It
is this reality that makes its entities – the social being – endowed with personality, needs and
possibilities as much more complex, heterogeneous and sophisticated as this same social
development causes and results from (MARX, 2004; LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA, 2012).
Still according to Lessa (2016) and Lukács (2013), something in common between the
organic, inorganic and social forms of matter is causality , “[...] a principle of self-movement
that rests on itself, maintaining its own character when a causal series has its point of support
in an act of consciousness” 35(LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 38).
34
It should be remembered that the ideas of the immutability of the real and the determination of the social by the
natural, by providing philosophical and ethical justification for the enslavement of Africans, were especially
convenient for the aforementioned illuminists who, in different ways, benefited or were directly or indirectly
benefited from trade. of enslaved people (LOSURDO, 2006 ).
35
We will discuss this point in certain aspects that are of interest to the thesis, but this space does not allow us to
detail the issue more widely. However, it is noteworthy that, according to Lukács, Aristotle and Hegel had
understood the role of teleology at work, but linked it with causality in the natural world, which reiterated
metaphysical interpretations of social phenomena. In this topic and throughout the thesis, we make clear the
32
 A challenge regarding the causalities of a given state of matter (black hole,
nanoprocessor, starving workers) is that they often escape us. This challenge becomes even
more complex in the causality of social forms, because in addition to suppressing natural
chains (the physics that makes nanoprocessors viable, threats to homeostasis that trigger a
strike), “[...] in nature we do not have the dialectic of subject and object and consequently we
have neither teleology nor freedom” (OLIVEIRA, 2002, p. 45). Unlike nature, the
determinations of the social – what agents (individuals, nations, classes, etc.) need to objectify
and internalize to actualize their being – enable both the conditional negation of their own
laws and the capacity to produce alternatives of becoming , instead of just resulting from the
interaction between natural laws pre-programmed in their bodies and contexts.

1.4.2 Probabilism and the “active side”

When we design the discussion about automagic machines, we can question whether
(and how much) what we do today with these objects would be, in some way, a probabilistic
consequence of what we did in the past – and, therefore, what happens in the present as well,
with apparent shades, would be repeated in the future. As we previously introduced, the
hypothesis of the determination of the past over the future in the social is supported at
different levels by the different currents and fields of modern sciences, especially by
sociophysics and behaviorism, in addition to reverberating in the literature of big techs
(FOGG, 1998 ; EYAL, 2014; NORMAN, 2008; NODDER 2013). For them, the prevalence of
the regularities of the natural could be found in the social to the extent that their apparent
forms (the social laws) were thus recognized or reduced to a valid inference (PEIRCE, 1887)
– as well as if theories to the contrary are labeled as metaphysical or opinionated, which
Morozov (2018) accuses of closing the problem . With that, the natural truth about human
behavior would emerge and, along with it, everything that is predictable in it (SKINNER,
2002; WIENER, 1970; PENTLAND, 2014).
Living under natural probabilistic laws would be our reality, as we become “[...] eager
for patterns”, perceiving the regularities of the world “[...] as a result of mechanical causality
[...]” , we remained safe in the face of environmental threats, favoring our evolutionary
adaptation (KAHNEMAN, 2012, p. 124). For Harari (2016), agency would be a mere

difference between natural and social causalities, as well as we discuss the role of this confusion (innocent or
not) in the transformation of the extended mind into an automagic machine.
33
biochemical process of calculating data to make decisions based on patterns and probabilities.
Technology journalist Kennet Cukier and network economics scientist Mayer-Schönberger
(2013, p. 2) argue that big data and datatification - the transformation of social action into
quantified digital data - makes “[...] likely that we will discover that many aspects of life are
36
probabilistic” . For them, “[...] it is too risky to talk about causation[...]” instead of “[...]
trying to understand the deeper reasons behind how the world works[...]” we should “[...]
simply learning about an association between phenomena and using that to do things”
(CUKIER; MAYER-SCHÖNBERGER, 2013, p. 3).
In the same way, for physicist Chris Anderson (2008) we should forget “[...]
taxonomy, ontology and psychology [...]”, because “[...] with enough data, the numbers speak
for themselves” . Through predictive analysis , according to consultant Eric Siegel (2018, p.
13), it would be possible to learn “[...] from experience (data) to predict the future behavior of
individuals”, so that “[... ] data express the raw essence of human behavior”. Still in this
regard, Pentland (2012, p. 11), in an update of Comte's social physics, predicts that “[...] as
these new skills are refined by the use of statistical models [...] we could see the creation of a
quantitative and predictive science of human organizations and human society”. With it, it
would be possible to establish “[...] a mathematical explanation for what society reacts to” in
all circumstances (PENTLAND , 201 2, p. 8).
For economist Jakob Svensson and lawyer Poveda Guillen (2020), such beliefs in data
can be understood from the very etymological meaning of the word given, which comes from
the Latin datum , which can be used as present, in the sense of something that was offered or
given. That is, reality, expressed in data, is given and, therefore, for Gitelman and Jackson
(2013, p. 2-3), this etymology underlies the belief in digital data as something “transparent,
autonomous, objective and neutral”. .
These paradigms present the issue of reality and its future as an information problem.
That is, the question of the social human development would be displaced and reduced
through the analysis of big data , the “[...] neutralization of the negative effects of radical
uncertainty” (CARDOSO, 2021) as a form of prediction – or realization – of a phenomenon
by preventing alternative possibilities (BRUNO, 2019).
As we can observe, in these currents there are three approaches to the future in the
social that interlink with each other, namely: 1) indifference – disguised or not – in relation to

36
We return to the discussion on probabilism in the last chapter of the thesis, already in its instrumental
manifestation as marketing psychotechnology.
34
the causal links of social phenomena – “[...] it is safer it is useful to try to govern the effects”
(AGAMBEN, 2013, np); 2) prospecting for the real starts to emerge from the inductive
method based on big data , without the need for theories and representations, thereby
claiming neutrality; and 3) the government’s search for “[...] events, risks, the unknown,
chance, uncertainty” (CARDOSO, 2021, np), generating effects that can produce predicted
realities (BRUNO, 2019).
As a result of these models and processes, we have as an output a renewed persistence,
based on data, of classical and Hobbesian ideal abstractions that prohibit the transformation of
the real. The future is based on the probable (repetition or maintenance of the past) and not
on the possible as a product of human action (CARDOSO, 2021) – what psychologist
Fernanda Bruno (2019) calls the kidnapping of the future . In this case, “[...] we are left
without the right to participate in the construction of worlds, to formulate problems and to
invent solutions, except within already established alternatives” (LAZZARATO, 2006, p.
120), because “ [...] the subject is practically annulled by the instrumental character it
acquires” (GONÇALVES, 2007, p. 119). With this, for example, the justifications for the
social asymmetries mainly structured in private property and in the division between
intellectual and manual work are renewed and the possibilities become more or less available
or unavailable for certain actors in specific contexts (BUCHER, 2018 ).
Finally, based on the criticisms presented and previous discussions, it is possible to
start decrypting the dataist and probabilist discourse, revealing it as an ideological description
made possible by social cybernetics. That is: 1) the reduction – objective and subjective – of
human dynamics to social homeostasis and its standards; 2) the restriction of possibilities and
alternatives; and 3) neutralizing the negative effects of uncertainties and the government on
social effects. All of this denotes that, far from having a capacity for intellectual work to
predict the future, it would be about permanent socio-cybernetic adjustments, by feedback, for
the conservation of previous social states – in other words, a mechanism of the struggle of
classes.
On the other hand, in a historical-dialectical approach, the laws of the social – which
arise from work – assume the tendential capacity of their realization (MARX, 2011). In this
way, the relationship between cause and effect does not have the same degree of measurement
and determination that we can perceive, for example, in engineering, in the conditioning of
laboratory pigeons or even in the architecture of choices. This is due both to the
aforementioned subject-object relationship and to the other particularities of social complexity
35
compared to other forms of organization of matter, as we will see in the next topic.
Ironically, in behavioral economics and psychology there are a number of theories
(ARIELY, 2008; KAHNEMAN, 2012; KAHNEMAN; TVERSKY, 2013) that could, in their
own way, explain these hypostasies. They name these distortions of publication bias,
anchoring, recency, confirmation, overconfidence, among others, to which, as psychologist
and economist Daniel Kahneman (2012) warns, behavioral research itself is liable to incur.
In this sense, for example, Engels (19 78 , np, emphasis added) warns that, although
the main social determination is the economic plan, that is, “[...] the production and
reproduction of real life, [... ] several other vectors [...] also exert their influence on the course
of historical struggles and, in many cases, prevailed in determining their form ”. In the same
sense, Gorender (2013, p. 53) clarifies that, in the social, the tendency “[...] synthesizes the
directed, constant and regular manifestation – not occasional – of the interaction and
opposition between immanent factors in the phenomenal reality”. Therefore, they point to
becomings and not to a future. Lessa (2012, p. 96) also specifies that “[...] chance, necessity
and teleology are articulated in the going-being of each act and each final product of the
work”. Still in this regard, Oliveira (2002, p. 55) states that “[...] on the ontological level,
something occasional may well be the bearer of an essential tendency, although in terms of
pure logic, chance is always understood as a disturbing element” .
Therefore, before the Platonic and Hobbesian fixity or the probabilism of Google's
Page Rank 37, within the limits and possibilities of concrete reality, there will always be the
production of alternatives by social beings. We refer to what Marx (2004) and Lukács (2013)
38
name as the active side of the social being, a concept that we return to in the following
topics. This is the main point of this discussion.
For Mészáros (2011), the understanding of history depends on the perception of the
specificity and relative autonomy of the forms of consciousness inherited by the subjects,
which, in turn, tend to be mediated by the superstructure and its material base. As Furtado
explains (2011, p. 71), “[...] although there is a historical and economic determination, the
human being is able to reflect under and on these conditions and make decisions and seek to
interfere in the world from them, projecting into the future. world its subjectivity”.
Thus, the relationship between the posed reality, its tendencies and the active side of

37
Page Rank was Google's first search engine algorithm. In it, the metric of a page, calculated by the number of
hyperlinks that cite it on the internet, represents the probability of a person reaching that page.
38
By way of comparison, the active side for PSSH could be equivalent to the question of intentionality for
cognitive sciences.
36
the subjects occurs dialectically in inexhaustible combinations and directions posed by them,
even being capable of reversing the weight of their determinations in history (MÉSZÁROS,
2011). The active side, as an aspect of human activity, where the social being can overcome a
pattern and create a new one (FIGARO, 2018), can be, for this very reason, a moment of
denial of the tendency that wants to assert itself and reproduce itself – of the French
39
Revolution to the Crack of Apps . We can also refer to the possibility that users of an
automagic machine fail to carry out the intentions projected into it by its capitalist investors
through its developers 40. In this act, the practical effect can be the negation of the tendency to
realize a magnitude of profits and bonuses that was projected in the future through fictitious
capital (bonds, stocks, derivatives, etc.).
Finally, if the active side is, from the perspective of historical and dialectical
materialism, a vital element of human development, for the approaches criticized here it can
become a threat to their projects of order (SKINNER, 2002; CASTELLANO; FORTUNATO;
LORETO , 2009). The neutralization, with the help of the extended mind, of the negative
effects of a radical uncertainty due to the active side is a theme that runs through the whole
thesis and that we approach decisively at the end of the last chapter.

1.4.3 The archer’s tale – must-be and become

To conclude the discussion about whether what probabilism and datatification reveal
or shape the future of social materiality, we start with a well-known oriental tale. In it, a
community was proud of an archer who, at dawn, accurately arrowed his targets spread across
the village. One day, however, one of the villagers decided to witness such skills, hiding in the
night to watch the archer. To his surprise, the observer discovered that, in fact, the archer first
released the arrow on a surface and only then painted the surrounding target.
This tale helps us in that, for example, when analyzing the debugging and modeling
processes of digital data, media researcher Taina Bucher (2018, p. 25) reminds us that

39
National mobilization of app delivery people against poor working conditions, held on July 1st and 25th, 2020.
40
The wide use of the term “developers” by the digital technology industry and its intellectuals can be –
deliberately or not – imprecise and obfuscating. This is because, in many cases, these sectors make use of the
term's particular meaning – generally, workers who work more directly in the production of software ( engineers,
programmers, designers , etc.) – to circumscribe the meaning of the development of digital goods to eminently
technical areas, eliding the participation and determination of other more subjective and external areas to this
production. Therefore, in this thesis, we always use this term referring mainly to mathematicians, psychologists,
programming engineers, designers , marketing analysts, economists, administrators, lawyers, traders and
investors who effectively develop the goods in their various and combined aspects.
37
understanding these objects and what “[ ...] they represent, it is not just a matter of a machine
learning, but also of humans specifying the states and outcomes they are interested in in the
first place”. According to Lindgren (2019, p. 2), “[...] each stage of the big data generation
process depends [...]” on data preparation and, therefore, what “[...] we will have at hand are
always configured through beliefs, values and choices that 'cook' the data from scratch so that
it is never in a 'raw' state”. Certainly, all these intentional layers, in addition to being
somewhat foreign to the laws of nature, are left out of most dataist and probabilist narratives
themselves (VAN DIJCK, 2014).
We will still arrive, in the second and third chapters, at the discussion about the
application of these theories in platform capitalism. But, before that, for example, we can
observe that, in online shopping services , probabilizing what I will buy based on what I
bought also refers to the conditions, causalities and possibilities posed in the past act – mainly,
the projection of a want in an object; the active search for the object (and/or its automated
presentation); the competitive struggle between providers; the heuristics of the purchase
(comparisons, payment terms, etc.); the appropriation of the object; and the experience of its
useful effect. What interests merchants and their representatives (Meta, Alphabet, Amazon,
etc.) is that the person repeats the act, at most changing brands – fixed essence, varied
appearance. Therefore, for them and their theorists, it is necessary that any other
transformations (denials) resulting from these activities be inhibited and that the activity be
involved in habituation and reproduction (CIALDINI, 1984 ; KRUG, 2006; EYAL, 2014;
NODDER , 2013a ).
In the interview that Zuboff (2021) conducted with “the chief data scientist of a highly
admired education company in Silicon Valley”, he explains that “[...] the goal of everything
we do is to change behavior at scale. people's real [...]”, that “[...] we can test how much our
guesses are actionable for them and how profitable certain behaviors are for us” (ZUBOFF,
2021, p. 357). Thus, under probabilism, the relationship between the subject and a specific
consumption activity – or any other form of social interaction – should not generate
possibilities for development and transformation, either in a competitively different direction,
or as a break with the activity itself. .
As can already be seen in this entire discussion, something appears in the causal chains
of social materiality that does not exist in nature , that which is hidden by probabilism, the
should-be – that is, the praxiological direction of the activity that seeks the most valuable
result possible for the subjects of a previously idealized action (LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA,
38
2012).
The should-be category is central to this thesis precisely because of this game between
relevance and deception which the deformation of the extended mind, as the automagic
machine, mediates. It is also central to different philosophical schools, with its meanings often
contested among themselves and even internally, given its many subtleties, compositions and
conditions (LESSA, 2012). Thus, while a detailed breakdown of its meanings is risky and
beyond the limits of this space, it is necessary to discuss it in its most relevant aspects so that
the arguments and criticisms of this specific topic and this thesis in general are better
understood and validated.
First, it is necessary to situate the must-be as a category exclusively internal to the
complex of work, more specifically, and of all social praxis, in general; ultimately, the
must-be, this kind of vision of the future , becomes socially immaterial, non-existent (as in the
future of the preterit), if it is not demanded by and exists in the teleological positing.
Therefore, secondly, this vision of the future is always limited, on the one hand, by natural
possibilities and, on the other, by human capacities to abstractly reflect these conditions as
faithfully as possible and to manipulate them in their hands and minds (incorporated or
extended) (LESSA, 2012; LUKÁCS, 2013). Far beyond ontological reductionism and its
probabilism, this process unites, in the work, the past, the present and the future, the concrete
and the abstract; “[...] the prior-ideation rises to a 'neo-formative principle' of material reality
without ceasing to be the locus of subjectivity” (LESSA, 2012, p. 109) and the should-be only
exists as “[... ] form and expression of reality relations” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 78).
Thirdly and decisively, “[...] in the normal biological determinateness, [...] therefore in
both men and animals, a causal unfolding arises in which it is always inevitably the past that
determines the present ” (LUKÁCS, 2013 , p. 73, emphasis added). But, in social materiality,
the causal forces are – in terms of the aforementioned limits – radically different:

[...] the end comes (in consciousness) before its realization and, in the process that
guides each step, each movement is guided by the setting of the end (by the future).
Under this aspect, the meaning of posited causality consists in the fact that causal
links, causal chains, etc. they are chosen , set in motion, left to their own motion, to
further the achievement of the end established from the beginning . [...] From the
subject's point of view, this action determined from a defined future is exactly an
action driven by the must-be of the end. (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 74, emphasis added)

Therefore, “[...] the future, and no longer just the past, becomes a decisive dimension
of human acts, to the extent that the must-be rises to the predominant moment in determining
39
the operating alternative in the position of the end” (LESSA, 2012, p. 111).
These facts, in turn, unfold into other relevant elements. As introduced earlier, this
future-in-the-present only exists within objectification processes; it is not an a priori
apparatus , a set of purposes, motives and values transcendentally available to rational beings,
as Kantian morality desires (LUKÁCS, 2013). This thread will take us to the point that
interests us, however, to get there, there is more to consider.
In the historical process of humanization, the must-be presents an original and a
developed form – the latter never making the former disappear. In its original form, the
must-be of an objectification is fundamentally related to its concrete and immediate utility.
For example, in the production of a stone axe, “[...] every step forward in realization is
decided by establishing whether and how it favors the realization of the end” (LUKÁCS,
2013, p. 73), so that it must be produced with certain materials and in a certain way.
Furthermore, the work process is not linear and unique; in many of his steps, he is riddled
with alternatives : If there is no specific stone, which one to replace it with? If replaced, what
is the proper technique? If the operation of chipping the stone fails (the break), given the
imperative of its need, do you continue with what you have, or do you look for another stone?
It happens that, over the millennia, contradictory and unequal teleological acts
originating from the social being and its multiple alternatives and decision requirements, such
acts not only transformed objects and tools, but, in this way, the producers themselves were
modified ( MARX, 2011) – an aspect that we will see in detail in the next subtopic.
Tendentially, with each human objectification, the present becomes a situation less and less
determined only by the past and more and more also by the future, giving rise to “[...]
necessarily a continuous chain of alternatives and how the correct decision regarding of any
of them is determined from the future, from the end that must be accomplished” (LUKÁCS,
2013, p. 74). The must-be reaches increasingly developed structures and forms, whether at
work in particular or in social practice in general. Thus, in work as an onto-creative process,
not only new technical-causal links are inserted, but also new ontological links (LESSA,
2012; LUKÁCS, 2013).
The complete point we are pursuing depends on the accumulation that will come in the
course of this chapter, however it is essential that we enter into some of these ontological
links that exist in indissoluble unity with the must-be. The sophistication of the work process
generates the sophistication of the conscience of the social being and vice versa and, thus, the
must-be also starts to appeal to “[...] certain aspects of the subject's interiority” (LUKÁCS,
40
2013, p. . 156), which increases the “[...] mastery of their understanding of their inclinations
and habits” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 77-78). With this, there cannot be sociometabolic acts “[...] –
from original work to pure social production – deprived of an intention, ontologically
immanent to them, aimed at the humanization of man in the broadest sense, which concerns
both his genesis and its development” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 86).
For Lukács (2013), such sophistications expand and reflect the alternatives of
realization and, mainly, the potential qualities of the human-social becoming – from stone
hunting to artificial meat, from urbanization to global warming. So the alternatives become
immensely more complex and problematic: Should we build and explode an atomic bomb?
Should we produce facial recognition and AI that claim to prevent crimes, even with racist
biases? Should we produce AI that could write texts for us and copy our voices and
appearances? Should we produce excess goods even irreversibly destroying nature? As can be
seen, “[...] the ontological articulation that connects the totality of social praxis to values is the
category of the alternative” (LESSA, 2012, p. 113).
The sophistication of work and consciousness (and sociability) sophisticates –
including in its contradictions – the notion of what is valuable for the social being. This is the
point we want and which we can reach at this stage of our discussion. It only concludes at the
end of our last chapter. As correct as our abstract reproduction of the materiality on which we
intend to act is – from the stone ax to demonstrably racist facial recognition (O'NEIL, 2016;
BUCHER, 2018) –, the fact is that such a reflection “[...] it can only become part of the
ideation-objectification process [it can only be useful] to the extent that it is adequate to the
teleologically established end” (LESSA, 2012, p. 111-112), that is, if this abstraction has the
capacity to meet the previously stipulated purposes.
It turns out that, as we can deduce in the comparison between these two examples,
“[...] values and value processes cannot [...] be reduced to the simple form of should-be that
operates in the organic exchange man/nature” (LESSA, 2012, p. 112) – as the ontonegative
sciences insist. It is at this point that the encryption and fetishization of human-social reality
(and the extended mind) begin that we want to draw attention to. The purposes of the most
developed teleological pores are riddled with values and beliefs of the social classes that seek
to direct these processes. Such purposes surpass the technical-causal determinations and
assume ethical determinations – therefore, strictly socio-historical – that are reflected both in
the alternatives and in the decisions of what will tend to become real in the future. In this
plan, it is not only utilities that are objectified; “[...] the success of objectification implies the
41
objective realization of the values” that motivated it (LESSA, 2012; LUKÁCS, 2013) – and,
as we will continue to discuss until the third chapter, these values can be entered in databases,
programming codes and their mathematical equations.
We then have ethics, values and valuation processes as ontological links that exist
together with the must-be – which can lead to confusion about the position and condition of
each one in the teleological pores. As Lessa (2012) explains, it is not the degree or type of
epistemological content (knowledge about the concrete) that indicates whether an ideation
(theory, algorithm, etc.) is a must-be or value, but rather its function in the flow of knowledge.
every act. According to the author,

If ideation acts in the sense of regulating the actions necessary to achieve an end, it
is rather a duty than a value. If, in turn, it acts in the determination of the ultimate
purpose and in the valuation of the product , it is a value rather than a must-be. Let
us stress: it is the social function of ideation, and not its epistemological content,
which determines whether it is a must-be or a value. (LESSA, 2012, p. 114,
emphasis added)

This is the thread that connects the previous topics – the ontonegative assertions about
human-social reality – to the following topics and the theme of automagic machines. We
demonstrate – and will continue to demonstrate – that the human-social world is the
contradictory and dialectical amalgam between the past – natural or socially available
causalities –, the present – the demands and possibilities opened by those causalities – and the
future. This is much more than the space for reiterating the past – social homeostasis,
expanded capitalist reproduction, etc. – object or part of being? – and the social – subsistence,
gourmetization, merchandise, etc. – that determine who produces them and how, who serves
them, consumes them and what causal chains this must-be tends to put (the becoming) –
health, dignity and sustainability or profit, obesity, malnutrition, climate crisis, etc?
Although the ontonegative sciences try to deny the future as a transformation, accusing
this possibility of extreme subjectivity, curiously the concepts of values and vision of the
future (the must-be) are displayed in any capitalist administrative approach. According to
Idalberto Chiavenato (2007), one of the main Brazilian authors on capitalist administration,

Companies require a combination of beliefs, ideas, principles and values that give
them consistency and their own identity. Every business must have a mission to
accomplish; it must have a vision of the future that guides it and must define the
values it intends to enshrine. All this needs to be very clear so that all partners know
exactly what to do, how, when and where. Concepts such as mission, vision, values
and global objectives are fundamental to guide the direction of the business.
42
 However, it is worth mentioning that this is not all. The avoidance of these sciences is
not just the denial of a transforming future. This is a double movement, in which only certain
types of transformation, in the future, are discredited, because, in the same movement – in the
same vorstellung –, capitalist valuation and the must-be appear as natural facts, legalities and
mathematically logical norms, probable and predictable.
After all, the debate is not about the possibility of becoming, but its dispute, as it is
always open to alternatives that are generally contradictory to each other and potentially out
of control . The human-social action – deforesting, planting, harvesting, industrializing,
offering, requesting, exchanging, consuming, polluting – has objectivities and subjectivities as
its main and irreplaceable ingredients, which value the past, the present and especially the
future.
In this sense, everything we accuse in this topic refers to activities (visible and
understandable to all or not) in response to socio-historically established causalities (laws of
value, capitalist structural crisis, competition, social needs and possibilities, etc.). These
activities, in their going-being, teleologically realize – whether just in a human mind or with
GPT-3 41– a pre-ideation of that response and, in turn, this ideation – an algorithm, a pseudo
socio-natural law – will guide the search for means for this objectification (eg a given rate of
capital accumulation that is competitively necessary) that abstractly creates alternatives (in
mathematical models, stock exchanges, startups, etc.) capable of revealing a tendency to
realize more in certain alternatives than in others ( unicorn 42startup , share repurchase). This
revelation, in turn, comes from comparing these alternatives with values – which then emerge
as criteria, deep motives –, while the must-be acts as a model, guide, norm for the application
of this alternative. This increases, in abstract and probabilistic terms as well, the effective
value of the final result and, finally, to the extent that this result ( market share , profits,
bonuses, etc.) is part of the conditions for realizing the being of the subject of the action, the
must-be is intention in action , a social force whose function is to become a trend and
influence on becoming (LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA, 2012).
In the third chapter we will return to this theme, in a way even more applied to the
object of the thesis. We will discuss how capital values seek to transfer and objectify

41
GPT-3 is a state-of-the-art AI. According to Radford et al. (2019) and Hegde and Patil (2020), it is a general
purpose learner, that is, it can learn to perform tasks for which it was not prepared and can accurately synthesize
the next item in an arbitrary sequence.
42
A unicorn is a startup that achieves a market cap of over $1 billion.
43
themselves in digital goods and, in their duty-to-be, seek to direct the consumption of these
objects, the (inter)subjectivity and the social practices that derive from it.

1.5 Structures of consciousness

We began to discuss, in the previous topic, the fact that, while for certain sciences –
ultimately, negentropy and homeostasis – they are at the end of human action, for
historical-dialectical materialism they are suppressed as conditions and mediations for the
achievement of humanization through work (VIGOTSKI, 1997; VIEIRA PINTO, 2005b).
In addition, in the Introduction we resort to neuroscience discoveries to state that, in
this act, the creation and use of the extended mind necessarily implies the development of
correlated neurochemical concepts and structures. The whole of that discussion allows us to
perceive that this development is not always a circular effect of feedback in an activity of
self-control and self-exteriorization, and may also be an attempt to instrumentalize the
subjective dimension of the reality of individuals and populations as part of the mediations for
human use of human beings.
In the continuity of the debate on human-social reality, these two issues – the ontology
of the being that works (externalization) and the extended mind as psychotechnology
(internalization) – inevitably lead us to discuss the structures of consciousness. After all, what
is consciousness all about? What is the role of social work in your development? Does the
reality of consciousness confirm our ontology as a mere variation, or a leap in quality in
nature? Can a specific rearrangement of molecules be replicated in computers?
All these questions open up a mosaic of problems greater than the possibilities and
objectives of this thesis. However, from this specific literature review, key questions emerged
for mapping the totality that has the social being and the extended mind as its axes.

1.5.1 Myths of ontonegativity

In the third and fourth topics of this chapter we describe, respectively, the ontological
reduction from the point of view of the organization of matter and from the point of view of
the becoming of social materiality. We argue that this discussion is indispensable because it
gives epistemological ballast to certain descriptions of the ontology of the being that creates
and interacts with the extended mind. In this third level of the question, we discuss the
44
postulations of continuity and confirmation of ontological reductionism specifically in the
case of the consciousness of this being. Let's look at them case by case and then we'll discuss
them.
For the philosopher, scientist and mathematician Charles Peirce (1887), the mind
would be the interpretive movement of semiosis that would occur in nature. Such a movement
would originate from a “pure form”, an “[...] objective reason embodied in the laws of nature”
(CESTARI; GAZONI; NÖTH, 2014, p. 23). Human consciousness would be what Peirce
(1887) calls feelings, an ontologized garment of the mind, or “mere property of protoplasm” (
apud SANTAELLA, 2016). In this case, ultimately, “[...] the human being would not be a
subject, nor would the mind be an intelligence – biological or artificial – that deals enactively
with objects and the environment” (GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 44 ). And yet, according to
Gonçalves (2020), for Peirce, “[...] the brain would be (only) one of the instances where
certain signs (interpretants) are located that mediate our semiosis with other signs, which in
turn represent the objects, in a triadic relationship". Even so, according to Santaella (1995),
"[...] wherever there is a tendency to learn [...]", be it "[...] in the pollen grain [. ..], in the
flight of a bird”, or in human perversity, “there will be intelligence.” In the human case,
Peirce names this capacity for conscious modification of purpose , an essential subject of
study by psychologists (PEIRCE, 1887).
According to the wide review of cognitive literature by Eysenck and Keane (2017, p.
2), “[...] most cognitive psychologists adopted the information processing approach based on
an analogy between the mind and the computer”. This, according to Smith (2015, p. 2141), is
based on the alleged similarities in “[...] pattern recognition, attention, categorization,
memory, reasoning, decision making, problem solving and language”.
As we previously discussed, these similarities were hypostatized by Wiener (1970;
2017), for whom the human capacity to signify its world has parallels and analogies with
certain communication machines, insofar as both seek to cybernetically “[...] dominate the
entropy through feedback (WIENER, 2017, p. 26). The author seeks to unfold these
assumptions in a Psychological Cybernetics , whose task would be to separate and isolate our
forms of feedback (WIENER, 2017). Despite recognizing that “human systems” are not linear
(they do not self-determine from a mathematical point of view), it would be possible to create
the conditions (controls) capable of some “linearization” (WIENER, 2017.).
For some cognitive and information scientists, such associations could be established
because, according to Neufeld, Brust and Stein (2011, p. 108), “[...] the mind can create
45
models with rules established by logic and based on calculations. ”. From these postulations,
reverse engineering could be performed, in which the human mind could be “[...] simulated in
the machine so that human faculties are always susceptible to an information processing
system” (NEUFELD; BRUST ; STEIN, 2011, p. 108). Or, as the philosopher David Chalmers
(2010, p. 23) specifies 43, “[...] if the causal patterns of neural organization were duplicated on
[...] a silicon chip for each neuron [...] then the same experiences would arise”. Finally, in a
catchphrase that illustrates the ontological demotion and “problem closure” schemes
(MOROZOV, 2018), for the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky (1988 apud TEIXEIRA, 2011
), “[...] no computer is aware of what he is doing, but most of the time, neither are we”.
As we noted earlier, these ideas have a strange affinity (PINTO, 2015) with
behaviorism, according to which “[...] operant behavior as a repertoire of possible actions,
some of which are selected by reinforcement, is no different from Wiener's description of
information cycles” (BENTES, 2022, p. 132). Matured in the studies of psychologists Watson
and Skinner, behaviorism initially presented itself as a purely objective branch of the natural
sciences that does not recognize any dividing line between man and irrational animal
(WATSON, 1913). In general, for this field, what is important is to know the stimuli and
contexts ( inputs ) and the behavior ( outputs ) related to them, given that consciousness
would be both scientifically inscrutable and merely epiphenomenal.
For Skinner (1974), there would be no differentiation between the laws inside the skin
and those outside it. According to Blunden (2010, p. 130) this is an approach that excludes
“[...] consciousness as a legitimate category within science” and which, according to Abrantes
(1993, p. 10), adopts “[. ..] the neopositivist therapy of eliminating theoretical terms by
reducing them to observational terms”. With such a reduction, the human mentality was
composed only as “[...] a biological function of adaptation and orientation of the organism in
the environment, a function characterized by two fundamental elements: impulse and
reaction” (KOSIK, 2002 , p . 244).
Another cognitive strand that seems to dialogue with cybernetics and behaviorism is
the neuroscientific field dubbed neuromania 44. For Malabou (2009, p. 55), in this regard, “[...]
43
Phrases practically identical to those of Wiener (1978, p. 57), according to which “theoretically, if we could
build a machine whose mechanical structure reproduced human physiology, then we would have a machine
whose intellectual capacity would be a reproduction of human beings”.
44
Neuromania (LEGRENZI; UMILTÀ, 2011) is a critical adjective given primarily to certain neuroscientists,
neuropsychologists and computational cognitive scientists for their widespread overconfidence in the centrality
of the brain and its parts in understanding consciousness (CHOUDHURY; SLABY, 2011). One of its exponents,
Coltheart (2010, p. 10) summarizes the main objective of this strand as “[...] learning about the mind, elucidating
the functional architecture of cognition”.
46
thought, knowledge, desires and affections all proceed on a neuronal basis, that is,
biological”. In this sense, for Smith (20 15 , p. 2145), “[...] the standard analyzes of
information processing of cognition can be substantially clarified by knowing how cognition
is implemented in the brain”. This is because, for philosopher John Searle (1992, p. 14), in
this approach, “[...] events and mental processes are caused by neurophysiological processes
in the brain and are themselves characteristics of the brain”, being so natural “ [...] as
digestion, mitosis, meiosis or the secretion of enzymes”. The neurobiologist Changeux (1985,
p. 247) locates “[...] the essence of a person in the brain”, while for the neuroscientist Joseph
E. LeDoux (2003, p. 2), the notion of personality “[ ...] is very simple: your 'I', the essence of
who you are, reflects patterns of interconnectivity between neurons in your brain”.
Following this line, the neuroscientist António Damásio (1999) proposes that
consciousness is a layer of “explicit neural patterns” participating in a superposition of other
implicit cognitive structures, which would aim at the homeostatic regulation of the biological
organism. Llinás and Pare (1991), for example, suggest that consciousness, like dreaming,
would occur in the oscillations of groups of neurons in the range of 35-40 MHz. And, finally,
although for Boden (1988, p. 7), the biochemical synthesis of intentionality in the brain is still
a mystery, “[...] we have very good reasons to believe that the neuroprotein supports
intentionality”. Even so, like the aforementioned computationalists, the author postulates that
it is possible to level the properties of human neural networks with artificial ones.
In turn, the behavioral economics of Kahneman (2012), Thaler (2019) and others
propose a consciousness divided into two modules: system 1, heuristic, pragmatic, intuitive,
fast and energetically economical, based on previous concrete experiences and usually
45
predominant ; and system 2, complexly relational, methodical, lazy , energetically
expensive, based on broader memories and critical 46. In this vein, there would be a permanent
friction between external stimuli and some kind of alternation of control between these two
systems in the production of behavioral responses. This wear, named by Kahneman (2012)
and Eyal (2014) as pain, would direct our behavior towards pleasure without necessarily
being aware of it. Due to our cognitive limitations, our behavior would be loaded with
numerous biases mapped by this field, making it, therefore, “predictably irrational” (ARIELY,
2008, p. 27). In general, according to this approach, the knowledge and use of these

45
It is noteworthy that Daniel Kahneman (2014 ) , in his book Fast and Slow : Two Ways of Thinking, refers
eighty times to System 2 (the higher psychic functions) as lazy.
46
Thaler and Sunstein (2018), for example, resort to a dual process theory similar to that of Kahneman (2011), as
well as employing many of the same examples and theories of bias as that Israeli author.
47
characteristics of human consciousness would be a competitive advantage among economic
agents – which guaranteed the Nobel Prize in Economics to Kahneman in 2002 and Thaler in
2017.
Finally, for Paul MacLean ( 1990 ) our ontology would be decisively shaped by
survival instincts commanded by its limbic and reptilian systems. This view, in part, is based
on theories about the compartmentalization of the brain (EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017).
47
The list does not end here and there would be a lot to discuss about these
postulations. However, we chose to focus on three aspects – historicity, causality and method,
which will continue in the next items and subtopics – to organize the critique of reductionist
descriptions of the consciousness of the social being. Starting with historicity, we have to
return briefly to topic 1.3, where we left incomplete the final considerations on the four
discontinuities of our ontology, according to Mazlish (1993). In them, our anthropocentrism
was wounded by the sequential discoveries about our insignificance in the universe, to the
point where we also lost our exclusive position of intentionality and consciousness to
imminent superintelligent computers. Combining the discussion made earlier with the limit
situation proposed by Mazlish, we understand that this is the point at which we must take a
look as far as possible at the subject of consciousness, seeking to separate its history from its
stories.
For this, we resorted to the interesting systematization in this regard made by the
writer and AI engineer George Zarkadakis (2015). He recalls the six metaphors we've used
over the past two thousand years to try to explain human consciousness. First, from the Bible
and with almost no scientific knowledge, we resort to the idea of clay molded and animated
by an intelligent god who infused it with his spirit through a breath. With the invention of
hydraulics in the 3rd century BC we were inspired to believe in the idea that the flow of
different fluids in the body – the 'humors' – explained our physical and mental functioning.
With the advent of geared automata from the 16th century onwards, thinkers such as
Descartes and Hobbes began to assert that human beings are complex machines and that
thinking comes from small mechanical movements in the brain. The nascent mastery over
chemistry and electricity from the 18th century would have provided empirical evidence for
Cartesian dualism, while recent advances in communications made, in the 19th century, the

47
For example, we omit the field of sociophysics, either because it has been and will continue to be scrutinized in
other topics, or because its concern is not so much to characterize behavior, but to linearize it (WIENER, 2017)
or tune it (PENTLAND, 2012 ) .
48
German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compare the brain to a telegraph. With the
development of computing, Miller (1951) proposed that the mental world could be studied
scientifically from the theories of information, computation and linguistics, opening questions
that contributed to the emergence of cognitive sciences. In 1958 , John von Neumann ( 2006 )
categorically states that the function of the human nervous system is prima facie digital. In
this way, explanations about the reality of consciousness reflect the development of the
productive forces of societies, which takes place in history (ZARKADAKIS, 2015).
Therefore, if we have to think of a fourth narcissistic discontinuity that violates
transcendentalism and the apriorism of the monad and rational subject, in fact we would say
that it is historicity .
From the point of view of method, Vygotsky (1997, p. 14), in his critique of the old
(introspectivist) and new (behavioral) psychology of his time, discusses the limits of “[...]
identification of tasks of scientific research with the division of the whole into primary
elements and the reduction of superior formations and forms to inferior ones”. As Vygotsky (
2000b , p. 396, emphasis added) argues,

We liken the researcher applying this method to a person who, in trying to explain
why water puts out fire, would try to break water down into oxygen and hydrogen
and would be surprised to find that oxygen maintains combustion while hydrogen is
flammable. [...] [The] method of decomposition into elements is not properly an
analysis from the point of view of its application to the solution of concrete
problems in some defined field of phenomena. It is more a projection to the general
than an internal decomposition and a division of the particular contained in the
phenomenon susceptible of explanation. By its very essence, this method leads to
generalization rather than analysis.

The author also accuses the “[...] disregard of the qualitative problem, which cannot be
reduced to quantitative differences”, as well as that “[...] the lack of knowledge of the genesis
of superior functions inevitably leads to an essentially metaphysical conception” (VIGOTSKI,
1997, p. 19). This is because, when historicity and the activity of understanding the
development of memory, attention and superior and inferior thinking are discarded, what we
see are these developments as results isolated from these primary elements.
Furthermore, for Oliveira (1999) there is no question of the fact that there are
dimensions of human cognition “[...] that are natural and, as such, within certain limits,
immutable. These can be studied with the same methods that are used in the natural sciences”.
However, cognitive science, precisely because of its reductionist assumptions, “[...] proposes
to study aspects of cognition that are cultural in the same way, and thus variable throughout
49
the history of societies” (OLIVEIRA, 2001, p. 10). The author also clarifies that this
transposition “[...] is born out of an enthusiasm with the successes in the field of natural
sciences from the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the context of the
rise of capitalism” (OLIVEIRA, 2001, p. . 9).
Moreover, as we continue to argue, there is a convenience 48between the ontological
reduction in epistemology and in concrete modes of production, allowing us to recall the
aforementioned tale of the archer (subtopic 1.4.3). In this convenience, “[...] for a man dying
of hunger, food, in fact, ceases to exist in its human form and correspondingly the need for
food is 'dehumanized'” (LEONTIEV, 1978, p. 106). However, “[...] if this shows anything,
then it is only that man can be reduced by hunger to an animal condition, and it says exactly
nothing about the nature of his human needs” (LEONTIEV, 1978, p. 106). ) 49.
With this expanded reality in our minds, we can criticize the ontonegative descriptions
presented in this topic. In the case of Peirce's social physics, previously discussed
(GONÇALVES, 2020), it is worth reiterating that, although some approaches by this author
are very interesting and enlightening, it happens that

Peirce does not return to the world of social beings. [...] What Peirce calls the
internal aspect [of Mind] [...] is the conscience and teleology of men, [...] the basis
of something that built itself as a “peculiar” subset of the concrete: human society (a
totality) – including cognitive science, AI, private property and class struggle. In it,
in the historical concrete, the form of realization of the social being – whether
alienated or emancipatory – determines, creates, moves its purposes 50with as much
or more power as final causation is capable of reaching us. In other words, in the
world of social being, it is the purpose that determines the quality of the presence of
final causality, not the other way around. (GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 45)

Behaviorism (and its current developments) becomes the subject of discussion in the
following topics and beyond, so as not to be exhausted here. It is only worth emphasizing that,
as Zuboff (2021, p. 431) explains, in an “audacious way”, Skinner made inferences “[...] from
the conduct of harassed animals towards grandiose theories of social behavior and human
evolution”. Although Watson and Skinner's lines have lost strength with the rise of
cognitivism (EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017; KELKAR, 2020), for Zuboff (2021), in certain

48
In this research, we sometimes resort to the word convenience, always in the etymological sense, of coming
together.
49
In this sense, we can even argue (as we will do in this and in the second chapters) that, in its historical
development, salary would be an attempt to reduce the ontology of the social being to the reproduction of such
socio-homeostatic conditions - that is, the reproduction of the workforce.
50
What in Peirce's natural semiotics he calls "purpose", the cognitive sciences call "intentionality" and
historical-dialectical materialism calls the "active side of social being".
50
ways, they would still retain similarities with Pentland's sociophysics. Its merit was to
propose that: a) in general, our mind is not capable of overcoming the homeostatic task and
that, for this overcoming, it would be necessary to have direction coming from outside itself
(as proposed by social cybernetics); and b) with this, behavioral techniques can be applied for
social control – an approach that emerged precisely in a historical moment interspersed with
popular revolutions and capitalist crises. As discussed in the third chapter, this legacy became
decisive with the advent of automagic machines.
In the biochemical pathway, the ontonegative chimera refers both to the phylogenetic
determination of the human brain and to homeostasis as its supposed main purpose. However,
a series of studies gathered by the cognitive paleoanthropologist Steven Mithen (2002)
demonstrates that this development, starting mainly from homo habilis , has always been
linked to social activity as mediation with nature – influencing, for millions of years and in
distinction with other animals, evolution itself.
In turn, the philosopher Catherine Malabou (2008) criticizes the Damasian idea of a
natural and direct transition from the neuronal (regulation of homeostasis) to the mental
(consciousness). The author begins her work warning about the alleged continuity, which “[...]
is in essence a theoretical mixture, at the same time experimental and hermeneutic, as
revealed by Damasio's use of metaphors of narrative and text” (MALABOU , 2008. p. 62) –
the already discussed as if . Therefore, carried out as an explanation of the reality of
consciousness, Damasian postulations become what the author names as neuronal ideology .
Human intentional biological action should be the object of investigation, “[...] not as the
maintenance of constancy, but as the generation of new properties” (JEANNEROD, 2002, p.
95) – the heterostasis highlighted by Vieira Pinto (2005b) . When this is done, homeostasis
(and heterostasis) can be recognized as a mediating precondition; as the suppression of natural
determinism as a condition for transformation and development. In a causal chain, the being
would need to build itself as such in order, as a biological entity, to be able to submit to the
influence of the environment (MALABOU, 2008; JEANNEROD, 2002) – otherwise, it gives
in to entropy. That is, they need, at the very least, to have a sense of themselves to fight for
their existence. Only then could the social being , as a structure capable of self-generating its
activity, impose its own organization (MALABOU, 2008; JEANNEROD, 2002). With that,
“[...] the passage from a purely biological entity to a mental entity occurs in the struggle of
one against the other, producing the truth of their relationship” (MALABOU, 2008, p. 81);
and the need and process of this imposition forge the ontology of this entity and co-produce
51
its representation of the real. As Malabou concludes (2008, p. 20), “[...] humans make their
own brains, but they don't know they make them”.
In the case of computationalism, psychologist Robert Epstein (2016) clarifies that “[...]
we do not store words or rules that tell us how to manipulate them”. We do not create
representations of external stimuli, “[...] we store them in a short-term memory buffer and
then transfer the representation to a long-term memory device” to later retrieve them.
"Computers do all these things, but organisms don't." Epstein (2016) also recalls that,
although von Neumann “[...] recognized that little was known about the role that the brain
played in human reasoning and memory, he drew parallels between the components of the
computing machines of the time and the components of the human brain. Despite this,
continues the author, in the following decades thousands of researchers, consuming billions of
dollars, generated a vast literature “[...] based in some cases on wrong ideas and promises that
cannot be kept”. As an example, Epstein (2016) cites the $1.3 billion Human Brain Project ,
launched by the European Union in 2013, which promised to “[...] create a simulation of the
entire human brain on a supercomputer up to the year 2023” and which, less than two years
later, became a cerebral disaster.
51
Finally, even though technologies such as deep and federated learning neural
52
networks bring increasingly fantastic results, they exist as simplified metaphors of the
human mind, whose link is sometimes exaggerated (like automagic), sometimes suppressed (
PASQUINELLI, 2017) . As we answered earlier (GONÇALVES, 2020), the “[...] similarity
between human thought and mere mechanical 'reasoning'” of the extended mind (NÖTH,
2007) needs to be placed in the position of a result and not of equivalence . This, simply
because it is human creation and mediation (psychological tool) and not the “[...] objective
reason embodied in the laws of nature” (GARDNER, 1958, p. 116). Or, in the words of Marx
(2011),

51
According to Microsoft, deep learning “ [...] is a subset of machine learning based on artificial neural networks.
The learning process is deep because the structure of artificial neural networks consists of several layers: input,
output and hidden. Each tier contains units that transform input data into information that the next tier can use to
perform a given predictive task. Thanks to this structure, a computer can learn through its own data processing”.
Available from: <
https://docs.microsoft.com/pt-br/azure/machine-learning/concept-deep-learning-vs-machine-learning >.
Accessed on: 10 May. 2022.
52
According to Wikipedia, federated learning is “[...] a machine learning technique that trains an algorithm on
multiple decentralized edge devices or servers that contain local data samples , without exchanging them. This
approach contrasts with traditional centralized machine learning techniques, where all local datasets are uploaded
to a server , as well as more classic decentralized approaches, which generally assume that local data samples are
distributed identically ” . Available from: < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_learning >. Accessed on:
May 10, 2022.
52
 They are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the
human will over nature or of its activity in nature. They are organs of the human
brain created by the human hand; objective power of knowledge.

Beliefs such as that of MacLean ( 1990 ) and other neuroscientists about the
physiological location of psychological dimensions, inheritance of the stories revealed by
Zarkadakis (2015) have been continuously discarded, although they still survive in marketing
manuals (PERUZZO, 2018). As Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 9) clarify, “[...] human
cognitive processing is known for its flexibility and its broad interactions throughout the
brain. If the modularity assumption is wrong, it has implications for the entire enterprise of
cognitive neuropsychology.” What actually exists are “[...] small areas of strongly clustered
connections” and “[...] regions that have a large number of connections with other regions [...]
associated with cognitive processes and high-level consciousness " (EYSENCK; KEANE,
2017, p. 12). With regard to this last point, Vygotsky ( 2000a ) clarifies that: 1) “[...] it is
ridiculous to look for special centers for higher psychological functions”; 2 ) they cannot be
explained by their “[...] internal organic connections (regulation), but from the outside – from
what the person directs the activity of the brain from outside, through stimuli”; 3) therefore,
they are constructions ; and 4) “[...] the basic principle of the work of the superior psychic
functions (of the personality) is social”.
Finally, on the behavioral path, on the one hand, it is opportune to point out that “[...]
the main findings of behavioral economics have failed to be replicated for several years”
(HREHA, 2021 53). In fact, in a rumored and very ironic case, the celebrated psychologist and
behavioral economist Dan Ariely had a study on dishonesty (an area of research in his
specialty) removed from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS) precisely because one of the data that confirmed his hypotheses was defrauded by
him during the experiment 54.
Furthermore, the comparison of scientific studies carried out by Eysenck and Keane
(2017) points out that “[...] Kahneman's dual process theory is excessively simplistic in many
ways”; that he and other “[...] experimental cognitive psychologists have presented theories
expressed only in verbal terms (although this is becoming less common)” being, thus,
“extreme theoretical assumptions” and “somewhat vague, making it difficult to know
53
See also , Gal and Rucker (2018). We will develop this subject in the topic “The question of method”, later in
this chapter.
54
More details at: < https://datacolada.org/98 >. Accessed on: 15 Dec. 2021.
53
precisely what predictions can be derived from them. Even so, these assumptions are also
renewed, reifying trend laws and their mirroring in big data through, respectively, the
ideologies of probabilism and dataism (expectations already introduced in topic 1.4.2).
Certainly, many of the behaviorist theories come from experiments and scientific
discoveries about the brain and human behavior for which there is no refutation. What we do
here, as well as other cited cognitivists, is to question the extrapolations and ideological
derivations of these discoveries that appear disguised as scientific knowledge. In addition,
these approaches often work only under controlled conditions, either in laboratories lacking
ecological validity (EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017), or in the laboratory-world of big techs
(BRUNO; BENTES; FALTAY, 2019). This may denote – as in the example of Leontiev’s
famine (1978) – that its effectiveness occurs precisely to the extent that individuals’ options
are previously and intentionally restricted or pushed (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018;
PENTLAND, 2012, 2014, 2015; NORMAN, 2008; NODDER, 2013a; KRUG, 2006). In this
way, they often become self-fulfilling prophecies – a must, a social force capable of
producing its own results (VAN DIJCK, 2014; GONÇALVES, 2020).
Obviously, all these criticisms do not make ontonegative beliefs disappear. From the
university laboratories of cognitive sciences to the stock exchanges and from there to the
laboratories of big techs , the story told is different. In it, given our insufficient ontology, we
need a government that guides us through our weaknesses, interests, affections and other
biases – from nudges for a healthy life to training for savings (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018).
This government, of course, will be exercised by those who, unlike the majority, present
themselves as more capable of doing so, such as in Hayek's entrepreneurship, in Wiener's
cybernetics, in Skinner's conditioning and in Pentland's nudging - a type of government that
Zuboff (2018) names Big Other . That is, a division is always sought between the intellectual
work that controls the mediation with the “[...] objective reason embodied in the laws of
nature” (PEIRCE, 1887) and the manual work of those who objectify it.

1.5.2 Socio-Historical Awareness

If consciousness is not a mere homeostatic control mechanism, or even its

epiphenomenal effect, what is it about? In this subtopic and in the following topic, we seek to
build a response as broad as possible within the objectives of this research. Considering this
limit, we will stick to some key points on which both naturalist reductionism and
54
historical-dialectical ontology usually structure their arguments, mainly in the relationship
between the being and its extended mind.

a) Of reflex to consciousness

An entry in which perhaps there are points of contact between historical-dialectical

materialism and ontonegative sciences concerns the evolutionary origins of nervous systems
and the question of signals. Leontiev (2004), observing the behavior of very basic organisms,
such as annelids and jellyfish, as well as spiders and frogs, concludes that, evolutionarily, the
psychic reflex appears in biological forms when they develop irritability (signal function) in
the face of external stimuli . According to the author, in a way, the very development of
species is based on the development of the psychic reflex as a support for survival,
competition and reproduction. Evolutionarily, even in simple animals, their nervous structure
can begin to capture more and more nuances and complexities of the external environment.
Based on his studies and those he cites, Leontiev (2004) argues that the evolutionary
increase in this sensitive capacity was not a mere whim of nature. This increase also
expressed, to a large extent, the activity of the animal “[...] which practically links it to
objective reality” (LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 25, emphasis added). Due to this “complex unity of
reflection and activity”, Leontiev (2004, p. 25, emphasis added) concludes that “[...] the
psychic reflection of the agent properties of these realities is immediate, derivative” and
summarizes his findings by stating that “[...] a given type of activity structure corresponds to a
given type of psychic reflex” (LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 97).
In this sense, according to Martins (2021, p. 24), these studies also demonstrated that,
among the more complex animals, “[...] the improvement of the cerebral cortex makes it
possible to overcome the uptake limited to the isolated properties of stimuli from the
environment” . Subsequently, the set of evolutions derived from the types of activities carried
out by these superior animals created “[...] the possibility for the perception of the objective
correlations of the environment, which starts to be captured as a field related to the objects,
making possible the intellectual act ” (MARTINS, 2021, p. 24).
These findings, which continue to be confirmed by new research until today 55, mark
some important conclusions for our entire discussion – and, from them, the ontonegatives and

55
See Mithen (2002).
55
the socio-historical ones are once again separated. In the first place, these two fields oppose
each other when Marx and Engels (2007, p. 94) state that “[...] it is not consciousness that
determines life, but life that determines consciousness” – with what often are accused of being
deterministic or mechanistic. This statement, in turn, collides with still persistent currents of
thought in different ways, such as classical Greco-Medieval philosophy, the Cartesian
separation between body and mind, Kant's a priori categories and their countless more or less
direct developments , such as neoliberalism and its behavioral economics (MALABOU, 2009;
GONÇALVES, 2021).
Second, when Mithen (2002) and Vygotsky (2004), through different paths, observe
human beings and their intellectual and artificial acts (art etc.), it becomes clear that they are
not the work of special laws external to matter either. . Metaphorically speaking, there is no
Kantian BIOS 56in our mental hardware to help us categorize the world. For Vygotsky (2004,
p. 94), these acts “[...] are precisely the same natural acts, which can be decomposed to the
end and reduced to the latter”.
For Martins (2021, p. 28), on the one hand, the psychic reflex and its consequences
develop “[...] with the structural complexification of organisms through the activity that
conditions it, and in this lies the materiality of the very nature. conscience". As the author
concludes, “[...] the psyche is a material and ideal unit that develops socially” (MARTINS,
2021, p. 30). On the other hand and for this reason, “[...] with the advent of human
consciousness, reality (and everything that constitutes it) acquires another form of existence”
(MARTINS, 2021, p. 27), richer, contextual, dynamic, temporal-historical, focusing on
concept ideas that can be shared in and through social work and language (FÍGARO, 2018).
Thus, if we leave metaphysics aside as an explanation for the origin and
determinations of consciousness and look at the historicity and causalities of matter, Marx's
proposition makes sense. Even considering (as we will do ahead) the relative autonomy of the
subjective dimension of reality, by nature , ontogeny and, ultimately, objectivity is in a
position of determination in relation to subjectivity – not deterministically, not as a fixed and
immutable weight ( end position), but as a condition and mediation for development (middle
position).

56
BIOS is the acronym for Basic Input and Output System, in free translation. Its job is to perform fundamental
computational tasks, such as recognizing installed hardware , checking the internal clock, and starting the
operating system.
56
b) Stimulus-response and instrumental act

This is another point where we again separate ourselves from different strands of
57
cognitivism . The first distinction to be described is the issue of stimulus-response in the
behavior of the social being (or its gaze as an organism). As we previously observed and will
further elaborate on this subtopic, the postulation that negentropy and homeostasis are
ultimately in a position of finality in human activities is presented in several cognitive
theories. Thus, for many “neuromancers”, what we call consciousness would be a
misinterpretation of a state of meta-attention that our nervous system maintains, through a
network of stimuli and responses, to regulate our internal and ecosystem homeostasis
(DAMÁSIO, 1999) 58.
For behaviorism, roughly speaking, to the extent that we are just an “organism among
organisms” (SKINNER, 1974), consciousness is an epiphenomenon arising from that same
stimulus-response mechanism of ecosystem homeostasis. Therefore, the freedom and dignity
that conscience could provide us would be a mere illusion (SKINNER, 2002). Along the same
lines, for marketing and behavioral economics, we are one more organism driven by the
pleasure and pain of life and market stimuli, generally without the capacity to transcend these
forces (CIALDINI, 1984; ARIELY, 2008; EYAL , 2014; KAHNEMAN, 2012; 2013).
However, from this “closure of the problem” (MOROZOV, 2018) imposed by
ontological reductionism and positivist atomism, three fundamental paths result in the search
for understanding the consciousness of the social being, namely:

1) For them, the relationship between stimulus and reaction is considered “[...] as the
most immediate object of research; reaction for them is a purely objective process,
similar to all other processes in nature” (VIGOTSKI, 1997, p. 34) 59;

57
In the words of Changeux (1985), for the field of cognitive sciences, “[...] the impasse on the topic of the brain
is, with few exceptions, total”. Therefore, there is not space here to discuss all these nuances and their
distinctions with PSSH in detail, so we synthesize points that were most salient in our literature review.
58
Chalmers (2010) cites research that presents a detail of this state of meta-attention with his neurobiological
theory of consciousness , according to which certain neural oscillations of 35-75 hertz in the cerebral cortex
would be the basis of consciousness. Boden (1988) follows a similar path, looking for it among potassium
pumps, acetylcholine and other biochemical aspects of neurons.
59
For Leontiev (2004, p. 105), in the stimulus-reaction game “[...] it is the sensitive content (sensations,
perception images, representations) that creates the basis and conditions of all consciousness”; it is what directly
creates "the transformation of the energy of the external stimulus into a fact of consciousness" (LEONTIEV,
2004, p. 105). But, concludes the author, the sensitive is a component, the basis and the condition of
consciousness, but “[...] it does not express in itself all the specificity of consciousness” (LEONTIEV, 2004, p.
57
 2) From this, what is perceived is consciousness and personality as predominantly
shaped by needs, and not by activity (LEONTIEV, 1978) 60;
3) According to Vigotski (1997, p. 55), “[...] by dividing the operation into panels, you
missed the most important part: the peculiar activity of man, which aims to dominate
his own behavior”.

Vigotski (2004) draws attention to what reductionism persists in turning its back on,
the new fact, self-stimulation, the instrumental method . This is the process of passing from
inferior to superior behavior, which occurs precisely in a change between stimuli and
responses. While in the lower case it is about reactions to natural and external stimuli (eg
some alleged relationship between hunger, and food delivery apps), in the upper case “[...] it
would be self-stimulation, creation and use of artificial means of stimulation and the
determination of their own behavior with its help” (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 58).
In the instrumental method, specifically as an extended mind, we combine (construct)
61
an external object ( kipus , calculator, digital platforms) with the substitution and use of
natural processes that Vygotsky (2004) explains through the triangle and the following
citation:

Figure 1 (Vygotsky, 2004)

In natural recall, a direct associative connection (a conditioned reflex) A - B is

established between the two stimuli A and B. In artificial, mnemotechnical recall, of
that same mark through the psychological instrument X (knot in the handkerchief,
mnemonic scheme), in the instead of the direct connection A - B, two new
connections are established: [...] A - X and X - B, each of which is a conditioned

105). We return to this issue in the third chapter, when the sensitive presents itself as a user interface, giving
form, meaning and direction to the experience during the activity in the digital extended mind.
60
The relationship between need and production will be deepened in subtopic 2.2 of chapter 2.
61
Quipus were knot-based instruments with specific shapes and rules used for communication , accounting, and
as mnemonic records among the Incas.
58
 reflex, determined by the properties of the brain tissue, in the same way as
connection A - B. The new, the artificial, the instrumental is given by the
replacement of an A - B connection by two: A - X and X - B, which lead to the same
result, but by another path. What is new is the artificial direction that the instrument
gives to the natural process of closing the conditioned connection, that is, the active
use of the natural properties of brain tissue. (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 94)

The artificial stimulus still unfolds in two relations between the behavior and the
external phenomenon. It can act as the object of the intellectual work towards which the act of
behavior is directed (remember, measure, choose, share, etc.; ex: the National Health Data
Network – RNDS 62); and as a means of working to direct and execute psychic operations to
solve those tasks (calculation, processing, analysis, etc.; ex: AI BERT 63, which makes Google
search more semantic). Vigotski (2004, p. 96) explains that the psychological nature of each
of these stimuli is absolutely unique. “In the first case, it would be correct to call the stimulus
an object and, in the second, the psychological tool of the instrumental act”.
Among the many conclusions deducible from these observations (the thesis will
explore several), it is possible to note two important points. First, the role of artificial stimuli
as psychological objects and tools is, more than just analogously, that of means of production .
The extended digital mind, stripped of its appearance as an automagic machine, tends to be
ultimately a means of production, or a part of its chain. Not necessarily as commodity
production (RNA vaccines), but also as productive inputs (social media user data 64), service
(Spotify, Free Market purchases and deliveries), or production of use values, the things we
need (a route on Waze, online games 65, etc.).
As a consequence and cause of this fact, from the phylogenetic and ontogenetic point
of view, from the A - X and X - B connections of the Vygotskian triangle, “[...] any act of
behavior then becomes an intellectual operation ” , fruit of operations that occur in our heads
(VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 96). That is, it develops neurochemically, anatomically and

62
According to the Ministry of Health, the RNDS “[...] is the national platform for interoperability (data
exchange) in health [...]. The RNDS [...] has the objective of promoting the exchange of information between the
points of the Health Care Network, allowing the transition and continuity of care in the public and private
sectors”. Available at: < https://www.gov.br/saude/pt-br/assuntos/rnds > . Accessed on: 27 May. 2022.
63
BERT is the acronym for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers , a transformer -based
machine learning technique (a deep learning model) for natural language processing (NLP) pre-training
developed by Google and since 2019 it is used in its search engine. Source: <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BERT_(language_model) > . Accessed on: 26 May. 2022.
64
In chapter 2, we will describe how the data produced by the interaction of users in social networks become
inputs for the production and reproduction of these platforms.
65
For example, Minecraft (1.4 million daily players worldwide in 2021), League of Legends (8 million) and
Fortnite (12.3 million). Source: < https://gamingsection.net/news/what-is-the-most-played-game-right-now/#
What_is_the_most_played_game_right_now_2021 > . Accessed on: 26 May. 2022.
59
conceptually what for Vygotsky (2004) and Leontiev (198 0 ) is the internal plan of actions
which, for Lukács (2013), is teleology and for the cognitive sciences, the mental space
(KAPTELININ, 1996). Now, with the instrument (arrow, automobile, Watson 66), a series of
new functions are provoked on the exterior and interior plane, old functions are suppressed
and become unnecessary; “[...] globally considered psychic processes [...] are oriented
towards the resolution of a task – which is proposed by the object – according to the evolution
of the process, which is dictated by the instrument” (VIGOTSKI, 2004 , p. 96). Marx (2011),
in the 19th century, describes this situation as follows:

In the very process of reproduction of human life, it is not only objective conditions
that change. The producers themselves change. While extracting new qualities from
themselves, they develop in production and transform themselves, creating new
forces and new representations, new modes of relationships, new demands and a
new language. (MARX, 2011, p. 655)

Certainly, add Vygotsky (2004) and Leontiev (2004), all this does not occur in the
minds of monad individuals idealized by liberalism. Over the millennia, this development
necessarily took place collectively. The instrumental act and its neuropsychological
implications occurred in the sharing and social improvement of its instruments, be they
objects, language, concepts or signs. As Dantas (2006, p. 7) reinforces, “[...] memory
acquires, therefore, the form of knowledge: social, historical and cultural heritage for each
one of us. Knowledge results from the interaction of individuals with their personal and social
past, and also with their projects for the future”.
Mithen's (2002) literature review and hypotheses describe this story when the author
searches for answers to the qualitative differences between the minds of homo habilis'
predecessors and of homo sapiens . Strong ecological variations – including climate –,
migrations, diets, brain development, etc., are investigated, but these factors do not seem to
clarify the issue. His conclusion is that the only two factors that remained present throughout
this long and heterogeneous period would have been social interaction and work, thus
providing a leap in quality between the natural stimulus-response towards instrumental acts
and the maturation of the mind as we know it today.

66
Watson is IBM's AI service, one of the most advanced to date. According to the company, Watson has more
than one hundred different techniques “[...] used to analyze natural language, identify origin, locate and generate
hypotheses, locate and mark evidence, and join and rank hypotheses”. Available from:
<https://vdocument.in/watson-a-system-designed-for-answers.html>. Accessed on: 26 May. 2022.
60
 This leads us to certain fundamental developments of this reality. While the technical
instrument (arrow, lathe, drill) aims to cause changes in objects, the psychological instrument,
conceptually, “[...] does not modify the object at all: it is a means of influencing itself (or
another) ” (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 97). This fact points to contradictory socio-historical
possibilities. On the one hand, it demonstrates, from an ontological, operational-conceptual
and neurophysiological point of view, the reality of consciousness and the potentiality of what
Marx (2004) named as free conscious vital activity , that which was not taxed to any master
and which produced all effects described herein; the reality in which, “[...] while we ate and
immortalized the hunt, painting it on the walls of the caves, we looked at the hunt, the
painting, the spear and, inventing the question, we asked: 'Can I do this? , what else can I
do?'” (GONÇALVES, 2020, p. 49).
On the other hand, as Vigotski (2004) rightly pointed out, the control over behavior
arising from the instrumental act does not only refer to self-control, but also to control over
others. Lukács (2013, p. 62) refers to this possibility as “action on other men”, the “[...]
attempt to induce another person (or group of people) to perform, on their part, concrete
teleological pores ”. Foucault (1994, p. 1604) calls governmentality “[...] the encounter
between the techniques of domination exercised over others and the techniques of the self”.
Or, as we introduced and elucidated previously, in subtopic 1.6.3, for Wiener (1970), it is
about the “human use of human beings”.

c) cognitive fluidity

The possibility of using the similar as a social tool – not episodic or individually, but
as a social relationship and a humanization system – is one of the greatest events in human
history and, in the terms discussed here, it is, to a large extent, the cause and product of the
development of our structures of consciousness (MITHEN, 2002; VIGOTSKI, 2004;
LEONTIEV, 2004; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978).
For a socio-historical understanding of this transformation, it is necessary to analyze
how the (social) instrumental act and sociability produced what Mithen (2002) calls cognitive
fluidity . Their literature review describes a number of theories and findings about mind
development in hominid lineages. From such theories and findings, the author constructs the
conception that, in the past, our mind was divided into four domains or modules that,
however, did not communicate with each other, like closed rooms in a cathedral, in his
61
example – the naturalist module (knowledge about plants, animals, etc.), the technical module
(production of utensils), the social module (knowing how to act in the group, as in the case of
grooming) and the language module (the ability to record and give meaning to each one of
these circumstances, even in isolation).
change in the direction of the evolution of mind has erratically matured over millions
of years . Those specialized mindsets transformed (internalized) natural and artificial stimuli
into permanent brain circuits that would have made possible collective learning through
experience and association. With that, the walls that isolated those modules were gradually
broken down, creating the possibilities of a general intelligence and, with them, the symbolic
and representational capacity of homo sapiens . Cognitive fluidity would be this ability to
67
integrate intelligences, formulate abstractions, meanings , anticipations and share them
(MITHEN, 2002). About this transformation, Vygotsky (2004, p. 121) states that “[...] on the
psychological level, the concept formation process consists of opening connections of the
object in question in relation to others, in the encounter of a real set” .
According to these authors, these capacities developed and made human-social
structures both more productive and more complex, leading to the contradictory
socio-historical possibilities mentioned at the end of the previous item. As a need for this
context and the search for alternatives, just as “[...] physical objects can be manipulated at will
for any desired purpose”, cognitive fluidity would have created “[...] the possibility of
applying this type of of thought to people” (MITHEN, 2002, p. 322). According to the author,
this resource was sedimented around twelve thousand years ago, when productivity and
specialized work began to reach certain threshold levels in nomadism, creating the conditions
that contributed centuries later to territorial settlement, agriculture, the advent of surplus
68, 69
product and social exchange relations . As we alluded to in the previous topic and can be

67
Along these lines, as Leontiev (2004, p. 100) explains, “[...] meaning is what in the object or phenomenon is
objectively discovered in a system of connections, interactions and objective relations. Meaning is reflected and
fixed in language, which gives it stability. In the form of linguistic meanings, they constitute the content of social
consciousness; entering the content of social consciousness, it thus becomes the 'real consciousness' of
individuals, objectifying in itself the subjective meaning that the reflected has for them”.
68
For example, it is estimated that the religious complex of Göbekli Tepe, in present-day Turkey, was built by
nomads about ten thousand years ago. In this case, it is presumed that these were groups prior to established
systems of sedentary lifestyle, agriculture, surplus and property, but that, somehow, required for constructions of
this complexity, a degree of social division of labor that could be distinguished from nomadism. prehistoric, and
may come close to what we have treated here as the human use of human beings.
69
Certainly, we refer to a process that took place unevenly between periods, peoples and places, so that not
necessarily all homo sapiens moved from nomadism to sedentarism, to surplus production and exchange
relations. However, little by little, this was the determining dynamic in the following millennia
(SOHN-RETHEL, 1978), for example, from the colonizations in the Mediterranean imposed by peoples adopting
62
illustrated here, these new relationships (objective and subjective) between social beings and
between them and nature created new problems that forged new alternatives and new
valuations on how these interactions should be.
We will return to the issue of surplus in topic 1.6 of this chapter. But, as we argue
below, the causal chain between instrumental act, cognitive fluidity, surplus, private property,
among other factors, would be fundamental for these first experiences of human use of human
beings, generating new structures of consciousness for this new reality. In them, these
pressures on the organization of production and appropriation of surplus force the breaking of
the generic bond between humans – the one capable of ontologically differentiating us from
other animals and objects. Thus, signifying individuals as inferior (as in the case of women),
animalizing and conceptually objectifying certain groups (barbarians, castes, speaking
instruments, racism, etc.) were imposed as objective and subjective mediation for this change
in socio-productive structures.
We conclude this subtopic by warning that there are still other elements and categories
necessary for a sociohistorical understanding of consciousness. So far, we have concentrated
our efforts on aspects of the most direct polemic with reductionist cognitivism. The next
points arise from other constructions, as we have been doing, in a spiral fashion, that is, going
back and forth to certain aspects of human-social reality at increasing levels of complexity
and interrelationship.

1.5.3 Psychotechnologies – part 1

For now, we need to move in another direction, tying together two important elements
previously discussed and which form the central knot of the thesis. On the one hand, in certain
ways, the human use of human beings (as a modality of cooperation and humanization)
depends on and draws on the intersubjective character of consciousness and social activity. As
Boldyrev and Herrmann-Pillath (2013, p. 15) note, the neuroscience literature has
accumulated evidence for “[...] the seemingly paradoxical insight that shared intentionality
may even be an essential part of the processes operating in the neuronal system. ”, even
before the awareness of intentionality emerges in the individual – that is, awareness stems
from and creates the social.

these new relationships, to the one that millennia later took place in Africa and the Americas, where this type of
production also became compulsory and predominant.
63
 On the other hand, we also saw that this conscience (sociohistorically concrete), to a
certain extent, also comes from them and creates the external psychological tools (the
extended mind) so that, with them, at work and in social praxis, the human being social
self-creates itself 70in a cycle of objectifications – not necessarily as self-exteriorization – and
internalizations. When we then superimpose these two points, we can look at
psychotechnologies as parts of consciousness structures; as tools for constructing subjective
dimensions of reality for the cooperation, control and use of certain human groups by others –
the peculiar type of intersubjectivity and humanization that is the background interest of this
thesis. And, as we discuss in the second and third chapters, the psychotechnological use of the
digital extended mind is not the work of movie villains or half a dozen immoral and malicious
entrepreneurs and designers, but is , increasingly, the basis of capitalism in its current.
In addition, whether in handling chipped stones, drones and algorithms, or in the
interpretation of this text, the handling of tools to achieve your goals depends on the
mechanism of attention. Thus, we cannot fail to comment on the issues of attention and
psychotechnologies as other structuring elements of the consciousness of the social being.
Here, these issues are only introduced for the provisional closure of the topic of the topic, but
we continue to ascend to them spirally, mainly in the third chapter.

a) Neurochemistry of psychotechnologies

Certainly, for this debate, what interests us are digital psychotechnologies and their
effects on the formation of concepts, on neurochemical structures and on the behavior of their
users (or targets). In this sense, according to Carr (2020, p. 163), “[...] to understand the
effects of the computer, it is necessary to see the machine in the context of ancient intellectual
technologies of humanity”. The author refers to the “[...] long succession of tools that, like the
map and the clock, transformed nature and altered the 'perception of reality by man'”, thus
becoming part of “the very matter -prima" for building your world (CARR, 2020, p. 163).
Draganski et al. (2004), in their literature review on changes in gray matter induced by

70
Just as reinforcement and eventual clarification, when we oppose naturalistic ontology to ontocreation, we do
not refer to the latter as a morally positive process, or morally better than the former; much less as something
morally a priori. Not even the moral issue is relevant here – based on what we have maintained, morality is
actually more a product of the interpretation of reality than a source for its production. Ontocreation is what is
historically posited by social beings whether in art or war, in ancient civility or in current barbarism. Thus, in our
emphasis, this is not some kind of idealistic ode to a romantic world either of the prehistoric past, or of the future
to come . What is being argued here is that we are the result of our actions, much more than stars or enzymes.
64
training, confirm this path when they state that the brain tends to to adapt to environmental
demands and stimuli, especially in learning new processes, due to its neuroplasticity capacity.
The story between activity and neuroplasticity, as we have argued, unfolds over
millions of years. In the section that interests us, Carr (2020) comments on how our bond with
the extended mind participated in this journey. In the case of symbolic registers and writing,
the author points out how, despite the incredible progress, the first versions of this type of
extended mind were difficult and restricted to interpret 71. Only with the succession of the
contextual interpretation of symbols by phonetic writing and the Greek alphabet, and much
later with Gutenberg's printing press in the fifteenth century and with the separation of words
by spaces and punctuation in the eighteenth century, can the extended mind of writing be able
to disseminate their neuroplastic capacities – albeit more restrictively until the 19th century.
According to Carr (2020, p. 44), “[...] the insertion of spaces between words relieved the
cognitive pressure involved in deciphering the text, making it possible for people to read
quickly and silently and with greater understanding”. Carr (2020, p. 71) clarifies that, in this
way, the areas of the brain were connected “[...] to represent visual, phonological and
semantic information and retrieve this information at lightning speed”. With this, the decoding
of the text becomes automatic, and the brain can “[...] dedicate more resources to the
interpretation of the meaning” (CARR, 2020, p. 71).
However, a new leap in neuroplasticity occurs with the spread of the digital extended
mind, especially in the form of automagic machines. According to Carr (2020, p. 99) 72and his
authors, the cognitive act of reading on paper was contained in a “sensory-motor experience
of materiality”. But digital readings, largely articulated by hyperlinks , “[...] encourage us to
skim a series of texts rather than dedicating sustained attention to any one of them. Hyperlinks
are designed to capture our attention. Their value as navigation tools is inseparable from the
distraction they cause” 73(CARR, 2020, p. 99). However, it is not just the hyperlink that acts in

71
We cannot invest time here in these aspects, but it is notable that certain initial forms of registration had in their
structure the function of reiterating the point of view of human users of human beings. This is because, according
to the sources cited by Carr (2020), both Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Chinese
logography, in addition to being restricted to legislators, accountants, priests and other privileged people, in order
to be understood, needed to be read in a set that already embedded and framed the interpretation towards the
reproduction of established social relations.
72
Despite carrying out a broad and very useful survey, Carr (2020) interprets his results in a problematic way
when he reveals a certain nostalgia in the comparison between printed and digital reading. The “it used to be
better” statement, many times, disregards many factors such as, in this case, the degree of universalization of the
right to literacy and reading. In any case, the neuroplastic effects resulting from this change are far from
exaggerated, as we shall see.
73
Again, it is necessary to separate Carr's (2020) opinions from the complexity of the facts. Indeed, hyperlinks
can be – and are – exploited to exhaust our critical capacity – or, in the suspicious language of Kahneman
65
this sense, but mainly the interface design and the user experience as a whole that introduce
the fragmentation and acceleration lamented by Carr into the use of the extended mind 74–
reflections of the acceleration of the production and circulation of capital (HARVEY, 2019), a
fact that escapes the author 75.
In any case, there are many transformations in the structures of consciousness that
arise from here. As an example, for psychologists Firth et al. (2019), "[...] even simple
interactions with the Internet through the smartphone 's touchscreen interface have been
shown to cause sustained neurocognitive changes due to neural changes in cortical regions
associated with sensory and motor processing of the hand and thumb". These alternations
seem so significant that, according to the authors, even though there is no immediate need or
activity, “[...] smartphones have introduced widespread and habitual 'checking' behaviors,
characterized by quick but frequent inspections of the device for information received from
news, social networks or personal contacts” 76. Still according to the review by Firth et al.
(2019), the UX design of these devices retains users through variable ratio reinforcement
schemes involving the cortico-striatal dopaminergic system.
One of the foundations and tasks of UX and UI design is users' adherence and
habituation to certain pre-idealized mental models (EYAL, 2014; NORMAN, 2008;
NODDER, 2013; KRUG, 2006). In addition to behavioral explanations, the power of habit
can also be explained by neuropsychology. For Vygotsky (2003, p. 136), habit, “[...] by
automating entire actions, by subordinating them to the autonomous functioning of the lower
nervous centers, frees and unloads attention from our activity, causing a kind of exception

(2012), system 2. On the other hand, they can precisely amplify critical capacity when they simplify access to
information additions to a theme. As we already commented in the Introduction, the problem here is not one of
technology, but of the contradiction between use value and exchange value that the extended mind assimilates in
its commodity form.
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Certainly, this statement cannot be understood as an absolute criticism of UX and UI design per se or, more
broadly, the sciences and techniques of human-computer interaction (HCI). These are intrinsic elements of using
the extended mind. We are referring, once again, to the contradictions of the commodity-form and the
competitive determinations that predominate in this design and that cause the aforementioned effects. As we will
continue to argue throughout the thesis, and especially in the third chapter, this is not a moral or logical problem,
but an economic, historical and dialectical one.
75
As we begin to talk about psychotechnologies and their effects on consciousness, we must, however, not fail to
note that before they were digital, their analog version was not as civilizing as in Carr's (2020) liberal
assessment. Marcondes Filho (1985), Thompson (1998) and Wu (2017), among many others, clarified the power
of the cultural industry in transforming the structures of consciousness. However, at least at this point, these
other psychotechnologies are not our subject.
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As we will see in topics 1 and 3 of the second chapter and then in topic 1 of the third chapter, these checking
habits do not emerge as mere side effects of “sustained neurocognitive changes” but are also mediations, both
concrete and concrete competitive needs on the part of capital investors in automagic machines, as for the
subjects who are placed in competition for likes , possession of information and productive performativity.
66
relative to the law of differential inhibition” – the ability to guide our attention.
Neuroscientist Eric Kandel (2007) observed that a repeated experience produces
distinct changes in short-term memory (concentration of neurotransmitters and new synaptic
endings) and long-term memory (idem, in addition to anatomical changes induced by protein
production). And yet, according to Herculano-Houzel (2012, p. 18), these transformations can
be stimulated and triggered by neurochemical reward systems that involve, for example, the
secretion of hormones such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin, which can “[ ...]
attribute positive valence – in other words, pleasure – to behaviors that have good effects,
whether expected or surprising”. Therefore, Eyal (2014) deals with habit-forming
technologies 77, according to which it is possible to previously and intentionally increase the
probability that social and consumer beliefs and behaviors will be stably repeated, optimizing
competition between capitalist agents.

b) Multitasking, transactive memory and metamemory

Another transformation resulting from psychotechnologies occurs in the flow between

short and long term memories resulting, among other factors, from digital multitasking. The
competitive struggle between capitals for attention, work and consumption that, for example,
can be expressed in the various tabs opened on the digital device of the reader of this text at
this exact moment, puts, according to Carr (2020, p. 152), “[.. .] more pressure on our
working memory, not only diverting resources from our higher reasoning faculties, but also
obstructing the consolidation of long-term memories and the development of mental
schemas”.
For the Italian philosopher Franco Berardi (2007, p. 78), “[...] when the sequential is
followed by the simultaneous [...]”, the acceleration of the infosphere shortens “[...] the time
that would be necessary for the rational elaboration of information, to translate immediate
reactions through verbalization and, above all, for an emotional elaboration” of its stimuli.
With that, concludes Berardi (2007, p. 182), “[...] the forms of discursive communication give
way to configurational forms of communication and mythical thinking tends to prevail in
critical-logical thinking”.

77
Which reminds us of the following sentence by Skinner (2002, p. 4-5): “[...] what we need [to 'make huge
changes in human behavior'] is a behavioral technology [...] comparable in power and precision to physical and
biological technology”.
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 Pressure on working memory itself can be induced as a habit. For example, in their
studies with skin conductance measurements, Firth et al. (2019, np), found that “[...] arousal
increased in the seconds leading up to the media switch, reaching a high point at the time of
the switch, followed by a decline afterwards”. This suggests, according to the authors, that
propensities for multitasking and the flow of novelty that come from it can become
neurochemically rewarding, habitual. It is interesting in the discussion of Firth et al. (2019,
np) that in it they expose positive arguments 78in relation to multitasking, such as an alleged
“[...] increased performance for other aspects of cognition, such as multisensory integration”.
Carr (2020, p. 234) also recovers these positions when he quotes the Wall Street Journal
columnist , Gordon Crovitz who, repeating the techno-solutionist lexicon, states that “[...]
technological progress is irreversible” and that “[.. .] the trend towards multitasking and
consuming many different types of information will only continue”. However, according to
Gordon, we should not worry because our human software will eventually evolve to “[...]
catch up with machine technology” (CARR, 2020, p. 234).
Although Firth et al. (2019, p. 5) reinforce that research in these areas can produce
“conflicting findings” that should be used with caution, “[...] the literature, in general, seems
to indicate that [...]” multitasking generates “[...] worse performance in various cognitive
tasks [...]”, requires “[...] greater cognitive effort [...]” and such findings can be associated
“[...] with a decrease in gray matter in prefrontal regions associated with the maintenance of
goals in the face of distraction” (as indicated by Vygotsky and resumed previously) among
other impacts, especially in childhood and adolescence. According to Turkle (2017, p. 25), in
part, these consequences may be hidden because the body rewards the user “[...] with
neurochemicals that induce a multitasking 'high'. High tricks multitaskers into thinking they
are being especially productive.” Still according to the author, our devices present a new
notion of time because they “[...] promise that you can put more activities in it. Since you can
text while doing something else, texting doesn't seem to take time but to give you time. This
is more than welcome; it is magical” (TURKLE, 2017, p. 25). In this sense, as reinforced by
Carr (2020, p. 35), “[...] when we transmit our thinking habits to our children, through the
examples we set, the schooling we provide and the media we use, we also transmit the
modifications of the structure of our brain”.
Firth et al. (2019) are also concerned with certain consequences of dependence on

78
See, for example, Lui and Wong (2012).
68
transactive memory – as they name the extended mind. According to his literature review,
although it certainly has all the benefits that we have already mentioned mainly in the
Introduction of this thesis, the “cognitive unloading” implied in this use can reduce “[...] the
regional homogeneity and the functional connectivity of the brain areas involved in the
formation and recovery of long-term memory” (FIRTH et al., 2019, np). This “[...] indicates
that dependence on online research can impede memory retrieval, reducing functional
connectivity and synchronization of associated brain regions” (np).
Psychologist Adrian Ward (2013) reaches a similar conclusion when he calls
internet-enabled transactive memory the supernormal . Based on his research, the author
argues that, although “[...] transactive memory systems [...]” allow “[...] people to solve
problems more efficiently [...]” and “[...] think more creatively [...]”, they also “[...] can
impair the encoding of new memories by preventing the development of metamemory [...]”
(p. 346) . And, in the same way, Williams (2018, p. 15) summarizes these risks in the
metaphor of the Tetris game, in which problems “[...] arise not when you stack a brick in the
wrong place (although this can contribute to problems in the future), but when you lose
control of the ability to steer, rotate, and stack the bricks completely.”

c) attentions

The relationship between care, psychotechnologies and capitalism is both transversal

and extensive. Therefore, we only introduce it and continue its discussion at different times in
the thesis.
Lima (2005, p. 5), defines attention as “[...] the individual's ability to predominantly
respond to stimuli that are significant to him to the detriment of others”. For the author,
voluntary attention involves both “[...] the individual's active and deliberate selection in a
given activity, that is, it is directly linked to motivations, interests and expectations [...]”, and
refers to the “[...] inhibiting effects on competing activities” (LIMA, 2005, p. 5). Involuntary
attention, on the other hand, “[...] is elicited by the characteristics of the stimuli, that is, it
occurs in the face of unexpected events in the environment and the individual is not the agent
of choosing his or her attention”, which can thus be called by “[.. .] intensity, size, color,
novelty, movement, incongruity and repetition” of the stimulus (LIMA, 2005, p. 5).
According to Vigotski (2003), in both cases, there are three procedural elements of attention:
stimulus, elaboration and response (pre-reaction).
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 From this, it is possible to postulate that, in the case of automagic machines, there may
be a combination between these two forms of attention. Recalling the AX XB connections of
Vygotsky (2004), for the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler (2008), under modern media,
there would be a “[...] relationship of retentions and protections whose result is attention
always mediated by tertiary retentions – of which psychotechnologies and sociotechnologies
are instances”. For example, a user, mobilized by a motivation – meeting an academic
deadline –, when finding the object in a digital application – Google Scholar Search – may, in
the acts triggered by this motivation – browsing between windows and open applications –
find certain stimuli generating involuntary attention – notifications on social networks –,
retaining the previous activity and motivating others – responding to the notification. In this
case, in addition to the user losing focus, time and energy, Alphabet stopped profiting from
the production of data and the display of ads to the detriment, for example, of Meta.
In his historiography of attention, art critic and researcher Jonathan Crary (2001, p. 7)
describes how this concept has had its definition and importance re-signified in recent
centuries. In short, according to the author,

There were those who saw attention as an expression of the conscious will of an
autonomous subject for whom the very activity of attention, as a choice, was part of
that subject's self-constituted freedom. There were those who believed that attention
was primarily a function of biologically determined instincts, unconscious drives, a
remnant, as Freud and others believed, of our archaic evolutionary heritage, which
inexorably shaped our lived relationship to an environment. And there were those
who believed that a caring subject could be produced and managed through
knowledge and control of external stimulation procedures as well as extensive
"attraction" technology.

From this citation we can make some digressions. As we indicated earlier, the
cybernetic and behaviorist emphasis on socio-behavioral control is historically suited to
Fordism, the consumer society, capitalist crises and popular revolutions of the 20th century.
Furthermore, in the human use of human beings, in contexts in which the onto-creative power
of social work leaves the end position and is placed as a mediation for the “appropriation
without work” (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978), this power is privatized . That is, work – in slavery,
feudalism and capitalism – becomes – in general, in the last instance and in different ways –
someone else's possession , normally leaving the worker, instead of the cycle of development,
the cycle of survival 79. In this way, the entire body of the worker and his psychophysiological

79
As we discuss in more detail in the next topic and in the second chapter.
70
capacities, including his attention, are required by this specific type of social relationship and
humanization.
There are still other conveniences involved. The idea of objectivity brought by modern
sciences refers, in part, to the separation of the external from the observer, which required
specific attentional efforts. For this intellectual work of separation, modern sciences created
instruments for sectioning and focusing, such as the microscope, the spyglass, cutting
instruments, etc. The success of these approaches, expressed in the gnosiological and
functional domain of elements of nature converted into industry, reorganizes the
superstructural field – the dimension of reality from which concepts, laws, beliefs, etc.
originate. – as well as the work of producing them.
What we want to affirm with these two digressions is that the types of attention
produced by Modernity and capitalism, by elevating and renewing their instrumentalities,
occur in a divisive way . That is, by separating the attentional capacity, on the one hand,
between those who can know and abstract nature to , on the other hand, define, impose and
organize the activity – and attention – of those who apply this knowledge in the production of
goods (SOHN -RETHEL, 1978).
The separation of types of attention as part of the separation between intellectual and
manual work, in addition to taking place at the operational level, also occurred in the field of
social meanings, in order to create the scientifically and naturally necessary conditions for its
control – which, according to Modernity and capitalism, occurs for the good of all. Therefore,
so that attention can be used as an element of the workforce , it was also framed in biological
and moral terms. The respectable and productive subject would be the one who is able,
through moral effort and physical health, to concentrate and respond to work stimuli, without
waste and without compromising collective work and private property (CALIMAN, 2006).
The three approaches to attention in the previous quote from Crary (2001) do not succeed or
distort each other in time, but combine because in them the natural selection that persists in
social forms has separated the attentive from the inattentive in the division between
intellectual and manual labor – this, by the way, is the basic argument for libertarian
paternalism and the choice architecture 80of Thaler and Sunstein (2018), as discussed in the

80
Libertarian paternalism and choice architecture are part of the complex of psychotechnologies that we discuss
in detail in the third chapter. At this point, we can define the first as the presumption that a class of humans and
their institutions (market, state, science) know what is best for individuals and societies and, therefore, can lead
us to that well-being, without that this compromises the liberty of the liberal individual. One of the forms of this
conduction is to design the simplification, valuation and effort for previously available choices, so that, while the
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third chapter.
On the other hand, capitalist attention also has the function of corresponding to the
active search for consumers – advertising – (WU, 2017), as well as the enjoyment of leisure
often mediated by the commodity form and as a form of spiritual replacement of the
commodity as workforce (MARCONDES FILHO, 1985). Thus, both attention and distraction
during free time – whether weeks or seconds – could become, in these terms, reproductive
attention for the capitalist mode of production, as we also discuss in the third chapter.
According to Crary (2001, p. 32), in this inherently competitive game between attention and
distraction, psychotechnologies:

[ ...] simulate the possibility of meandering and drifting, but in fact they constitute
modes of sedentarization, of separation in which the reception of stimuli and the
standardization of the response produce an unprecedented mixture of diffuse
attention and quasi-automatism, which can be maintained for remarkably long
periods of time. [...] What before could be called daydreaming, now mostly occurs in
line with predefined rhythms, images, speeds and circuits.

This may relate to what writer and technology ethicist James Williams (2018) calls
systemic distraction – the “[...] diminution of the underlying capacities that allow a person to
set or pursue their goals” (p. 31) and that it creates the mental models that enable Kahneman's
(2012) System 2 to fulfill its critical function.
We will return to this discussion in the third chapter, however, on the way to closing
this topic, our conclusion here is that the extended mind is a means of production and/or its
mediation and, as such, it depends on the mechanism of attention for the subsumption of the
social being as a workforce and even as a consumer. Through psychotechnologies, attention is
called from outside and as a mediation for the realization of the teleology of other beings, as
Skinner dreamed (2002). In this way, psychotechnologies alter experience – “[...] the
phenomena that appear on the surface of the consciousness system [...]” ( LEONTIEV , 1980)
–, also seeking to shape the meaning of this experience, forging neurochemical structures and
conceptual and the way they will be experienced by the subjects.

1.5.4 The reality that escapes us – part 1

individual remains free to choose the worst options, they become more onerous, while those considered better
ones are facilitated and rewarded (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018).
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 In this topic, we discuss the structures of consciousness as structures of human
internalization and externalization. This avoids holding back on a strictly epistemological and
cognitive approach, in which the human-social reality is the world that becomes conscious, in
the sense of being uncovered for us. As we will see, the most adequate answer is fraught with
contradictions. The reality of consciousness brings disagreements (and/or relative
autonomies) with the objective reality that are much more complex than those approaches
suppose. In contrast, the bases for our discussion on these mismatches between consciousness
and objectivity or on the reality that escapes us is based on two fundamental quotations for
PSSH. First, in The German Ideology , Marx and Engels (2007, p. 93 emphasis added) clarify
that:

The production of ideas, of representations, of consciousness, is, in principle,

immediately intertwined with the material activity and material intercourse of men,
with the language of real life. The representing, the thinking, the spiritual exchange
of men still appear, here, as a direct emanation of their material behavior . The
same goes for spiritual production, as it is presented in the language of politics, laws,
morals, religion, metaphysics, etc. of a people. Men are the producers of their
representations, their ideas, and so on, but real, active men, as they are conditioned
by a certain development of their productive forces and by the interchange that
corresponds to it, until they reach their most advanced formations. developed.
Consciousness can never be anything other than conscious being, and men's being is
their real life process . If, in every ideology, men and their relationships appear
upside down as in a camera obscura , this phenomenon results from their historical
life process [...].

Let's try to unfold these ideas. Firstly, for these authors and as we have insisted, human
consciousness does not come from outside their being, nor does it exist a priori , but arises
from and is limited by their activity in the world. In turn, knowledge about this world does not
happen immediately, but, to a large extent, in the internalization exercise carried out over
millions of years, in which we created the instruments that helped us in this search, which is
always – and forever – approximation and by trial and error (whether in a brain or in the
training of an AI). It is also important to emphasize that, when the authors say that
representing, thinking, spiritual exchange still appear in direct relation to their material
behavior, they are referring to the so-called first-order mediations (LUKÁCS, 2013). That is,
they refer to the direct relationship between hominization – and later – humanization and
nature, when this exchange had as its central motivation the mental reflection of metabolic
conditions with its environment for its realization.
However, both paleoanthropology and socio-historical psychology identify at this

73
moment in human development “[...] the expansion of the domain of the conscious, to which
the development of work, instruments, forms and work relations necessarily leads, which
prepares the separation of meaning from meaning” (LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 109). It is about the
emergence of a relative autonomy of the structures of consciousness from which we produce
our own representations for the phenomena of the world, which came to us without tutorials
and imposed on us, literally, a kind of “decipher me or tell you”. devour”. It is between the
need and the inability of the praxiological domain (practical, abstract and shared) of nature
and the social that, for example, arises totemic thinking and anthropomorphization (MITHEN,
2002; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978). As Leontiev (2004, p. 108) explains,

[ ...] at the dawn of human development, the sphere of linguistic meanings coexists
with the much vaster sphere of instinctive biological senses, just as the socially
mediated relations of man in nature still coexist with the numerous instinctual
connections he maintains with this.

At least in part, this separation of meaning from meaning can be attributed to the “[...]
complexification of technical-natural knowledge and the consequent technical division of
labor” (FURTADO; GONÇALVES, 2022, p. 131), which would contribute to increasingly
particular experiences of production, appropriation and personal meaning. In this sense, when
talking about the emergence of transcendent thinking, Furtado (2011, p. 68) explains that “[...]
in this process of subjective construction, the new also appears, that is, what was not yet
thought or meant. [...]”, and that “[...] the relationship between human beings and nature will
be mediated by beliefs and values produced by their interpretation of the world they live in”.
And yet, as we will see further ahead, there is the separation, or emergence, of meanings that
justify and instruct the social control that we have been discussing and that revolve around the
category of second-order mediations (LUKÁCS, 2013).
Thus, reality escapes us for the first time when the social being masters tools and
languages, expanding its repertoire of mastery over nature, but “[...] spiritual production ends
up producing representations from other representations, taking off or distancing themselves [
...] of their objective material bases of production” (FURTADO, 2011, p. 8).
This leads us to the second key citation for understanding the human-social reality that
escapes us, but which does not cease to co-produce us. In it, according to Lukács (2013, p.
50),

74
 In the mirroring of reality, the reproduction detaches itself from the reproduced
reality, coagulating into its own “reality” in consciousness. We put the word reality
in quotes because in consciousness it is only reproduced; a new form of objectivity
is born, but not a reality, and – exactly in an ontological sense – it is not possible for
reproduction to be similar to what it reproduces, much less identical to it. On the
contrary, on the ontological level, social being is subdivided into two heterogeneous
moments, which from the point of view of being not only face each other as
heterogeneous, but are even opposite: being and its mirroring in consciousness. [...]
It is through this duality that man leaves the animal world.

This is a paradox that cannot be explained by ontonegative cognitivism. While they

seek ahistorical explanations in mathematics, biology and biases, it escapes them that the
social, historical and concrete being, in its dual existence, “[...] is both armed and limited.
through the representations and knowledge of his time and society” (LEONTIEV, 2004, p.
100-101). In fact, as we will see in the next topic, the social being they describe is their
project, more than their representation.
Finally, by the way in which the laws of social materiality operate, the subject of the
next topic, this paradox may still continue to unfold. The social being acts, produces and
reproduces in response to causalities guided, to a large extent, by that reality coagulated in
consciousness. This takes us back to the false pre-conclusion that opened this subtopic, when
we stated that, in part, the social being would create and live in/in the world he discovers to be
real – or rather, where his praxis takes place, as if the two realities were not heterogeneous. A
more interesting answer is that, when we act based on beliefs that are somehow dissociated
from objective reality – whether unconsciously or imposed –, we provoke in these same acts
of transformation of that reality the emergence of contradictions that, in turn, will harass us
without our being able to again offer an adequate praxeological response to them – each
attempt to homogenize realities can generate new heterogeneities. In this way, the
human-social reality will be posited by its movement and by many other contradictions, as
previously explained by Lukács and as we developed throughout the thesis.

1.6 The reality of appropriation without work

Ontonegations do not appear detached, prior to or above productive and distributive

conflicts. Read carefully, it is reductionism itself that will demonstrate that its role is not to
discover social reality as a redundancy of natural reality. He himself will demonstrate, in
practice, the falsification (POPPER, 2004) of this belief because, armed with his product and
tool (ontonegative reductionism), the social being (or a class of them) can move away from
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the natural (reifying it) creating its own world, with its own laws, in a contradictory and
particularly ingenious way.

1.6.1 Realization and intellectual optical illusion

The ability to generate new objectivities from which we systematically create our own
world, indicates that the real is a result and process of realization – even if this human-social
realization is not subjectively reflected as such, when we attribute natural or metaphysical
causality to it. Still, this kind of reality can be especially realistic insofar as reflection and
objectivity seem to naturally coincide. According to Vieira Pinto (2005a), one of the main
moments of this coincidence is what he calls the intellectual optical illusion , resulting from
the reification of technique. In it, the operational abstractions of intervention in the real (the
technique) are displaced, from a content belonging to consciousness to the very “[...]
phenomena and objective processes, in which mistakenly [...]” the subject will recognize the
technique as “[...] endowed with autonomous meaning” 81(VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. 202).
Or, according to Ortega Y Gasset (1965, p. 35-36), “[...] this man, therefore, does not know
himself as the inventor of his inventions. Invention appears to him as one more dimension of
nature [...] The production of tools does not seem to come from him, just as his hands and legs
do not come from him”. Such an illusion could not find a better definition than that given by
Galilei (2009), when he stated that “[...] mathematics is the language in which God wrote the
universe”.
Regardless of how human-social reality is signified, it is the totality of human products
(objects, modes of production, meanings, social relations, etc.) that prevail in the
confrontation (in markets, laboratories or war squares) with the laws of nature and with other
social products. That is, social processes and situations “[...] can only become socially
relevant when they set in motion causal series that move more or less independently of the
purposes of their being set” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 110) .
This reinforces our previous discussion, in which the objectivity-subjectivity dynamic
that coincides as real is strongly related to valuations of utility, functionality, effectiveness
and the like (LUKÁCS, 2013; LESSA, 2012). This is the reality of mathematics, physics,

81
In the context of this citation, the author makes a brilliant clarification about the objectification
(substantivation) of the technique by the formal and idealistic logic of Heidegger, among others, in opposition to
its meaning as qualification , valuation (adjectivation) of a teleological positing (manual unitary activity and
mental). This nuance is at the root of the fetishization of the extended mind, which we will discuss later.
76
political economy and, as we discussed in the third chapter, of psychotechnologies as well.
The so-called realities of meritocracy and the inferiority of women and blacks, among others,
often argued from so-called scientific experiments, are examples of this inverted reading. In
them, the action systems (guided by their theories) can produce certain effects, making them
empirically real, true – as in the archer's tale presented in subtopic 1.4.3.
Let us take as an example of this intellectual optical illusion the experiment carried out
by Facebook in the 2010 US congressional elections and the sociophysical hypostasies
derived from it. In it, 61 million local users of the social network saw in their feeds stimuli to
vote and a button with the inscription “I voted” which, when clicked, could be seen by their
friends on the app. According to Bond et al. (2012), the social contagion derived from this
action would have increased the number of voters by 340,000 in that poll. So, a relative
identity between valuation (a predictive analysis of behaviors in a social network) and the
posited reality (340 thousand more voters in an election) can, with or without insidiousness,
appear ( vorstellen ) as empirical proof of the ontological reductionism that places the social
behaviors as mathematically manipulable patterns of physics.
It is in this space that confusion (or distortion) between valuation (abstraction), rank
(objectivity) and data (here, social objectivity without human production) can occur (and does
occur). For these scientists, the scientific procedures for such an experiment (the previously
idealized, reduced and controlled environment in which the users act) do not appear as
elements of the causality that they capture. Such methods and their instruments of “view of
the Other” are not supposed, in fact, as part of the forces that realize their results – making
them, then, appear as given causalities, naturally.
Thus, something is true, it is real, because it works, because it is possible to be
realized; or even, if gods or laws of nature did not allow it, it would not exist – what is, is, and
what is not, is not, as Parmenides would say.

1.6.2 Work, humanization, exclusion

In order to advance in understanding the production of the human-social reality, which

we call realism here , it is necessary, once again, to return to the question of work. More

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specifically, albeit briefly, the relationship between work, humanization and exclusion 82. We
start from the category of work in the concrete sense, “[...] in its original form, as an organ of
metabolism between man and nature” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 58) to, from this, conclude the
distinction between activities humans and other organisms. Although, in this strict sense,
work is motivated by the need to deny human entropy, “[...] the paths begin to diverge when
between need and satisfaction is inserted [...] the teleological positing” ( LUKÁCS , 832013 , p.
59, emphasis added). We have already seen that this refers to the objectifications ( machado ,
poem, AI) that are posed by human activity in a way previously projected in our
consciousness from the previously existing objectivities – that is, they do not arise from the
head , but from the transforming action in which it takes place. inserts the search for the
mental reflection of reality and the effects of the work on it before and during this process.
In the teleological setting, according to Lukács (2013, p. 59), “[...] its markedly
cognitive constitution is evident, since it is undoubtedly a victory of conscious behavior over
the mere spontaneity of biological instinct”, allowing the jump ontology that separates us
from the world in which the ontonegative sciences insist on reducing us. In this sense, Ortega
y Gasset (1965, p. 46) names this type of action in the world as “effort to save effort”, while
Timiriazev (1949, p. 196) sees it as “[...] a struggle, the struggle against the struggle for
existence”. In the gradual and erratic victory against this struggle, unlike behaviorism and
social physics, the human race does not become a thing, “but a pretense of being” (ORTEGA
Y GASSET, 1965, p. 46), in which “[...] the ontologically new in the social being appears as
opposed to the mere becoming other of objects in natural processes" (LUKÁCS, 2013, p.
106).
Thus, teleological positing, work in a broad sense, transforms natural materiality into
social materiality – into general, human wealth (MARX, 2004; HELLER, 1976). We refer to
this phenomenon from the most primitive moments, when the teleological setting may have
been the decisive resource for the human race to have survived famine, passing through the
first experiences of division of labor, of surplus and private property, until the society of
commodities and its metabolic contradictions with nature (MÉSZÁROS, 2020). Ultimately, it
is work that humanizes us.

82
While here this relationship is still centered on the confrontation between ontonegative reductionism and
historical-dialectical materialism about what is and is not the real, this debate will continue to gain complexity in
this topic until its conclusion in chapter 2, in the topic on work alienated capitalist.
83
The one that, in its elementary aspects, was described by Vygotsky (2004) in subtopic 5.2 as the method and the
instrumental act.
78
 It turns out that, as we discussed from here to the second chapter, regardless of
historical time, the mode of production and its relations, forces and productivity (including the
magnitude of the participation of objective and psychological tools), work is always human
work and, while such, is limited in time so that, in these terms, there are limits to the
realization of its potential for humanization. In hunger, or in imaginary appetites (MARX,
2004), the desires for humanization (which may exist in our individual or class consciousness)
cannot be unlimitedly fulfilled. Unless … the work of others is reified, denying it as a social
process of self-realization, converting it into a thing , a mediation for another type of
humanization, which Marx (2013) calls superfluity and which we name super- humanization
for the sake of dehumanization, or even nothing more than exploitative social relations.
A very illustrative example is the development of the first vaccines against
COVID-19, which took place in a context in which their record creation and production time
would not have happened without the use of extended minds and increasingly automatic
machinery. Still, that record time didn't quite match our generic needs to beat the virus right
away ; we had and will still have to work swiftly and hard to, in this case, defend and elevate
our humanization (overcoming this epidemic and being prepared for the next ones). However,
as we know in this example, the appropriation of the humanizing object (the vaccine),
produced by social work and its general intellect, has occurred in a conditioned and unequal
way globally. The richest and most powerful, by exercising control over the humanization
processes, monopolized the research, production and distribution of medicines and, thus, were
able to take advantage of the humanizing object before potentially priority groups – or even at
the cost of the practical ban on its widespread access 84.
More than that, the acquisition of the power of humanization (work) through its
alienation allows the overcoming of the aforementioned limits, in order to create the
possibility of new types of riches, exclusive (which arise from the power of exclusion), as
well as the need for them (MARX, 1978). For example, the profitability of capital invested in

84
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the country purchased about 600 million
doses of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020. Of these, according to NBC News (2021), about 85 million doses were
wasted in the same year. In turn, according to Reuters, in Nigeria alone, about 1 million vaccines donated by the
WHO were thrown away because they lost their validity due to receiving them close to the expiry date and due to
storage and dissemination difficulties. Sources:
<https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/02/11/biden-administration-purchases-additional-doses-covid-19-vaccin
es-from-pfizer-and-moderna.html>;
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-vaccine-doses-wasted-rcna31399>;<https://www.reuters.com/b
usiness/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/exclusive-up-1
-million-covid-vaccines-wasted-nigeria-last-month-2021-12-08/>. Accessed on: 25 Aug. 2022.
79
industries and health services, radicalized during the pandemic, allowed the competitive rise
of luxury hospitals, where in addition to the enjoyment of cutting-edge medical technologies
(made) exclusive, the rich can take care of beauty, host your animals and even attend shows 85.
It can be seen that, in these examples, the problem of humanization limits is transposed: if, on
the one hand, their overcoming depends on the alienation of other people's work, on the other
hand, “[...] the worker's needs appear as limits of wealth” for exclusive humanization
(HELLER, 1976, p. 25).
This exclusive, private humanization, therefore, is based on a double negative: the
teleological positing as a process and product of the social, at the same time that it is the only
path to humanization, as it is fractured (ALVES, 2018) between manual work ( factor, object,
means, commodity) and intellectual (reason, subject, end) can only be made positive by
denying this unique path for mankind (HELLER, 1976; MARX, 2004).
Finally, the idea of new types of humanization possibilities, without limitation, arising
from these processes is very well synthesized by Marx (2004, p. 160) when he states that
money:

[...] transforms my desires, from the essence of representation, translates them from
their existence thought, represented, wanted, into their sensible , effective existence ,
from representation into life, from being represented into being effective. As such a
mediator, he is the truly creative force . [...] Money [is] (...) means and ability to
make representation effective and effectiveness mere representation [...]

1.6.3 The human use of human beings – part 1

While one can falsify (in the Popperian sense) the natural legality of this exclusive
humanization (naturalistic reductionism), one cannot deny the possibility of its social
existence (superhumanization through dehumanization); it is not false, even if contradictory.
This brings us to Wiener's (1970) somewhat overlooked and poorly explained issue of
the 'humane use of human beings', which we have already referred to. Although he never
clarified it directly, Wiener (2017; 1970) discusses, as we saw, the imaginary similarity
between machine and animal (including us) to conclude that both would have analogous
control mechanisms and, therefore, knowledge about such mechanisms would allow these

85
“Health meets luxury”, available at: <https://www.istoedinheiro.com.br/a-saude-encontra-o-luxo/>. “Private
hospitals want to reach luxury hotel standards”. Available at:
<https://saopaulo.folha.uol.com.br/o-melhor-de-saopaulo/2020/servicos/04/hospitais-querem-alcancar-padroes-d
a-hotelaria-de-luxo.shtml> . Accessed on: 04 Sep. 2022.
80
entities to be controlled (from outside) with efficiency and rationality. We also previously
discussed that the must-be (the utilitarian control over forms of organizations) crosses and
decisively shapes history and that Wiener's socio-cybernetic paradigms influence theories of
organization even today.
As we mentioned in subtopic 1.5.2 (item b), Vygotsky (1997) was also interested in the
theme of behavior control. At that point, the possibility of regulating behavior from outside
referred mainly to the fact that “[...] the man who ties a knot or uses the sound is a real
example of the union of the key and the device in the same hands ”, and “[...] the whole
personality participated consciously and intensely” in the process (VIGOTSKI, 1997, p. 58).
At another time, Vygotsky (1997, p. 56; emphasis added) approaches the socio-cybernetic
paradigm analytically when he comments that:

Social life creates the need to subordinate the individual's behavior to social
demands and forms, at the same time, complex signaling systems, means of
connection that guide and regulate the formation of conditioned connections in each
individual's brain.

Continuing, Lukács (2013, p. 110) draws attention to the fact that the original structure
of the teleological positing undergoes essential changes when it “[...] is no longer directed
exclusively to the transformation of natural objects [... ] but wants to induce other men to
carry out certain pores of this kind for themselves [...]”; when “[...] one's own mode of
behavior and one's own interiority become the object of teleological positing”. As commented
in the Introduction, Foucault (2005) calls this process governmentality, even though he was
less interested in its deeper and more concrete motives, as we try to do here. In this sense,
Sevignani (2019, p. 527) discusses how “[...] peers can be used as a kind of 'social tool' to
satisfy needs [...]”; that unique activities become meaningful only in chains of interindividual
activities; that “[...] individual satisfaction is only possible if there is a form of social control
[...]”; and that, with that, “[...] a specific need comes to life, the need for control over social
relations”.
In turn, Kosik (2002, p. 200) shows the point we want to reach: “[...] the
desacralization of nature [...] accompanies pari passu the desacralization of man, in which one
discovers a being that is possible to model and form”; and that on this basis, politics emerges
“[...] with a calculating and rationalistic technique, as a way – scientifically predictable – of
manipulating human material”. Finally, interested in this possibility, Pentland (2014, p. 69)

81
continues Skinner's behaviorism when he proposes that his social physics could “[...] lead
everyone to cooperate [...]” if “[.. .] we focus on changing connections between people rather
than having individual people change their behavior”.
With these introductions and the discussions made so far, we can face the question of
the human use of human beings, one of the main events in human history (MARX, 2004,
MITHEN, 2002) – a debate that we continue in the second chapter. This theme, hinted at in
several moments of the thesis, is crucial for an emancipatory social psychology. First, because
we are interested in cooperation processes as a conscious and free social activity (MARX,
2004), from which we both create our own ontology and can still develop it in a freely
associated, full and generically rich way (in terms of note 67 ). It is also important because the
human use of human beings crucially refers to reductive, exclusive and strange forms of
cooperation – they are unavoidable mediations for super-humanization.
Let us then dwell on the sentence. Coming out of the mouth of positivist science,
“human use” refers to the practices of separation between humanity (in particular, its rational
being) and nature, the latter being used for humanizing purposes. For example, the
transformation of mineral elements into computers that diagnose lung pathologies with more
precision and anticipation. We are dealing with the objectification of nature in forms and
transformations from which it becomes a use value – not only practical, but also ontological,
in the sense that by producing such a computer we produce the being that will rise from its
use. . However, in its entirety, the phrase does not refer to the ore that turns into a computer,
but to the humans who will mine the first and produce the second. As usual, the positivist
sciences (especially the social ones) present ( vorstellen ) human ontology as insufficient and
outside control as its supplement (as we saw in subtopic 1.5.1). Thus, unknowingly or not,
this socio-cybernetic concept excludes the possibility of free conscious social activity, it
excludes production as a social activity of self-exteriorization because human beings, in the
generic sense, do not use, but are used (as object, mediation) by other humans. in particular. It
should be noted that it is not just a question of the human use of human beings occasionally.
Ultimately, it is about the use of humankind as a set of capabilities and possibilities – as we
will discuss again in the first topic of the second chapter. Thus, the human being used assumes
an ambiguous social form (being and object), which can only be falsely and contradictorily
resolved by its reduction, as discussed in the previous topics. The human being used for the
purposes of exclusive humanization participates in it as a cybernetic gear, a servomechanism

82
86
and, as such, receives enough from it to remain as such, homeostatic.
An example of this servo-mechanical approach that we will return to in detail in the
third chapter is Watson's speech given in 1935 – while a renowned publicist – to his clients
and marketers. Although radical, his propositions were not only dominant in their time but,
under different and subtle expressions, they continued to be a fundamental paradigm for those
who continued their legacy of merging psychology with marketing. According to his
proposition of ontological reduction,

[...] the human being is nothing more than an organic machine. In that case, we
should be able to predict the behavior of that machine and control it like we do other
machines. [...] Now, if you take the broad general view that there is nothing more to
a person than what you can see, and if you think of that person as a machine - an
organic machine that works - then there is no reason in the world why you shouldn't
learn as much about humans as you can about other machines. The only difference is
that the human machine is more complicated and requires more study. (WATSON,
1935, p. 4)

A final and fundamental point in this matter is that, obviously, no producer, in his
self-consciousness, would fail to effect himself through his social self-exteriorization to
voluntarily enter into social relations in which he will become a means of super-actualization
by others. In this sense, we say that these are impossible social relations within generic life
and, to become possible, they are realized by negating it through the chain of contradictions
that historically involve violence, private property, the State, merchandise and exploitation of
surplus labor. (MARX, 2004, 2013; LUKÁCS, 2013; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978).
All this exhaustive discussion is important because, specifically, it prepares for the
conclusion of the topic. In the general theme of the thesis, however, we refer to the successive
representations and moldings of the being who works so that he, as we discussed in the
second chapter, is used for the production of surplus value and even of a capitalist use value in
particular, the data fingerprints.

1.6.4 Appropriation societies and their division of labor

We have seen that the human-social reality is our creation based on natural limits and

86
We use the servomechanism as a metaphor for the human use of human beings, based on the discussion already
made and on its definition as a “[...] device that allows multiplying the effort of the driver of a machine or
vehicle, in activating some mechanisms” (PORTO EDITORA, 2018), that is, in the interversion of the human
being into a mechanism for multiplying effort (for another human being, or a class of them).
83
possibilities, even if we do not credit ourselves with this authorship and even if this transfer of
credit is a mediation for super-humanization. From this subtopic, this discussion, somewhat
abstract, will be placed more concretely in the social relations of production, in order to
situate and qualify the discussions of the second and third chapters.
We start from the moment when, in history, the growing specialization of social work
provided such a productivity gain that it created “[...] the conditions for the surplus labor [the
surplus] of one to become a condition of existence of another [...]” through the exchange of
goods (MARX, 2013, p. 710). According to Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 87), as these exchanges
between independent producer-owners develop, there is a permanent effect of “ erosive
feedback ” on community relations of production, and this exchange becomes a specific
activity, “ [...] not originally as a mediation of social production”. This because:

[...] those who benefit from incipient appropriation become active forces that
drive development in their own interests and organize themselves into a
separate social power. Its influence leads to increasing incursions into
communal ownership, particularly of land, with increasing dependency
conditions for producers. Gradually, class divisions crystallize in society,
based on inheritance, patriarchy, wars of conquest, and extensive looting and
trade. (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978, p. 87)

What we have discussed so far as a possibility at the most general theoretical level
(superhumanization through dehumanization) becomes a historical, concrete and systematic
reality through the development of modes of production based on private property and
coerced surplus labor ( MARX, 1978) – the human use of human beings.
In continuation, “[...] to promote this appropriation and its real performance”, the
exchange becomes an activity separate from the production activities, which required
unprecedented internal and extended psychological tools, such as “[...] the script and the art of
writing, numbering and arithmetic” (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978, p. 90). According to
Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 66), “what defines the character of intellectual work in its complete
division of all manual work is the use of abstractions of non-empirical forms that can be
represented by nothing but non-empirical concepts, 'pure'”. So, “[...] the abstract intellect
emerges with a peculiar and own normative sense, serving as its 'logic'” and connected “[...]
from the beginning with its own sense of truth and untruth” (SOHN- RETHEL, 1978, p. 68),
as we have discussed since the beginning of this chapter. This can be recognized “[...] from
the division between the Greeks who knew astronomy and the slaves who produced their

84
boats, even between the scientists who automate Ifood logistics and the workers who deliver
meals” (FURTADO; GONÇALVES , 2022, p. 136). In socio-cybernetic terms, in this
division, intellectual work acts as a kubernetic and manual work is seen as a servomechanism
87
. For all these reasons, concludes Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 73), intellectual work is “[...] useful
for the domain of private property and, in particular, for capital”.

1.7A reality that escapes us - part 2

Following the spiral exposition method, the whole discussion of the previous topic
allows us to return, under an enriched perspective, to the theme of the reality that escapes us.
If in humanization mediated by more direct relationships with nature, the contradictions of
this escape become part of humanization itself, with the advent of merchandise and its social
forms, a new, even more complex, dissociative praxis is created. Among its many aspects,
three are the most relevant to this research.

1.7.1 Real abstraction and ideal abstraction

In the context of the previous debate, Sohn-Rethel (1978. p. 133) summarizes this new
mismatch as follows:

When we distinguish 'production societies' and 'appropriation societies', we claim

that, on the basis of primitive communal modes of production, since they preceded
commodity production, the social practice was rational, but the theory was irrational
(mythological and anthropomorphic), while at the base of commodity production the
relationship was reversed; namely, social practice became irrational (out of man's
control), but his way of thinking took on rational forms.

At this time, surplus exchange relations profoundly transform the conceptual

foundations of the cognitive faculty (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978) – or of the functional structure

87
It is important to go into more detail about the division between intellectual and manual work. As stated so far,
intellectual work has two dimensions in the same objective – the exploration of work as a mediation for
super-humanization. First, both the early Egyptian calculators and the Greek philosophers and mathematicians,
as well as the programmers, designers , economists and psychologists who co-produce the automagic machines
are, in a sense , intellectual workers. In a way because, on the one hand, these works generally manipulate
“non-empirical, 'pure' concepts” that, directly or indirectly, contribute to super-humanization; on the other hand,
all work is also manual and, even if on papyrus or in the cloud its executors stand out to some extent from the
human misery they co-produce, in general they remain (manual) workers and not the true appropriators of
wealth. Furthermore, regardless of who performs it, intellectual work is ultimately kubernetic work , from
government to the super-humanization of the ownership class.
85
of consciousness , according to Leontiev (2004). This occurs because, as we saw in subtopic
1.5.2, “[...] the particularities of the human psyche are determined by the particularities [...]”
of production relations, “[...] depend on them [... ]” and, thus, “[...] a radical transformation of
production relations entails a no less radical transformation of Human consciousness”
(LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 97).
There are two major changes in the consciousness of the social being at this moment,
which occur generally, but which develop mainly separately in the head of the producer and
that of the appropriator. In the first case (which we develop in the next chapter), there is “[...]
the disagreement between the objective result of human activity and its motive [...]”
(LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 130). In the second case, and as an inductor of the general process, the
generalization of exchange relations (increasingly directed by independent producer-owners,
more and more by non-producer-appropriators) develops and is developed by real abstractions
of exchange – which are real because they are elements of social materiality, they are
concepts that signify and direct human-social achievements , they are subjective dimensions of
reality .
Among these real abstractions of exchange, the psychological tool with which
societies of appropriation give the form of merchandise to nature and human beings and
revolutionize all their modes of production, from the times of Parmenides and Galileo, to
those of Wiener stands out. and Bill Gates. According to Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 47), “[...]
mathematical reasoning must arise in the historical stage in which the exchange of goods
becomes the agent of social synthesis”. Through mathematical reasoning, “[...] the denial of
natural and material physicality constitutes the positive reality of the abstract social
physicality of the exchange processes from which the network of society is woven”
(SOHN-RETHEL, 1978, p . 56).
The rise and success of these forms of social nexus produce the phenomenon that
Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 76) names the conversion or extrapolation of the structure of the real
abstraction of exchange into ideal abstraction – which “[...] moves in the molds of the formal
elements of the social synthesis”, the merchandise. In this new conceptual environment, both
“[...] all traces of their social origin are erased [from the goods [...]”, and “[...] these same
concepts are transformed into instruments of cognition in the face of the external reality of
nature” (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978, p. 45). As a process and product of becoming(itself) real ,
the social relations of exploitation are positivized through contradictory causal chains that, in
their subjective dimension, are also reflected and mediated by these epistemologies. Putting
86
together some points from our entire discussion, for Sohn-Rethel (1978), it is this
subject-object/nature relationship established by the commodity-form that develops the
epistemological point of view, the reification, the empiriocriticism and the ontological
reductionism that we have been criticizing.

1.7.2 Second-order mediations

Based on previous discussions, we can state that this epistemological complex

(conversions, reductionisms, “as if” etc.) seeks to modulate and direct the subjective
dimension of reality, so that impossible social relations find in consciousness a logical and
normative structure that help them become possible (or unavoidable) for exploited and
exploiters alike. In this sense, based on Mészáros (2002, p. 71), we can include this
epistemological complex (real and ideal abstractions) in second-order mediations 88because
they confer materiality and social legality to:

[...] the alienated means of production and their 'personifications'; the money;
production for exchange; the varieties of state formation by capital in its global
context; the world market – [second-order mediations] superimpose, in reality itself,
on the essential productive activity of social individuals and on the primary
mediation between them.

Therefore, it is understood that second-order mediation is instrumentalization,

reorganization, resignification, particular appropriation of first-order mediations (metabolism
with nature, sociability, etc.) for purposes of super-humanization. In this sense, the way
Grespan (2019, p. 111) describes the flow of sociometabolic contradictions produced and
driven by value as (in our interpretation) second-order mediation is profound and
enlightening:

It is the “contradictions” and the impossibility of “commodity development

overcoming them” that imply the presentation of new forms; form will always arise
from a conflict. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that the form is “created”
by the presentation [ vorstellen ] of the immanent conflict: having the sense of a
channel, a dimension “in which” the contradictions “can move” without, therefore,
disappearing, the very “form” results from the development of “effective
contradictions”. That is, firstly, form does not pre-exist as a category, but is

88
The category of second-order mediations, a complex that, in capitalism, revolves around the tripod
capital-labor-State is too complex and broad to be discussed here. At this point, it is interesting to find and
debate, with the utmost rigor, its materiality in the scope of the thesis argument. For an original and complete
reading, Mészáros (2002) is recommended.
87
 “created” by presentation; secondly, it is “effective”, a “method” as a way of reality,
and not as a theoretical procedure of pure knowledge and its subjects.

Although this description is quite abstract, second-order mediations are

objective-subjective, as treated in the second and third chapters in the complex we have been
calling automagic machines. On the one hand, in this example, these mediations are expressed
in the social needs, promises and habits that such machines impose on us, in the affordances
and decision architectures that determine the possibilities and modes of satisfaction and in the
habituation, fantasy and magic instilled in them by the design of machines. UX/UI. On the
other hand, it is precisely when we are trapped in this controlled and automagic experience
that we will be the humans used to objectively mediate super-humanization, as we work
(producing surplus value or not) while consuming and socializing through them.

1.7.3 Pseudoconcreticity

After discussing the reality of appropriation societies, real and ideal abstractions and
their role as second-order mediations, we can approach the end of the first chapter by
concluding the second part of the discussion on the reality that escapes us. We saw in this
debate the convergence between certain events and their re-presentations (and these as action
models) that were, over the centuries, building societies of “discordance between the
objective result of human activity and its motive”. Grespan (2019) described the
sophistication of this process that (given with/by the expropriation of surplus labor, the
division between material and intellectual labor and the set of violences of its imposition)
allows the objective contradictions of super-humanization to find in the humans used a
fragmented subjectivity that tends to make it impossible for them to “[...] abstraction from the
production process in the relationship between production and consumption” (FURTADO;
SVARTMAN, 2009, p. 98).
In turn, alien to and modulated by second-order mediations, it remains for the human
being used and reduced to the natural to take care of his “homeostasis” – or, as we will see in
the next chapter, his reproduction as a labor force commodity. The meanings and possibilities
imposed on them fit into what Kosik (2002, p. 86) calls everyday life , “[...] a phenomenal
world in which reality manifests itself in a certain way and at the same time hides itself ”. And
it is in the daily, practical and immediate use of these meanings and homeostatic possibilities

88
that the used human being co-creates the reality from which he needs to give meaning and
stability to his life, the pseudoconcreticity . In the words of Kosik (2002, p. 80, emphasis
added),

In everyday life, activity and way of life are transformed into an instinctive,
subconscious and unconscious, unreflected mechanism of action and life. Things,
men, movements, actions, surrounding objects, the world, are not instituted in their
originality and authenticity, they are not examined or manifested: they simply are ;
and as inventory, as parts of a known world are accepted. For this reason it is the
world of intimacy, familiarity and banal actions. [...] [In it], the individual creates
relationships for himself, based on his own experience, on his own possibilities and
on his own activity, and then considers this reality as his own world.

Once again we emphasize that this is not an informational, cognitive or psychological

problem, but a praxeological one. The generally impossible social relationship (the human use
of human beings) does not cease to take place, but the conceptual masks (ATAÍDE, 2020)
imposed by the circumstances discussed here contribute to the impediment of apprehending
this relationship and denying it.
This discussion does not end here and will continue to be enriched until the end of the
thesis. At this point, we only anticipate that pseudoconcreticity as a means to and effect of
super-humanization is actualized with/in the objective forms of reproduction of social and
singular life. Currently, as we discuss in the next chapters, the new materiality of
pseudoconcreticity are automagic machines.

1.8 The issue of method

This topic reflects and concludes our discussion about the real, an indispensable step
for us to qualify our object – the humanization mediated by the extended mind in class society
– and its subject – the dual, active, exploited and socio-historically determined being –, as
well as the “psychological tools” (method and methodology) that are offered for the
appropriation of the first by the second. This approach unfolds in two routes, the first being
introduced here and discussed in the next two subtopics, while the second route makes up the
conclusion.
First, based on all the discussion we had, we argue that the sciences and their scientific
methods are, in many ways, instruments of social action in class societies (LUKÁCS, 2013;
SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; KOSIK, 2002; LESSA 2016 ; TONET, 2013). As Blunden (2010, p.

89
6) clarifies, “[...] the consciousness of the researcher and his experimental subject always
participate in scientific experiments, and the experiments are only scientific to the extent that
the researcher understands the role played by his conscience itself”.
One of the main effects of this type of instrument and its implications is the possibility
of enabling subjects and the classes that employ them to participate in the dispute over the
subjective dimensions of reality – that which, in part, by coagulating in the social
superstructure (legal laws or scientific information, beliefs, intellectual property, etc.) is
assumed to be true and, therefore, confers legality to its derivations. In our critique, we refer
to the scientific method as: method of presentation ( vorstellen ) of the naturalness of our
ontonegativity and appropriation without work (MARX, 2017; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978;
GRESPAN, 2017); means of unfolding this ontonegativity in theories, techniques, markets
and goods that turn the extended mind into an automagic machine; and, even more, we refer
to the scientist as an organic intellectual (worker) of the production and consumption of this
commodity (LESSA, 2016).

1.8.1 Crisis of replication of ontonegative psychologies

Among the many possibilities for highlighting the scientific method as an instrument
of social action, here we will discuss the moment when it can, by not "empirically" fulfilling
its promise of an accurate reflection of reality, strip itself bare as ideology. We refer to what
the growing meta-scientific literature calls the crisis of replication (or generalization) of
several theories about human-social behavior – specifically those that propose the social being
as predictably irrational, in need of feedbacks coming from nudges , gratifications, restrictions
and decision architectures based on a libertarian paternalism 89.
For this discussion, we start from three assumptions from the epistemological point of
view threatened by the aforementioned crisis, according to Goodman et al. (2016): the need
for “sufficient details available to allow the repetition of a study”; findings need to be
replicated by other scientists; and the need for replications to infer conclusions similar to the
original study (its generalization itself). Among other factors 90, Mahoney (1977) and Maier et

89
While here we will discuss the lack of objectivity of these theories, they will be deconstructed case by case in
the third chapter in their current main habitat, namely: digital psychotechnologies.
90
A summary timeline of the replication crisis in science in general can be seen at: <
https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2016/12/05/reproducibility-crisis-timeline-milestones-in-tackling-research-relia
bility/ > . Accessed on: 04 Sep. 2022.
90
al. (2022) ironically identify a behavioral bias as one of the main inducers of the replication
crisis: the confirmation bias, in which the practice of publishing only experiments that
confirm theories (to the detriment of those that do not) distorts the general perception about
such theories and their objects, allowing such unreliable scientific discoveries to take root and
thrive. In light of the discussion in subtopic 1.6.1, we know that, in many of these cases, it is
much more than a bias, but a form of realism , of producing a coincidence between
abstraction and objectivity. As Scheufele (2014) indicates, in these cases, it would be the
practice of “scientific communication as political communication”.
In any case, as these threats adjusted research and replication methods (FANELLI,
2012), the problems only increased, especially for psychologies linked to the cognitive field.
According to the review by Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn (20 11 ), “[...] it is more likely
that a researcher will falsely find evidence that an effect exists than correctly find evidence
that it does not exist”. The Open Science Collaboration meta-analysis (2015) showed that
only a third of the social psychology studies reviewed were replicable, while Goldfarb (1997)
suggests that confirmation bias also extends to the behavioral economics postulates
themselves (including priming and nudging 91) . ).
The crisis found its apex in situations in which prominent theorists of ontonegative
psychologies were caught in experimental fraud. In addition to the aforementioned case of
Dan Ariely (item 1.5.1 of this chapter), the situation of social psychologist and former dean
Diederik Stapel on priming 92is very significant. Frustrated with the confusion of experimental
data, which rarely led to clear conclusions, Stapel preferred to produce from his own head
data that converge to conclusions desired by the cognitive community and the mainstream
media, according to his own confession. In addition to his ambition in a scientific
environment increasingly shaped like a market, he suggested that a pervasive, postmodern
relationship with the truth produced a convenient fog for his hoaxes.
In addition, our review on the subject identified, among others, two more factors that
significantly induce these distortions. The first, following the tradition encouraged by Watson
and Skinner (ZUBOFF, 2021), is the ease with which authors overestimate and extrapolate
their findings to vast segments and social contexts. These extrapolated findings stem, among

91
“ Priming is a phenomenon by which exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus,
without conscious guidance or intent” (WEINGARTEN et al., 2016).
92
About this case, see: <
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html >. Accessed
on: 5 Sept. 2022.
91
other situations, from results that elevate themselves to the status of theories, but that usually
arise from research carried out with small groups of psychology students from the global
north (YARKONI, 2020).
Not by chance, one of the pivots of the crisis and of this extrapolating facility is “
p-hacking ”, the mathematical adjustment in the “p value”, which describes the probability of
significance that a sample would have to represent a totality (NUZZO, 2014) . According to
Nuzzo (2014, p. 150), the “[...] slippery nature of the P value [...] is neither as reliable nor as
objective as most scientists assume”. Even so, according to Simonsohn and Simonsohn (201 1
), “[...] you really believe in your hypotheses, you get the data and there is ambiguity about
how to analyze them”; however, when your first analysis does not produce the desired result,
you keep adjusting the P-value until your desire is scientifically realized (ASCHWANDEN,
2015).
We cannot, however, blame mathematics for everything. According to Fiedler and
Sydow (2015, p. 1130), observing the work of Kahneman and Tversky, “[...] what is
disappointing [...] is the lack of precision, refinement and progress at the theoretical level”. In
addition, according to Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 554), “Kahneman and Tversky did not
indicate the precise conditions to trigger the different heuristics or the relationships between
the different heuristics” that they raised to established theories 93. According to the review by
Matz et al. (2017, p. 2), discounting the subjective extrapolations of these scientists in the case
of the persuasive techniques of behavioral economics, this “[...] is particularly effective when
adapted to the unique psychological characteristics and motivations of people [...]”, so that
“[...] what convinces one person to behave in the desired way may not do so for another”.
Thus, as we discussed earlier, more than mistakes, weaknesses or hypostasies, in many cases,
these are ways of realizing the intentions they carry – once again, the archer's tale.
The second important factor is that the extrapolated conclusions result, in many cases,
from very controlled experiments (and not always detailed), so that, when replicated, the
existence of small experimental differences generates discrepant results – that is, in practice,
conclusions lack ecological validity (EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017) – when they do not apply to
the real world, which is multivariate and multidetermined.
Replication problems still led the debate to unusual situations, in which renowned
scientists and cornered by the crisis, such as Nobel Prize Daniel Kahneman (2014), are

93
Many other examples of fragility, creativity and lack of rigor in experimental psychology are described by
Eysenck and Keane (2017), especially in chapter 13 of their work.
92
reluctant to recognize replications that cannot be reproduced under their own supervision,
which sounds quite unscientific. Even so, the issue of experimental control holds more
interesting conclusions, to which we will return. Let us continue to focus briefly on more
problems of the method of apprehension of the real by the ontonegative sciences.

1.8.2 Neuromania

We criticized neuromania in its ontonegative aspects, so here we will insert brief

comments from the review by Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 20) regarding the relationship
between this method and its conclusions. According to the authors,

[...] cognitive neuroscientists often overestimate their findings, assuming that there
are one-to-one links between cognitive processes and brain areas (Brown, 2012).
Thus, for example, activation in a small region of the brain (a “blob” ) is interpreted
as being the “love area” or the “religion area”.

Although, still according to Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 21), some neuroscientists
opt for more caution, “[...] an undue credit to reverse inference persists – a researcher infers
the involvement of a certain cognitive process from the activation in a specific brain region.
And, as another example of falsification of the Other's gaze and the overlap between
the “imaginary appetites” of cognitivists and their “rigorous” scientific methods, Eysenck and
Keane (2017) cite a curious experiment by Keehner et al. (2011). They “[...] presented
[neuroscientists] with neuroscience papers accompanied by brain imaging. The more
three-dimensional the images appeared, the more positively the articles were evaluated”
(EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017, p. 23).

1.8.3 Qualitative research in HCI

In another work (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 100) we discuss the limits of

qualitative research in HCI which, according to data scientists, “[...] are not always successful
when trying to adapt conventional methodologies to digital mediations”. For Burke 94, Cheng
and Gant (2020, p. 1), the problem with this adaptation is that they “[...] are mainly based on
self-reports of a person's online activities , which are difficult to report accurately, in detail
94
Moira Burke is one of Meta's leading data scientists with stints at Google, Yahoo! and AT&T and is therefore
especially interested in questioning qualitative research.
93
and without being influenced by other questions in the same survey”. Also, as already
mentioned in this topic, according to the review by Jiang, Naqvi and Abbas Naqvi (2020, p.
121), “[...] most of the literature is based on a wide range of SNSs [social networking services
], homogeneous samples or samples derived exclusively from the US, which makes
generalization difficult”. This is a fact mainly for the first research carried out on Facebook,
as we found in our literature review (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a).
Although some qualitative HCI research can draw conclusions without sufficient data,
they are not our main concern here.

1.8.4 Computational social sciences

The subject of the so-called computational social sciences (CSC) is too broad to be
treated in this work, so we focus on its alleged advantages in relation to the experiments
discussed above. On the one hand, Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 5) have already criticized the
fact that “[...] experimental cognitive psychologists have presented theories expressed only in
verbal terms”. On the other hand, they complement this statement by saying that “[...]
fortunately, this limitation can be largely overcome by the development of cognitive models
by computational cognitive scientists” (EYSENCK; KEANE, 2017, p. 5). This is because, in
this new method based on big data and procedural automation by AI, biases related to small
and specific groups surveyed, as well as the participation (voluntary or not) of scientists'
opinions in their results, would be overcome.
However, as can be seen, the CSC “findings” are not available to everyone. Although
allegedly CSC has “[...] the potential to transform our understanding of our lives,
organizations and societies [...]”, it occurs “[...] in Internet companies such as Google and
Yahoo and in government agencies such as the US National Security Agency” (LAZER et al.,
2009, p. 721). As D'Andréa (2020, p. 51) explains, in addition to the opacity of the
algorithms, “[...] the precarious data offered via APIs and the poorly documented changes in
the interfaces are some of the difficulties faced when investigating the multiple dimensions of
a network. platform".
All of this leads to another method problem. Despite the efforts and advances of
independent scientists and institutions, the ability to produce knowledge about big techs by
big techs is unmatched. However, in addition to this data having become a trade secret, it is
not peer-verified, so that claims derived from it remain under suspicion. In any case, we will
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return to this science in the third chapter.
Finally, ultimately, what we can extract from the replication crises and from the
revised methodological limits and problems is that, in its heavily funded laboratories, this
ontonegative psychology, in producing its own falsification (POPPER, 2004), has so far
proved only two things: the social cannot be reduced to the natural; and the control of
possibilities can increase the probability that a planned behavior will be elicited. The ability
of these psychologies is not to predict predictably irrational behavior; they act as cybernetic
tuning mechanisms. Its function is to co-create control mechanisms over the alienated social
being, enabling the prevalence of certain behaviors that will later be presented ( vorstellen ) as
universal human characteristics – the archer's tale.

1.8.5 Science and denial of denial

If, on the one hand, scientific methods can be used as a search for the legality of
ontonegativity, they can also act as a social action for the denial of this denial (TONET, 2013;
KOSIK, 2002; ENGELS, 2017). That is, we can produce psychological tools (research,
theories, etc.) that seek to reproduce this denial and its movement in analytical categories as a
contribution to the struggle for its denial. This possibility can be expressed in the following
words by Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 195),

The truth about our world is hidden from everyone under the spell of their false
consciousness. When our academic opponents ask what we know about this social
existence that we oppose to consciousness, our answer would be: we know as little
about it as you do. But we know how to find out. The way to do this is to trace the
genetic origin of any current ideas and concepts back to their own patterns. Social
existence is what we will find to determine these ideas and concepts.

In this way, the entire effort of this thesis, especially in this chapter, has been to
exhaustively carry out this tracking of the “genetic origins” of ontonegativity and
appropriation without work, creating the conditions for us to recognize their current existence
in the form of automagic machines, a subject of the next chapters.
Even so, we conclude 95the chapter warning that, given that our effort is “[...] at the

95
As can be noticed, the Latourian, Foucaultian, Simondonian and similar approaches are almost not considered
in this thesis. First, because its core, as we have repeated, is the criticism made by PSSH to the heterogeneous
theoretical-technical block that revolves around cognitive sciences and platform capitalism. Second, effectively,
although the review of the aforementioned omitted approaches raised themes, empirical elements and interesting
insights , these approaches are not decisive from the point of view of our method.
95
same time armed and limited by the representations and knowledge” of our time and our
society (LEONTIEV, 2004), the use of the historical scientific method -dialectic is anything
but a token that “decrypts” human-social reality as it occurs in the positivist expectations we
criticize. That is, in this thesis, we often have methods, methodologies and their data that can
be more or less falsifiable, which should place our conclusions in the condition of
approximate efforts and not of precise truths.
The only certainty here is that the negation of negation is the condition for a
humanization mediated by the extended mind that is emancipatory, far beyond the human use
of human beings.

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CHAPTER 2: POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ICT AND FALSE SIMPLE EXCHANGE

In the previous chapter we presented and criticized the visions of reality that justify
and guide super-humanization and its mediations. This “[...] 'subject' that considers itself a
'substance'[...]” (GRESPAN, 2019, p. 14) – particularity that presents itself as universality;
private social power over work, its products and the paths of humanization, changing its
social forms as the forces and relations of production develop – its existence matures in
capitalism as value and capital.
In order to continue locating the role of automagic machines in this process and the
way in which subjectivity co-operates in it , we need to repeat the movement of taking a few
steps back to understand more deeply certain categories of the capitalist mode of production
in which the traces of these links can be found 96.
In particular, in this chapter we review some elements of the productive reality that
have always been rendered opaque or meaningless both by capitalist theories and by the
current presentation of the extended mind in its commodity form. As indicated in the
Introduction, when these and other elements of reality are interverted in objectivity and in our
fields of meaning, their causes and consequences do not disappear, but can be re-signified by
the conceptual structures of fetishism. In this way, the previously organized and systematic
social activity of transforming objects (physical or not) into other objects so that these
products have use value and exchange value, when traversed by automagic machines, may no
longer be recognized as work (and capital). ). Under these same circumstances, the objects in
which we externalize our knowledge on how to produce such transformations and with which
we carry them out – namely, the extended mind – may cease to be considered as means of
production – and capital. And finally, in these cases, when the individual – from the user of
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We need to make some important caveats. First, we reiterate that this is not a thesis about EPTIC, nor about the
critique of political economy in general. Therefore, we are not going to cover its vast fields and themes, going
over only its main points that we researched and that help in our interdisciplinary sewing. Second, given the
space and focus of this work, the meaning of some categories will be assumed. Thirdly, we are aware that the
elements and historical passages that make up the whole of the emergence of capitalism took place in different
ways and times in different parts of the world. At the same time, for the sake of consistency, we will focus on
those events that took place in what we now call the global north, mainly between the 19th and 20th centuries.
Not because this section represents the whole or dismisses the recognition of its particularities, but because of the
power of these events for all of humanity, as they are reproduced expansively and repeatedly in time, from the
late end of slavery for Latin and African peoples, to the maintenance of its exploitation by imperialism and
capitalist neocolonialism in the 20th century and now by the use of automagic machines. Finally, we emphasize
that this topic is the result of a critical reading of political economy through the lens of Socio-Historical Social
Psychology and, therefore, is crossed by elements and questions of its subjective dimensions.
97
social networks to the user of digital medical devices – interacts with automagic machines,
certain products of this multi-motivated activity – digital data – can be appropriated as a
commodity and/or means of production and capitalist reproduction. The non-perception of
these realities does not annul their existence but, on the contrary, makes such realities become
even more free of conscious, formal or acceptable labor relations towards the maximum and
competitive productive capacity resulting from the encounter between the human body ( mind
and motricity) and machinery – being still, paradoxically, signified as a “brave new world” for
everyone.
In this sense, the main objective of this chapter is to argue that if value, in different
instances and ways, depends on work to produce and accumulate (MARX, 1878; 2013), then
producing labor force continues to have the same decisive determination today as in the entire
history of capitalism. Something that changes and that interests us in this part of the thesis are
the exchange relations between capital and labor , the production relations themselves and
the workers' degree of awareness about these processes. This is because the current
development of the productive forces allows (and requires) the transfer of work into the
product to distance itself even further from the consciousness of the subjects placed as
producers and to diversify far beyond the factory forms of wages and working hours. With
automagic machines this would become possible in a very indirect and unsuspected way – the
acts of fruition and consumption of use values, the focus of our investigation.

2.1 The alienation complex and the reality that escapes us – part 3

Our starting point is the penultimate spiral loop around the dissociation between
activity and consciousness. In the first chapter 97, we saw how this detachment occurs due to
the inevitable duality (objective and subjective) of the social being (LUKÁCS, 2013) and,
later, to the real abstraction of the merchandise that cooperates with the division between
manual and intellectual work, private property and appropriation without work
(SOHN-RETHEL, 1978). In the development of this process, reality escapes us through
alienated capitalist work, a framework that requires a little more breath.

2.1.1 Alienation and estrangement

97
Subtopic 1.5.4 and topic 1.7.
98
 Some authors (LESSA, 1992, 20 1 2; RANIERI, 2001; FURTADO; SVARTMAN,
2009; LUKÁCS, 2013) dedicated themselves to the overlapping, in Marxian texts, of the
categories of alienation ( Entäusserung ) and estrangement ( Entfremdung ). This is not a
trivial question and is related to our hypothesis that users of the extended digital mind are
made to produce – in certain situations, tendentially and independently of their conscience
and will – capitalist use values (digital data) in their activities sociometabolic reactions
mediated by this artifact.
According to Raniere (2001, p. 24), Entäusserung (alienation) refers to “[...] remission
to the outside, extrusion, passage from one state to another qualitatively different one,
detachment, carrying out an action of transference [.. .], exteriorization”. Thus, as we
indicated earlier, the social being, in the face of the causalities that instigate him – from
prehistoric hunger to ransomware 98–, being able to rise and become effective in the face of
them through teleological positing, when for this need he elaborates and puts in the world
products that thus become independent of it, alienate themselves from it , becoming new
social causalities. Still for the author, “[...] if effectiveness becomes, due to this objectivation,
human effectiveness, all objects become, for man, objectivation of himself, objects that realize
and confirm his individuality as their object [...]” (RANIERE, 2001, p. 13-14).
For this reason, unlike the way in which the use of the term was popularized, there is
an “[...] ontological positivity of objectification and alienation [...]” (LESSA, 1992, p. 39). In
a first approximation to our theme, we can therefore state that the extended mind (Google
Drive, Tiktok, its algorithms and hardware ) is a tool through which we seek to realize
ourselves (exteriorize) ourselves in some way (and without which this is increasingly harder);
in a way, each like , each file, each sign inserted in this object can integrate our acts of
alienation in search of our effectiveness in the social world.
However, according to Marx (1978, p. 21), in capitalism – and in appropriation
societies in general – ontogenetic alienation, “material production” – the “true process of
social life” – conserves and develops its productive forces. , but it is also transposed through
and into the unique forms discussed in the first chapter. The work process now presents itself
98
Ransomware is one of the worst types of hacker attacks , where, after invading a system, all or part of your
data is encrypted and blocked until, usually, they are released upon some type of ransom payment. For example,
in 2021, the Brazilian multinational JBS, after suffering this type of attack, would have paid US$ 11 million to
regain control of its data. For more information, see:
<https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/cyber-attack-hits-jbs-in-australia-and-north-america.html>. Accessed on: 16
Sept. 2022.
99
in a double form, unique and indivisible: “[...] on the one hand, as concrete work , in the use
value of commodities ; and, on the other hand, calculated as socially necessary work , in
exchange value ” (MARX, 1978, p. 23), thus becoming an instrument in the process of
valorization and self-valorization of capital. Therefore, starting with Marx, we can speak of a
capitalist alienation mode , a contradictory social relationship in constant expansion and
development.
In this sense, Entfremdung (estrangement) would be the socio-productive relations that
internalize and socially condition Entäusserung (alienation) (RANIERI, 2001) where, as a
condition and process, the worker's interiority (desires, teleology, personality and socially
determined worldviews) it is prevented from developing and expressing itself freely and fully
(MARX, 2004; LUKÁCS, 2013). In estrangement, the producer not only does not externalize
his interiority, but he is, in fact, turned into a means of alien exteriorization – the human use
of human beings for super-humanization . This is because, in general, he does not own the
means of externalization (of production) which, in turn, are presented in the form of private
property. Thus, producers tend not to recognize themselves in the means and products they
are forced to externalize (and internalize). And, by not being able to externalize themselves
and being means of externalization by others, they would tend 99not to be able to recognize
themselves, not to access or fully live the human ontology that they strangely co-produce.
Finally, being disconnected from this ontology, they would also tend not to experience it and
fully internalize it, finding strange, in the condition of Aristotle's “animated instrument”
(GRANT, 1874), the human race itself.
However, as part of this contradiction, this being does not cease wanting and needing
to realize, realize, signify and signify itself. And if it cannot do so in production, it does so in
terms of exchange (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978) and consumption (FURTADO; SVARTMAN,
2009). In this case, it is in the exchange value (money) and in the merchandise in his
possession that this social being will (re)find the objects with which he identifies himself for
society and for himself – whether the courier or the owner of Rappi, the influencer or his
100
followers, the shareholder of Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) or his turkers . As Marx
99
Also from the discussion of the fourth topic, here and at other times when we discuss estrangement and its
psychosocial consequences, we will consider these phenomena in the field of tendency . Circumstances
(especially the deprivation of the means of production) tend towards this result, but the active side of the
producers in the context of the class struggle can deny it, making their class consciousness develop at different
intensities, provoking different confrontations and possible breakages.
100
Turker refers to the person who performs microjobs on the Mechanical Turk platform – which we'll come
back to later. The name originates from the machine built in the 18th century and which was advertised as an
automaton that played chess. In fact, it was controlled from within by an accomplished chess-playing dwarf. The
100
(2004, p. 159) illustrates, “[...] what money is for me, what I can pay, that is, what money can
buy, that is me, the owner of money itself. . [...] The qualities of money are mine – [of] its
possessor – essential qualities and strengths”. We will develop this point again shortly.

2.1.2 The human use of human beings in capitalism – part 2

Capitalist alienation is a complex and unitary process that inherits and matures the
realism discussed in the previous chapter. Analytically separated (and in a very simplified
form), the possibility of super-humanization depends on the human use of human beings;
which requires objective and subjective operations of reification and ontological reduction
that separate manual work from intellectual work; the latter increasingly converts social
wealth into the real abstraction of money, which gains strength and intercontinental scope
through the exchange of goods produced by enslaved and colonized people; what enables the
primitive accumulation of capital; which in part unfolds in advances in science applied to
industrial production; that emerges with the same force with which laws and violence expel
peasants from their lands in Europe, making them dispossessed and proletarians (MARX,
2013; MATTOS, 2020). These social relations and their representations justify and fulfill each
other, giving them naturalness and normativity (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978).
It is from these objectivities, representations and normativities, that the nascent
industrial capitalism develops this realism in a new chain of mediations and social forms that
we will briefly see in some of its points. First, however, it is necessary to briefly qualify and
problematize certain aspects of what is primarily disqualified in these mediations: work and
its process.

a) Work and workforce

In several moments of the thesis, we qualify work as the relationship of social beings
with nature to metabolize with it and, from that, to also humanize themselves. We have seen
that its simple moments are activity oriented towards an end and applied to its object and its

Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) platform, in turn, defines itself as “[...] a market for completing virtual tasks
that require human intelligence [...]” for tasks such as “[...] identify objects in a photo or video, perform data
de-duplication, transcribe audio recordings, or search for data details”. Available at:
<https://www.mturk.com/worker/help#what_is_hit>. Accessed on: 19 Oct. 2020. Robinson et al. (2019) state
that the platform added more than 250,000 workers in 2019.
101
means and that, therefore, work is the very use of labor power (MARX, 2013). On the other
hand, we have also seen that the humane use of human beings is the systematic and organized
application of labor power by its appropriator. And, at that moment, the worker “[...] becomes
actu [in act] what before he was only potentia [in potency], namely, labor force in action”
(MARX, 2013, p. 326) .
For the central hypotheses of this thesis, we want to reiterate two important things
from the exposition made here. First, that both in potency and in act, activity oriented towards
the ends of super-humanization is, in general, an essence whose forms are shaped by the
development of productive forces, production relations, class struggle and, with that, also of
the needs contributed by this development itself. That is, the forms of subsuming work are not
fixed and invariable and tend to transform and diversify as these determinations take place in
their historical movement.
Second, in all cases, the greater the needs of exclusive humanization (including those
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dealing with reproduction and its contradictions ), the more labor power (in its historically
determined forms) is needed. Even with the increasing productivity of machines, the more
wealth and social control capital needs, the greater its need for labor power will tend to be
(MARX, 1978; 2013). As Antunes (2018, p. 35) explains, contrary to the elimination of living
work by machinery piloted by the extended mind, what has occurred is “[...] the monumental
expansion of the new proletariat of the digital age, whose jobs, more or less intermittent, more
or less constant, gained new impetus with ICTs, which connect the most different types of
work via cell phones”. For the author, “[...] the result of this process is that, in all possible
spaces, capital converts work into a potential generator of surplus value” (ANTUNES, 2018,
p. 36).
Finally, the synthesis we want to highlight, which will be fundamental from now on, is
that, ultimately, for capitalism, it does not matter how the workforce is expansively created,
subsumed and applied, as long as it fulfills its determinations and deal with its contradictions
(ANTUNES, 2018). As we will see, attention to these details is interesting and important, also
because, in this way, the analytical categories of the labor theory of value will continue to be
valid and useful, as they continue to accompany the living movement of the human use of
capitalist human beings.

101
For example, the capitalist contradiction of reducing working time in production, which expels the worker
from it at the same time that, by reducing the value produced in each commodity in this process, contributes to
the tendency of falling profitability (MARX, 2015), which in turn requires, as a countertrend, more labor
exploitation in other sectors of the economy.
102
b) mystification of capital

In capitalism, the real abstraction of private property “[...] is installed to such an extent
in the imagination” of social agents, so that the elements of nature involved in production
(raw materials, machines, energy, etc.) se ( vorstellen ) as use-values of capital and as parts of
it . In this mystification, “[...] the social forms of their own work – objectively and
subjectively –” become a relationship “[...] more complicated and apparently more mysterious
[...]” for workers; they “[...] present themselves as a work of capital [...]”, “[...] as something
alien, objective, pre-existing to them, who are there, without their participation [...] insofar as
[they are] objective ” and “[...] which not only the individual worker conducts himself
passively, but which act in opposition to him” (MARX, 1978, p. 86, 85, 87).
In the light of the discussions in the first chapter, it is clear that this mystification is
much more complex than just a set of lies or language games (WITTGENSTEIN, 1995), but
they are part of the realization movements of appropriation societies – they are their
subjective dimensions . For example, Grespan (2019) focuses on these movements when he
discusses the uses of “presentation” ( vorstellung ) and “representation” ( darstellung ) in
Marxian works (see note 11), which we will discuss again later. For him, “[...] the meaning of
vorstellen as a symbol is clear , which intends to replace the 'true being', and not just expose
or copy it” (GRESPAN, 2019, p. 23). Thus, in capitalist mystification, a meaning (private
property) installs itself on an object (productive forces of labor), forcing it as its signifier,
making the second come to express the first.
This is not, however, a merely semiotic operation. In fact, these meanings represent
forms of economic practices (GRESPAN, 2019) or systems of actions (LEONTIEV, 2004) that
are almost algorithmic in the sense of particular instructions (social relations) that promise a
universal result (human development). It is, therefore, possible to draw a parallel between this
process and the one discussed in topics six and seven of the first chapter, especially when
Sohn-Rethel (1978) states that the commodity-form unfolds in the abstract intellect, emerging
in a peculiar and proper normative way, connected from its inception with its own sense of
truth.

c) Subjective condition of production and abstract work

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 These mystifications allow a double movement in which, at the same time that the
worker is thus separated from the means of production/exteriorization, he can only find them
again (now, as means of homeostasis/survival) in the strange way described in the previous
subtopic – he himself is reduced to one of the parts of the “total figure of the use-value . . . of
capital in the process of production”; it is reduced to its subjective condition (the one that
“manifests itself oriented towards a certain end”); that is, reduced to the workforce (MARX,
1978, p. 11-12).
The different types of work “[...] are no longer distinguished from each other, being all
reduced to equal human work, abstract human work ” (MARX, 2013, p. 161, emphasis
added), whose value is generally determined by its buyer, not by the worker. For example,
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according to Kalil (2019), an AMT turker performs an average of 200 microtasks ranging
from identifying images, transcribing audio, filming body movements, etc., in exchange for at
least US$ 0.01 for each one of them, average ten hours a day more than five days a week.
The roots of the capitalist capacity to transform the innumerable forms of concrete
labor into abstract labor can be found in the discussion we had mainly in subtopic 1.7.1 of the
previous chapter. There, we brought the reflection of Sohn-Rethel (1978) who referred to this
mathematization as the denial of the natural and material physicality that positive the abstract
social materiality of the exchange processes that are defined as social links. And, as discussed
further ahead, it is also through the category of abstract work that we can touch on the implicit
work carried out and mediated by automagic machines.

d) labor force commodity

To a large extent, the qualification of concrete and social work as a subjective

condition of capitalist production and its quantification as abstract work are responsible for
allowing it to become a commodity, unlike the reductions and subsumptions of previous
modes of production. Under capitalism, the human use of human beings undergoes “[...] a
transformation in its form” and “[...] becomes freer because it is now simply material,
formally voluntary, purely economic in nature” (MARX , 1978, p. 59). This is because, in the

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Microtask or microwork is a type of work partialization that segments the activity and its production to its
smallest possible work unit, usually associated with the development of a digital product or service. An example
is the human intelligence tasks (HITs) , defined by the AMT platform as “[...] a single, independent and virtual
task in which a worker can work, send a response and receive a reward for completion”. Available from:
<https://www.mturk.com/>. Accessed on: 01 May. 2022.
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capitalist mode of representation (MARX, 2017; GRESPAN, 2019), the workforce appears as
a thing, a use value necessary for the capitalist in the same apparent way in which the
products in his possession are use values for him. the homeostasis of the worker – thus guided
by value, both acquire equivalence . In this way, before the social being changes form in the
production process, he and the capitalist confront each other as free individuals in the market,
the space where work assumes the necessary form of commodity labor power – so that, in
terms of Wiener (1970), individual and social homeostasis become real . Given the link
between this category and automagic machines, we will return to this topic in more depth later
on.

e) plus-value

At this point, the mystification of capital hides the peculiar quality of the use value of
labor power: by transforming objects into other useful objects immediately appropriated as
part of capital, labor power makes this capital realize itself as such, i.e. , increase its value .
This increase is expressed in surplus value , the quantum of wealth produced by the collective
worker within a certain time of socially necessary work that is not paid (MARX, 1978; 2011;
2013). This quantum (first in the form of time and then products), in turn, is expressed and
varies both as absolute surplus-value (controlling for the value of labor power, unpaid labor
time and the intensity of production) and as relative surplus-value (when the organization of
work and the increase of science in production increase this quantum , and may also be added
to the conditions of absolute surplus-value) (MARX, 1978; 2011; 2013). For example, in
forms of explicit work mediated by the extended mind, the stimuli and pressures of microwork
platforms such as AMT can coerce the worker to prolong his working time (absolute surplus
value). On the other hand, the Scrum methodology (the breaking and formatting of product
development into small cycles of activities), added to the constant technological increments of
this type of platform, seeks to increase productivity within the same hours worked (the
relative added value).
The new forms of human use of human beings do not stop here. In the next topics and
subtopics, we are going to unfold the psychosocial process of equalization between work and
its products, which creates the conditions for the commodification of social relations. Also, in
these upcoming debates, we visualize more concretely how automagic machines participate in
this process.
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2.1.3 Can estrangement exist outside the production of surplus value?

The first discussions in this chapter are important for several others to follow, but,
immediately, they force us to a brief detour to a question that has direct implications with our
hypothesis of the capitalist work implicit in the use of automagic machines: is estrangement a
phenomenon circumscribed to the sphere of surplus-value production?
Eventually, the discussed overlap between Entäusserung and Entfremdung as
alienation may contribute to this controversy (which we certainly do not intend to exhaust)
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. This is because, as we have seen, on the one hand, alienation is relative to something
objectified (ore, computer, or video on Tik Tok); on the other hand, in addition to the worker
feeling strange about the objective factors of capitalist production, these also cause him to feel
strange about himself and the human race . That is, capitalist alienation appears in
production, but its estrangement radiates beyond it.
Our contribution to this controversy is based on the statement by Lukács (2013, p. 37)
that “[...] work becomes the model of all social praxis, in which, in effect – even if through
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mediations that are sometimes very complex –, there are always teleological pores [...]” .
Furthermore, as Oliveira and Oliveira (2009) argue, “[...] it is an inherent tendency of the
capitalist mode of production to submit all branches of activity to its reproduction logic”. For
example, the merchant's profit (the fraction of surplus value appropriated by him from the
industrial capitalist to transform the commodity into capital-money) increases or decreases as
a function of the exploitation of the merchant's work, either absolutely (e.g. accumulation of
function, etc.) or relative (eg e-commerce). And, even though work in the services and
commerce sectors in general does not produce surplus value, they participate in capital
appreciation by shortening its circulation time and stimulating consumption (MARX, 2011;
TEIXEIRA; FREDERICO, 2008). In this sense, Meiksins (1981) argues that “[...] the class
structure of capitalism is determined not by the views of capitalists (however correct they may

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This overlap caused us the problem of how to refer more precisely to the objective-subjective character of
alienated (stranged) capitalist work in the course of the thesis. Thus, believing that estrangement is a word that
tends to refer more to the effects of capitalist alienation in our emotional processes of experience and meaning of
this social relationship, we will use this word more frequently to describe this phenomenon.
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It is clear, as the same Lukács (2013, p. 37) warns, “[...] that one should not schematically exaggerate this
character of a model of work in relation to human action in society; precisely the consideration of the very
important differences shows the essentially ontological affinity, because exactly in these differences it is revealed
that the work can serve as a model to understand the other socioteleological pores, since, in terms of being, it is
its original form”.
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be) about whether a category of worker is productive or not of surplus value, but by the
exploitation of labor by capital”. In addition, competition between capitals, financialization
and the downward trend in the rate of profitability, among other factors, impels capitalists to
save, increase their margins, appropriate workers' income and public funds in various ways
that require, for this, the exploitation of the workforce of bank employees, marketing analysts,
managers, etc. (HARVEY, 2018). The extension of the competitive and productivist logic of
capitalist production can also be observed in the “market utopias”, “fetish values” and “words
or concepts that speak for us in instances of production and social reproduction” updated in
neoliberalism (ALVES, 2008 , p. 95), a subject to which we return later in this chapter.
In these terms, it becomes plausible that in various non-productive sectors (for
capital), “[...] the general exchange of activities and products, which becomes a condition of
life for each particular individual and is their reciprocal connection with others, it appears to
them as something alien, independent, as a thing” (MARX, 2013, p. 80-81). With this, in our
understanding, the estrangement, which arises from the exploitation of the collective worker ,
in the capitalist production and consumption mode , tends to expand from the factory to
commerce, school, hospital and other forms of work, fruition and sociability , even if these
activities do not produce value. In the words of Ranieri (2001), estrangement becomes “the
truth of contemporary reality”.
Finally, concluding this brief detour, we take one more step in our hypothesis that, in
capitalism in its current stage, the force of alienation and its reversal as estrangement also
occur throughout the productive chain of digital machines, as well as in countless and
growing forms of its use or consumption. We return more decisively to this theme in topic 2.3.

2.1.4 The commodity fetish

We have seen so far that the social being has historically been presented ( vorstellen )
objectively and subjectively to nature as an object, to himself and his world as homeostatics
and to his onto-creative capacities as use values belonging to capital. The accumulation of all
this discussion, especially that of the previous subtopics, enables us to reach the central
category of this thesis, the commodity fetish. This is because, in our hypothesis, it is over this
social relationship and its conceptual lenses that the extended mind becomes an automagic
machine.
Marx (2013, p. 204-205) begins by presenting this category by stating that “[...] a
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commodity appears to be, at first glance, an obvious, trivial thing. His analysis results in it
being a very intricate thing, full of metaphysical subtleties and theological squeamishness” –
although, “[...] when it is a use value, there is nothing mysterious about it”. So, he asks
himself, “[...] where does the enigmatic character of the product of labor come from, as soon
as it assumes the commodity form” (MARX, 2013, p. 205)?
Given the subtleties and intricacies of this issue (which we are unable to exhaust here),
we will approach it through four entries: (a) capitalist productive alienation, (b) equivalence
and representation ( vorstellen ) , (c) that of consumption as a means of humanization and,
finally, (d) the fetishization of the extended mind – the latter being, due to its own
specificities, treated in a separate subtopic.

a) Fetishism and capitalist productive alienation

The ability of commodities to acquire their mysterious power of humanization depends

on the combination of mystifications and representations of the concrete productive process
that we previously needed to introduce, especially those of abstract labor and socially
necessary labor time (MARX, 2013). Specifically in these cases, not only is the production
relation broken and strange, but producer and product are equal in becoming, in those terms,
expressions of capital. All this forges a relationship in which (in the mind and social practices
of its agents) the means, the work and the product are detached from their generically
humanizing potential. In this way, power, diversity, accuracy, speed, productivity, etc. of
capitalist industry appear before the worker as alien to him, absent from an adequate field of
meaning and, therefore, from a reasonable explanation. And it is precisely because,
historically, when we project human potentialities and our misunderstanding of the laws of
nature into metaphysical, soulful and fantastic figures and realities, Marx (2013) addresses
misunderstanding and capitalist mystification as a spell.
Capitalist alienation thus described may seem exaggerated and thus disregard the fact
that, throughout its history, workers have always offered resistance, mistrust and even some
factual level of understanding. But, in many cases , this “noise” in the capitalist mode of
representation may not go beyond its pseudo-concrete limits. That is, on the one hand, the
injustice of capitalist exploitation is often noticed by the worker in contrast to what he

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receives in exchange for it and not in relation to the complex of capitalist alienation itself –
except in revolutionary situations, of course. ; and, on the other hand, the very conceptual
ballast of many of these resistances can also derive from the position of the liberal individual,
in formal equality with the capitalist and the State, making him project the measure of his
effectiveness in the so-called civil rights, identity or consumer rights – a topic that we cannot
detail or generalize here. In these cases, he tends to remain trapped and entangled in these
mystifications, even if the estrangement remains a message that he cannot adequately decrypt.
Marx (1978; 2011; 2013) comments that, as a result of the mystification of the
capitalist productive process, reality also escapes us in the misunderstanding and
estrangement of its products, as soon as they assume the social form of merchandise. Despite
their resistance and distrust, the products of work, “logically” and with some acquiescence
from the worker, do not belong to them. More than that, these products – be it a car, the
processors or the software embedded in it – tend, in the relationship between capital and
work, to have greater importance and power than their creator – an error, a defect, a delay can
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cost you the employment and means of its homeostasis . In the same way that the “use
values of capital” are alien, determinative and autonomous in relation to the worker, so are
commodities. In these terms, it is the machines and goods that use and consume the worker.
In this reality that escapes us, what gives this apparent autonomous life to machines
and goods is, in fact, value as the a priori right over all these factors and, still behind it, the
capitalist himself and his super-humanization . It is this impalpable presence
(“sensible-supersensitive”; MARX, 2013) that leads to this whole process, which Marx (2013)
names ghostly objectivity . And that is why, when presenting the commodity fetish, Marx
(2013, p. 206) begins by answering that:

[...] the mysterious character of the commodity form consists, therefore, simply in
the fact that it reflects to men the social characteristics of their own labor as
objective characteristics of the products of labor themselves, as social properties that

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Recently – 2022 – these feelings and their derived practices were called “silent giving up”. According to a
report by The Guardian, she refers to “the meaninglessness of modern work” radicalized in the pandemic, and
which has encouraged workers (especially those with an extended mind) to do “just enough”, “leaving work on
time ” and ignoring fetish values and productivist constraints. Available at:
<https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/06/quiet-quitting-why-doing-the-bare-minimum-at-work-has-go
ne-global>. Accessed on: 25 Sept. 2022.
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In the AMT, when the requester of the microtasks does not approve them, the workers are not paid for this
refused work. According to research by Kalil (2019), 95.2% of American workers, 87.3% of Indians and 55.8%
of Brazilians have already gone through this situation. The AMT alleges that these working conditions
“encourage” workers to adapt to the quality (use value) and socially necessary working time (exchange value) of
the deliveries required by the platform and its requesting customers.
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 are natural to these things. [...]

b) Fetishism, equivalence, representation and realization

Another magical property of the commodity form – which we will deal with here in a
simplified way – is that of measuring, equating and representing. As Marx (2013, p. 96)
explains in the same presentation regarding the commodity fetish:

The equality of human works takes the material form of the equal objectivity
of value of the products of work; the measure of the expenditure of human
labor power by means of its duration takes the form of the magnitude of
value of the products of labor.

Thus, it is partly through this formula of equivalence applied in production – the real
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abstraction: product value = necessary labor time – that surplus labor (unpaid labor) arises.
This extra work , in turn: (1) produces more products , appropriated by the capitalist and
which, in this formulation, (2) both expresses an intangible existence, a subjective dimension,
a must-be (the power over humanization) , (3) as a palpable and quantifiable magnitude that,
together, are surplus value (MARX, 2013). In this way, the surplus value is within the product,
in the sense of being palpable and measurable, either in a percentage of the value of each unit
product, or in a quantity of them, for example carried out in a working day (MARX, 2013).
Finally, in this operation, the product becomes merchandise; at the same time that it is
produced motivated by its use value, it is also manufactured as a “body of value” (MARX,
2013).
As a product of this mathematical formula of equivalence – which fills our
consciousness while displacing needs and use value from it (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978) –, a
commodity acquires the power to compare itself, to serve as a unit of measurement, to equate
itself . – in this way, communicate – both with any other commodities in general, and with the
universal commodity, money (MARX, 2013).
With all these necessary explanations, what we mean is the concrete relationship we
need to establish between us through the production and exchange of our works appears (
vorstellen ) as a relationship between commodities – a practical and representational process
that glosses over, normalizes and normalizes the appropriation without capitalist work

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For those who are not familiar with the labor theory of value, the Marxian theory differs value from price , a
topic that is beyond the scope of this work.
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(MARX, 2013). With this power, the commodity is forged as the social link, the material link
(physical or not, such as possession or service) that structures society (MARX, 2013;
SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; GRESPAN, 2019). The commodity-form, as the term says, is a form,
an appearance, a plastic capacity (GRESPAN, 2019) which, imposed on a use value, makes it
a body of meaning for something else . About this game of social materialities, between the
objective and subjective dimensions matured by capitalism decrypted by Marx (2013; 2017),
Grespan (2019, p. 272, emphasis added) concludes:

To affirm that the “social relation presents itself in a thing” presupposes the
autonomy of the “social form”, which presents itself as the substance ; it assumes
that the very “substance” [the value] only exists through the “form” that can be seen
in it, each time in a different way; it assumes, therefore, that “presentation” defines
fetishism as the power to consubstantiate form .

It is precisely because it is “possessed” or “bewitched” by this “entity” (value as a

social nexus) that the commodity has its “own” energy, a determination that makes it move
automatically (or automagically) between markets, by the hands of workers and capitalists, in
search of their realization, namely, in the acts of exchange, jumping from the body of
merchandise to the body of money, its most finished and autonomous form (MARX, 2013,
2017; GRESPAN, 2019 ). That is why, continuing the quote we have been relying on, Marx
(2013, p. 206) states that “[...] in the relations between producers, in which those social
determinations of their work take effect, they assume the form of a social relationship
between the products of labor.

c) Fetishism as a form of humanization

Exactly why do commodities need to move automagically through the hands of

workers and capitalists? As we have accumulated, we can say that, for capitalist
humanization, it is assumed that work is disqualified and devalued as an activity of generic
ontocreation. Once this link is broken, the need to humanize oneself through use values
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does not cease, but deviates restrictively towards consumption (FURADO; SVARTMAN,

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It may not be too much to clarify that the countless forms of humanization, far beyond negentropy and that
involve suprasensible, elevated, commonplace, contemplative, immersive, ephemeral, symbolic, religious, ludic,
sexual practices, in short, whose realization involves more subjectivity, imagination and feelings, than those
resulting directly from the handling or consumption (in the sense of annihilation or decomposition) of physical
objects depend, ultimately, on systems of physical use values, including energy sources (DANTAS, 2014) . The
most transcendent religious experience, absolute idleness, conversation between friends, solitude in the middle of
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2009). This is where the commodity fetish reaches the point that we have gradually prepared.
We still complement this investigation from the angle of social and digital needs, but
here it is worth stating that, in the flow of all capitalist alienation, in the fetish of merchandise,
the capacity for humanization presents itself ( vorstellen ) outside the being that produces use
values – since neither he recognizes himself in them, nor do they belong to him. In this
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historically particular form of alienation, it is not the product of my work , nor this very
productive capacity that humanizes me, but the commodity – ready-made, preceding me, and
independent of me.
In another work (FURTADO; GONÇALVES, 2022, p. 133), based on Marx,
Sohn-Rethel and Leontiev, we point out how much the advent of specialization and
merchandise predispose this deception already in older social formations. The bottom line
here is that “[...] the central and onto-creative role of the work corresponds, in part, to its
mediative character”. That is, even though humanization is primarily due to work, this:

[...] is, in general, arduous and often their motivation may be absent from the
awareness (and experience) of the activity itself. The consumption of your product
and its humanizing results can be more clearly satisfying and conscious moments –
regardless of the reality of that awareness. Factually, we want cream more than we
want to plant, harvest, graze, or milk. With that, [...] the exchange of goods [...]
could be presented as the axis of the sociometabolic nexus [...]

In capitalism, this predisposition is radicalized and even made its mediation. As a

result of this progressive deception and capitalist radicalization, the commodity becomes the
final mediation of a cycle that is both rigid and fragmented. In it, to a large extent,
humanization begins in the store , be it the Google PlayStore, Amazon or Carrefour. It is
there, in terms of our entire discussion, that humanizing mediations are “born” in the form of
commodities. They are born in the sense that the real flow is scrambled by the capitalist mode
of representation. Namely, I do not produce “[...] for the development of rich individuality,

a forest, all of this, not only cannot exist objectively (and subjectively) but, in many cases, it is not even
necessary, without the infrastructures physical, from the electrical outlet to the wifi signal, from repellent to
incense. For this reason, even though a humanizing event in itself may not be associated or directly related to
physical use values, when we insistently allude to this link, we do not reduce the possibilities of humanization,
nor do we forget some of them. Only, this is a reality that does not escape us. Finally, and above all, these use
values and their usufruct are, to an expansive extent, mediated, lived and given meaning under the commodity
form.
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It is also very obvious, even if it should be noted, that we are not referring here to a direct link of a worker
who consumes what he produces, which in societies where the division of labor tends to be non-existent. We
refer to the disappearance, through the mystifications already discussed, of the reality that, in general, we all
produce for everyone and we all consume what we all produce (MARX, 2013; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978;
LUKÁCS, 2013).
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which is as universal in its production as in its consumption” (MARX, 2011, p. 405); in the
flow of capitalist reality, I lower myself to the commodity of labor power and see it (to put it
strangely) as the only mediation for me to appropriate its cash equivalent, which, in turn, is
the only mediation for that I can enter a store and appropriate and/or enjoy the humanizing
object, the merchandise. Work is sacrifice, money is the starting point and merchandise is the
point of arrival, the very condition for realizing the social being in this reality.
Thus, the commodity fetish at the same time crowns and renews the alienated
humanization. Amputated from its concrete process, the commodity magically appears as a
self-sufficient mediation, with humanizing powers on which we all certainly depend to
become effective.

2.1.5 The fetishization of the extended mind

The presentation of the merchandise fetish allows us to understand how it resignifies

the extended mind. In this subtopic, we seek to decrypt this fetishism in a more conceptual
sense to, throughout the thesis, expose it in some of its concrete manifestations. For this, we
start from the “[...] two conditions of extreme importance for the understanding” (VIEIRA
PINTO, 2005a, p. 196) of machines, namely that,

[...] in the first place, the rationality contained therein, insofar as its successful
operation confirms that it coincides with the requirements of the objective reason
inherent in beings and phenomena; then the role of man, indissolubly associated
with it, as the creator who transfers to it the rational determinations learned from the
world and conceived in thought of the act of imagining it, still being the leader who
will apply it, giving it a destination and collecting the results of mechanized action.

Let us then analyze these conditions. First, Vieira Pinto (2005a) allows us to recognize
the machine as one of the most visible elements of the technique . This, in turn, is initially
defined by the author as all “[...] the mediation in obtaining a conscious human purpose” (p.
249). Therefore, technique is an element of teleological positing, but, as we will see, with a
fundamental detail for the critique of its fetishization: “[...] technique first defines a quality of
the productive material act ; only in the second moment of the cognitive process is it
transferred from the act to the agent” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. 249-250, emphasis added)
as a new abstraction, a productive model validated by practice. In this way, a system of
teleological pores and their machines (from hydraulics and their mill, to unsupervised

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machine learning and their hardware ) become more or less technical depending on their
efficiency and usefulness, which relates the technique to the categories of use value and
valuation. For Lukács (2013, p. 82), these categories refer to the “[...] generalization that a
produced object is only valuable when it can serve correctly and in the most adequate way
possible to satisfy the need”. The technique, then, is originally an adjective , or qualification,
to these systems, although today it is disseminated as an abstract noun. It is precisely in the
context of this substantivation that the praxiological movement of learning-trying-learning the
technique is reified and turned into a fetish (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a).
In connection with the whole discussion made in the first chapter about reification and
its intellectual optical illusions, Vieira Pinto (2005a, p. 255) explains that the simplistic
thinking derived therefrom projects technique as “[...] a substance, a object, to which it is licit
to attribute effects, as if we were facing a 'thing', and even [...] a person”. In that chapter, in
topic 1.6.1, we resumed the works of Vieira Pinto and Ortega y Gasset, which indicate at least
part of the genesis of this simplism. In our early days, in this groping of work in nature and its
laws, our elementary mastery over both generated useful effects that we do not always
understand, as in the case of fire or the medicinal power of plants. Thus, if on the one hand
the technical act of “[...] taking advantage of properties of substances to impose ideal forms
on them” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. 296) later became science, on the other hand, we often
got used to to locate these ideal forms outside of us, either in metaphysics or in the objects
themselves.
These mismatches between objectivity and subjectivity also made it possible to believe
that it was possible to do the opposite. As we have already indicated, fetishism is a way of
“completing” crucial aspects of reality in an attempt to deal with and manipulate its
causalities. For example, according to Vygotsky (1997, p. 123), “[...] to cause damage to a
person, primitive men [sic] [...] try to take a lock of hair or portrait and burn it, assuming that
punish the man”, so that the chain of deleterious thoughts is transferred to the link between
the objects. In the same way, believing they could bring about the rain that would guarantee a
good harvest, they “[...] first blow between their fingers representing the wind, then make the
water fall on the sand and, if it gets wet, it means that the rain can be possible thanks to this

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According to IBM, “[...] unsupervised learning [...] uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and group
unlabeled data sets. These algorithms uncover hidden patterns or clusters of data without the need for human
intervention. Its ability to discover similarities and differences in information makes it an ideal solution for
exploratory data analysis, cross-selling strategies, customer segmentation and image recognition.” Available
from: <https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/unsupervised-learning>. Accessed on: 29 Sept. 2022.
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ceremony” (VIGOTSKI, 1997, p. 123), imagining thus making the nexus of thoughts
material.
In the case of commodity fetishism and the extended mind, they are not mere cognitive
incidents arising from the first realities that escape us (item 1.5.4 of chapter 1) and much less
can they be explained exclusively by “natural” characteristics of hominization, as they want
exaggerating many of the cognitivists criticized in topic 1.5 of the first chapter (as we will see
in more detail in the third chapter).
In this sense, the literature review by journalist Jacob Ward (2022) indicates that “[...]
when humans are subjected to a system they do not understand, they abandon many of their
critical faculties”, attributing sophistication and intelligence to such a system. that he doesn't
have. The doctor in sociology and psychology Sherry Turkle (2011, p. 36) comments that the
emergence of the concept of “desktop”, brought by the first Macintoshes from Apple in 1984,
also introduced “[...] a way of thinking that valued manipulation and surface work” while
ignoring its “underlying mechanism” – what she calls the “Macintosh mystique”. Hassenzahl
(2013, emphasis added), researcher and UX designer , seeing positivity in these phenomena,
names the contents of this surface “[...] post-materialist interactive product [...], therefore, not
so much a tangible object , but a story conveyed or told through an object – a 'material tale' or
'psychosocial narrative'”.
In the review by media theorist Shyam Sundar (2008), the attribution referred to by
Ward (2022) can be verified in experiments in which “[...] computer users psychologically
assume a social presence while interacting with a computer at point of applying social rules in
their interaction, including long-term affiliations such as loyalty” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 12).
This, especially “[...] if there are clues in the interface that represent human characteristics
such as voice, language and personality” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 12).
UX researchers and designers , Makkan, Brosens and Kruger (2020), according to
which the anthropomorphization present in the graphic and voice interfaces “increased their
level of activation and perplexity”, as well as “the user's perception of pleasure and
confidence in the recommendation agent”. In these cases, for the review by Oliver, Raney and
Bryant (2019, p. 358), “[...] users tend to automatically apply rules of human-human
interaction that are established a long time ago in Social Psychology”, de so that “[...] the
tendency to project human motivations and emotions onto non-human agents [...], is the key
to predicting positive user responses towards computer systems [...]”.

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The very developers of anthropomorphizations such as LaMDA ( Language Model
for Dialogue Applications ) – “[...] a family of neural language models [...] specialized for
dialogue” – warn about the risks of people from “[ ...] anthropomorphize and extend social
expectations to non-human agents”, even when aware that they are interacting with an AI
(THOPPILAN et al., 2022). Finally, for Pasquinelli and Joler (2020), terms such as “machine
learning” and “artificial intelligence” contribute to the anthropomorphization of the extended
mind by distorting what it actually does: mapping “[...] a statistical distribution of values
numerical values and draw a mathematical function that, hopefully, comes close to human
understanding” – none other than the technique presented by Vieira Pinto (2005a).
Even though Kosik (2002) did not live long enough to witness the current level of
fetishism of the extended mind, his conclusion about these mystifications are accurate and
current: they are part of and result from the capitalist alienation presented by Marx in the
previous subtopic, where “[. ..] the objectifying and objectified praxis of humanity becomes a
mystical subject in which man seeks a guarantee against chance, irrationality and the fragility
of individual existence” (KOSIK, 2002, p. 240). In this sense, for Vieira Pinto (2005a, p. 255),
“[...] the substantivation of technique is intended to carry out, in bad faith, the adjective of
man”.
As a second-order mediation, the “anthropomorphization of technique” pushes “[...] to
the background the real role played by men [...] in the construction of history”, (VIEIRA
PINTO, 2005a, p. 255 ) while, by acquiring the condition of being fantastic, the technique
assumes the form of an autonomous agent in this same construction. Tettegah and Noble
(2015) reach the same conclusion when they state that “[...] the use of words such as
emotions', 'beliefs', 'autonomy', 'consciousness', 'intelligence' and 'thought''' attributed to
machines, not only distorts its meaning, but also redefines “[...] ultimately what it means to be
human”. For all this, as Antunes (2018, p. 122) warns, this “[...] machinic interactive
involvement can further intensify the estrangement of the work, expanding the modern forms
of reification, further distancing subjectivity from the exercise of a authentic and
self-determined everyday life”.
A case that illustrates this discussion with disturbing precision is the labeling of
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images and texts of extreme violence for OpenAI's ChatGPT generative AI to prevent it

111
LaMDA has recently generated controversy over its fanciful sentience. A good summary of the story can be
read at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMDA>. Accessed on: 14 Oct. 2022.
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Generative AI “allows the creation of original content by learning from existing data”, having “the potential to
increase efficiency and productivity, reduce costs and open up new opportunities for growth”, according to the
116
from giving prejudiced and politically-culturally incorrect answers, as reported by Times
113
magazine . According to the publication, the labeling of content involving “[...] child sexual
abuse, bestiality, murder, suicide, torture, self-mutilation and incest” is not done by
computers, but by humans in impoverished countries (such as Kenya, Uganda and India), who
are paid about $2 an hour for watching and labeling this material. They are hired by the US
outsourced company Sama which, despite presenting itself “as an 'ethical AI' company” and
claiming “to have helped to lift more than 50,000 people out of poverty”, actually uses this
condition to offer low wages. and poor working conditions. According to the Partnership on
AI , a coalition of AI organizations cited in the article (to which OpenAI itself belongs), there
are “[...] efforts to hide the dependence on AI of this large workforce by celebrating the
efficiency gains of AI technology. Out of sight is also out of mind.” Quoted in the article,
Andrew Strait, an expert in AI ethics, concludes that these advances “are impressive, but
ChatGPT and other generative models are not magic – they rely on huge supply chains of
human labor and mined data, much of which is not are attributed and used without consent”.
As we can observe, the substantivation (reification and fetishization) of technique is a
condition and product of the ontological reductionism that culminates in the separation
between intellectual and manual work. The fracture of technique from know-how to knowing
and doing (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a; FÍGARO, 2008) retains it in the former (theories, patents,
etc., created and owned by the intellectual-owner), alienating it from the latter. (the labor of
landless workers driven by technical abstractions). Regardless of the conscience of its agents,
intellectual work (protoform and representative of appropriation without work) cooperates to
justify and carry out this division both in the devaluation of manual work (for the uncultured
and sub-human) and in the entification of technique (fire of Prometheus, industrial patents and
their black boxes).
In the synthesis between this subtopic and the previous one, it becomes clear how the
commodity fetish, the spell that gives autonomy to the products of work and the human
intellect, takes hold and enchants the extended mind; it is the same phenomenon. As with the

text of the consultancy McKinsey & Company – with the detail that it was written by the ChatGPT AI itself.
Thus, it reads databases and starts producing content (text and images, etc.) on demand on any matters internal to
these repositories. ChatGPT is, by the time of completion of this thesis, the generative AI will be developed and
rumored. It is developed by the company OpenIA, financed by major players in the digital market, such as
Microsoft. Source:
<https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/generative-ai-is-here-how-tools-like-chatgpt
-could-change-your-business>. Accessed on: 19 Jan. 2023.
113
Exclusive: OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic. Available
at: < https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ >. Accessed on: 19 Jan. 2023.
117
other products enmeshed in the commodity form, we miss the reality that these machines can
do nothing by themselves and that their effects are products of the subjects and classes that
mediate in them – the subject of the other topics in this chapter. With “a life of their own”,
they are only contemplated by the non-intellectual classes of the division of labor, leaving
them to speculate about their beneficence or evil in each of their “voluntary” gestures – what
Alexa says; what GPT-3 writes; what Tiktok knows about me; the algorithm that punishes or
encourages a food app delivery person; an influencer waiting for likes ; or both depending on
your mental health tips – subjects for the third chapter.
For all this (and as pointed out in note 20), we will always refer in this thesis to the
concrete products of the extended mind as commodities . Far from being an adjective, this
characterization is necessary so that there are no doubts about the contradictory reality of
these objects; it is under this social form that its use value and its humanizing potential are
presented to us, and it is under its fetish that we signify and experience it. The emphasis on
their commodity form, therefore, will always be a reinforcement that their social, concrete
existence differs from the abstractions and attenuations with which the market and part of
science will seek to present them, as mere “products”.

2.2 The labor power commodity

In a way, the previous topic makes the intersection between the first and second
chapters. In it, we saw the particular capitalist presenting himself ( vorstellen ) as the human
universal through the mystification of the capitalist production process. We also introduce the
process in which, as a result and condition of this presentation, concrete work becomes
abstract work and merchandise. We argue that all this construction was necessary for the
presentation of the key category of this thesis, the commodity fetish. In the same way, all this
prepares us for the discussion of another key element of the thesis: the hypothesis that, due to
its needs, contradictions, determinations and its development, capitalism needs to create a
workforce (productive or not) in such an expansive and pragmatic way that he can seek it,
with the help of the fetish of automagic machines, also in the subversion of the activities of
fruition and consumption of this commodity.
This discussion, in turn, continues to require its comparison with general categories of
the labor theory of value under the lens of PSSH. Thus, in order to continue understanding the
labor force commodity and its new and peculiar forms, we have to take a closer look at what
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motivates its sale. Of course, part of the answer was given in the previous topic and refers to
the survival of the dispossessed (or of the owners of such merchandise) and the way this
happened in the history of capitalism. However, that may be part of the answer – a part that
alone would be more “objectivist”. We believe, however, that there is more to understand
about the subsumption process of labor to capital.

2.2.1 Social needs and value of the workforce

If a conventional commodity has its “cost price” equivalent to its “production costs”
(simply put, equipment, energy, raw materials, wages, etc.), how is the value of the workforce
calculated? Marx (2013, p. 317; emphasis added) begins by answering this complex question
by informing us that, “[...] to keep the working individual as such in his normal life condition”
– that is, so that he can dispose of the his commodity labor power –, he needs an “[...] average
amount of means of subsistence” that “in a certain country and in a certain period is
something given”.
But the labor theory of value does not stop there. According to Huws (2014), this
theory is a “knot” that integrally unites the categories of need, work and surplus value.
Therefore, we start from understanding that the need category movement is one of the keys to
understanding the value of the workforce .

a) Subjective dimensions of social needs

Convergently, while for the critical theory of communication needs are “[...] socially
transmitted expressions of experiences of need” (MARCONDES FILHO, 1985), for PSSH
they are a “[...] state of need of the individual that leads to its activation with a view to its
satisfaction, depending on its conditions of existence” (AGUIAR; OZELLA, 2006, p. 228).
This is a process that “[...] will only be completed when the subject means something from the
social world as possible to satisfy his needs” (AGUIAR; OZELLA, 2006, p. 228). It is from
this meaning that “[...] this object/fact/person will be experienced as something that
drives/directs, which motivates the subject to action in order to satisfy his needs” (AGUIAR;
OZELLA, 2006, p. 228, emphasis added). In this sense, Marx (2013, p. 317, emphasis added)
continues, this time, describing the relationship between needs and the value of the workforce,
calling attention to the fact that:
119
 [...] the extent of so-called immediate needs , as well as the mode of their
satisfaction, is itself a historical product and therefore depends to a large extent on
the degree of culture of a country, but it also depends, among others factors, under
what conditions and, consequently, with what customs and demands of life the class
of free workers was formed in a certain place. Unlike other commodities, the
determination of the value of labor power contains a historical and moral element.

114
This explanation opens up two important avenues . On the one hand, it means that
the field of needs of the “working individual as such” is dimensioned biunivocally in an
objective and subjective way 115. That is, the “normal life condition” does not strictly mean the
biological survival of the worker – “immediate needs” –, but it also refers, and to a great
extent, to other social and personal valuations and needs – “the extension” – that minimally
connect the subjects to this idea of normality (HELLER, 1976) – from suits for worship, to
116
Minecraft skins for leisure. These extensions, always depending on some physical support –
from music to musical instruments and smartphones – , refer more to needs in the field of
humanization (art, knowledge, games, hedonism, etc.) than in biology – and, in these terms ,
also have subjective determinations. As social beings create and amplify their own world and,
thus, become autonomous from the systematic point of view of their natural needs, the
extensions of immediate needs gain greater weight, including in the value of the workforce
(HELLER, 1976). On the other hand, if in capitalism – especially in its current stage – needs
are satisfied through the consumption of use values contained in commodities and the value
extracted in surplus value is realized in the exchange of these for their equivalent value in the
money commodity, so to produce value is, in part, to subsume and “produce” needs to
mediate them through goods (MARX, 2013; BASTOS, 2018). Indeed, Marcondes Filho
(1985, p. 29, emphasis added) warns that “[...] there are no artificially created needs. The

114
Actually, two paths and a note. In his book, Heller tries to contextualize the different typifications that Marx
gives to the category of needs in the course of his works – “natural needs”, “social needs”, “'necessary' needs”,
“radical needs”, “extensions of the so-called needs”. immediate needs”, “artificial needs”, etc. This interesting
discussion, complex in the author's own text, is not our objective here. For the sake of simplification, and in
accordance with Heller and Marx, we will consider that social needs comprise both those strict to social life
(literacy, living according to local customs, etc.), and the mediated and social form of satisfaction of biological
needs . We understand that social needs encompass most of the variations (not all) that Marx resorted to in
different works and moments of his theoretical maturation.
115
Certainly, these dimensions are related, expressed and self-determined with relative autonomy, even if the
material production of immediate life is the field of original constitution of forms and products of consciousness
(MARX; ENGELS, 2007), as we will discuss further below.
116
Minecraft is an online game with over 121 million monthly users worldwide. Source: <
https://www.statista.com/statistics/680139/minecraft-active-players-worldwide/ >. Accessed on: 05 Mar. 2022.
Skin “[...] (or skin) is a layer of texture that is placed over hundreds of models in various games , not just
Minecraft”. It is paid and aims to customize the player's avatar. Source: <
https://tecnoblog.net/responde/como-colocar-skins-no-minecraft/ >. Accessed on: 05 Mar. 2022.
120
outputs can be, but the needs have a direct link with life experience and with the relationship
with society and the mechanisms that block aspirations and desires”.
Even so, it is necessary to keep in mind that certain outputs and their blocking
mechanisms experienced as the object/fact/person that motivate the action of satisfying needs
are organized by the commodity-form and have, in some way, their field of meaning mediated
by reification, pseudoconcreticity and the fetish of the commodity. It is this dialectic that
interests us. The watch has become a productive need, but a gold watch is a need of social
117
discrimination (FURTADO, 1983), while a smartwatch can correspond to a vital need
(NEEF, 2019). And it is not uncommon for workers to tell us “I can't live without a car”, “I'm
nobody without makeup”, or that watching series via streaming in accelerated mode “is the
only way I have to take care of what is being released. And I don't want to get off topic. It is a
social issue” 118.
This discussion is important so that a moral (or moralist) perspective of human needs
under capitalism does not divert our attention from the processes that create certain use values
that, in a given place and time, make up the normal conditions of life for which we are willing
to live. to hand over fractions of the value of our labor power. This, however, does not mean
that we should not ask ourselves about the regularities of these processes in capitalism, which
could be objectively observed both in the posited causalities that trigger them, and in those
that arise in and from the process of satisfaction. For Enzensberger (1970, p. 171), “[...] the
force of attraction of mass consumption is not based on the imposition of false needs, but on
the falsification and exploitation of very real and legitimate needs”. With that, continues the
author, we should not “[...] denounce these needs, but take them seriously, research them and
make them politically productive” (ENZENSBERGER, 1970, p. 171).
Thus, the criticism we intend to make here is not about the legality of certain needs,
but how life experience and the blocks to potentialities placed in them co-produce them.
Further, this makes us more aware of the reasons that make us increasingly signify automagic

117
According to Samsung, smartwatch “[...] is a portable device worn on the wrist that supports applications and
works as an extension of your cell phone in some cases. Depending on the brand and model, they have numerous
functions that can have a great impact on everyday life”. For example, “[...] many people use their smartwatches
to monitor their health or to manage emails, texts and phone calls without needing to carry their cell phones”.
Available from: <https://www.samsung.com/uk/mobile-phone-buying-guide/what-does-a-smartwatch-do/>.
Accessed on: 03 Oct. 2022.
118
TAB UOL (2019). “Accelerated video is the new craze for marathoning in an efficiency society”. Available at:
<https://tab.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2019/11/19/videos-acelerados-sao-nova-moda-em-sociedade-da-
eficiencia.htm?cmpid=copiaecola> . Accessed on: 03 Feb. 2022.
121
machines as objects of our needs, how their exchange value is formed and presented, as well
as how these exchanges occur and how we consume their use value.

b) Needs and production

It is in search of these regularities that Heller (1976) proposes a theory of needs based
on Marx – and together with which we add other authors and related theories. As the topic is
extensive, we will summarize some useful points for our study. First, Heller (1976) turns to
the links and distinctions of human needs in relation to natural determinations. She warns us
that “[...] the naturalist interpretation of needs presupposes the naturalist interpretation of use
value” (HELLER, 1976, p. 35). This interpretation, as we saw in the first chapter, leads us
down misleading and ontonegative paths. At least in part, we refer to the confusions, more or
less intentional and very present in the interpretations of subjectivity made by naturalistic
materialism, that social needs are, ultimately, a cultural “skin” for our determinately “animal”
behavior 119.
For the social being, these bonds and distinctions are of another order, from which we
highlight two points. On the one hand, some human needs keep us eternally linked to organic
and inorganic determinations, but, in this case, their satisfaction is more systematized and
mediated (MARX, 2004; 2013). This is because the social being can only satisfy natural
needs “[...] by necessarily creating, in the course of his productive activity, a complex
hierarchy of non-physical needs, which thus become equally necessary conditions for the
satisfaction of his original physical needs. ” (MÉSZÁROS, 2016, p. 79). This makes the need
and its object “moments”, “sides” of the same set, that is, the object synthesizes both
satisfaction and the human-social way of realizing it (HELLER, 1976). On the other hand,
120
different from what can be considered in common sense (and as a striking feature of the

119
One of the classic examples of this fallacy is MacLean's theory of the reptilian brain, according to which,
roughly speaking, our brain is largely governed by survival instincts triggered by its limbic and reptilian systems.
For a brief recap of the emergence, falsification and permanence of this theory (mainly in marketing narratives),
see “ A theory abandoned but still compelling ” (2008). Available from:
<https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/a-theory-abandoned-but-still-compelling/>.
Accessed on: 03 Mar. 2022.
120
And partly from the social sciences. For example, the core of Zuboff's critique of big tech that made her create
the problematic idea of “surveillance capitalism” comes from the opposite conclusion to ours. It starts from
Durkheim's (2019) ideas about the growing social division of labor observed in his time. For this author, “if we
specialize, it is not to produce more, but to enable us to live in the new conditions of existence that were made
for us. ” (p. 275, emphasis added). As can be seen, Durkheim seems to give up historicity and the fact that the
“conditions of existence” were causalities posed by us – more specifically by the capitalist mode of production –
and not a causality given “for us”. When trying to develop Durkheim's reasoning, Zuboff incurs in tautologies
122
suppression of natural needs), “[...] it is production that creates new needs” (HELLER, 1976,
p. 40), or still, “[...] production is immediately consumption and consumption is immediately
production” (MARX, 2011, p. 64). This can be better understood when we avoid believing in
the isolated and autonomous individual in the world, so that the need-activity relationship is
no longer reduced to “I was hungry and that's why I fried eggs”.
Needs and their forms of satisfaction arise from social life, something that pure
individuality cannot handle. Social production, as a systematic control over needs (eg,
plumbing for the permanent supply of water), creates new issues (eg, the ceramics industry,
hydraulic engineering and its division of labor, etc.). Therefore, “[...] consumption also
mediates production by creating for products the subject for which they are produced”, and
“[...] it is not only the object of consumption that is produced by production, but also the
mode of consumption, not only objectively, but also subjectively” (MARX, 2011, p. 64).

c) Needs and externalization

So, freed from beliefs about the cultural “skin” of natural needs, we can turn to the
ontological dimensions and consequences of the activity-need-activity system (LEONTIEV,
1978) – the second point to highlight in the theory of needs. As we saw in the first topic of
this chapter, for Marx “[...] alienation is not some kind of long-standing 'distortion' of the
human species or nature; the essence of man develops within alienation itself, and this creates
the possibility of realization of man 'rich in needs'” (HELLER, 1976, p. 46). The more we
alienate our being, externalizing it in objectivations that are “lost” from us, starting to
compose the social texture, the richer, at least in potential, the human race becomes. Having
become disentangled from the immediate struggle for survival, “[...] the rich man is
simultaneously the man lacking a totality of the human manifestation of life” (MARX, 2004,
p. 112), which is expressed in the abundance of use values created through universal
exchange. Thus, “[...] the need as a value category is nothing more than the need for this
wealth” (HELLER, 1976, p. 38).
From this, HELLER (1976) refers to the need for externalization, emphasizing their
heterogeneous qualities , as it is precisely as such that they diversify our field of possibilities,

when he states that such conditions are originated by the “invisible causal power” that, “ultimately, [is]
civilization itself”. We return to this and other criticisms of the concept of surveillance capitalism later in this
chapter.
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enriching us. A contrary example (homogeneous qualities) “[...] can be observed in the
algorithms of Facebook, Google, Amazon and the like which, using the euphemism of
'relevant content', show us only variations of what we already consume” (GONÇALVES;
FURTADO , 2021a, p. 92-93) – given that this is the objective, as already discussed in the
fourth topic of the first chapter. The same can be observed on Netflix and Spotify, “[...] where
films and music are produced guided by the 'tastes' manifested in the past by users”
(GONÇALVES; 121FURTADO, 2021a, p. 93).
Before this debate can sound somewhat romantic, seeming to denote that we do not
have more trivial needs, contemplative moments or without perceived needs and ambitions,
we do not intend to imprison human life to the moments described here positively as
alienation. We do want to point out that these are decisive, intrinsic and structuring moments
for humanity and that, therefore, they are the source of its main conflicts and the focus of our
interest in this topic. We also emphasize these capabilities and possibilities for two more
reasons. First, so that we can precisely contrast them with the forms that alienation takes in
capitalism, as discussed in the first topic of this chapter. Second, so that the criticism of the
strange way in which automagic machines emerge as objects of necessity is not interpreted
(and does not become) moral or moralistic.

d) Needs and estrangement

To the extent that producing value is, in part, subsuming needs to mediate them
through commodities, what Heller (1976) calls “artificial needs” would approach the
“artificial outputs” referred to by Marcondes Filho (1985). That is, “[...] those disconnected
needs of both the individual-society-nature metabolism and the 'human vital externalization'”
(GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 93). Their artificial or projected character would be
due to being external to the producer-consumer and the attempt to retain him in a circle of
expectations and possibilities that would both reaffirm his alienation and would be centrally
determined by the valorization of value through the production and consumption of goods. In
this sense, it is worth confronting two antagonistic quotes, current and very distant in time,
according to which the estrangement experienced in social needs is posited as negativity and

121
About Netflix, see: <https://bit.ly/3iW5M41>. About Spotify, see: <https://bit.ly/3ptQNAo>. Hits on: 20 Nov.
2020.
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as positivity. Marcondes Filho (1985, p. 180, emphasis added) summarizes his position as
follows:

In situations where it is not brutal violence that drives men continually to work for
others, this is only possible if one natural force is directed against another natural
force. The apparently dominated sensuality is used as salary-accommodation. This
is because not only are the great objectives of humanity not actually encompassed by
capitalism and need, therefore, to be continually recovered through appearances, but
not all the pulsive individual objectives either.

In turn, according to Nir Eyal (2014, p. 19, emphasis added), for a digital product to be
successful,

[...] the user must perceive a high degree of usefulness, either to obtain pleasure or
to avoid pain. [...] The desire to be entertained can be thought of as the need to
satisfy boredom. [...] In reality, the experience we are talking about is more like an
itch , a sensation that manifests itself in the mind and causes discomfort until it is
satisfied. Habit-forming products exist simply to provide some type of relief. [...]
Users who find a product that relieves pain will form strong, positive associations
with the product over time. (NIR EYAL, 2014, p. 27)

The discussion above indicates that, in estrangement, such artificial outputs (in
general, in the form of goods), as well as “their rules of orientation and realization”
(habituation), could actually result in frustrations and in the “sharpness of feelings”.
shortcomings” (MARCONDES FILHO, 1985, p. 122) – since they will only be “scratched”;
objects and mechanisms for satisfying needs have lost the possibility of “use and immediate
enjoyment” (HELLER, 1976, p. 52); possession implies its insatiability as a need (op. cit.);
she would become indifferent to the concrete qualities of the object (HELLER, 1976); “what I
have does not 'develop' any new and heterogeneous type of need in me, but, on the contrary,
mutilates them” (HELLER, 1976, p. 52); and, with that, “[...] the needs of heterogeneous
qualities cannot develop, men's pleasures remain 'brute' and 'brutal', and some of their needs
become 'fixed'” (p. 97 ). And again, before these possibilities seem a bit far-fetched, we can
resort, for example, to the recent revelations of the so-called Facebook Files 122. They expose
the degree of awareness that the company Meta has about its deleterious character for the

122
Facebook Files are a collection of tens of thousands of pages of internal files from its parent company (Meta)
that were collected by whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, and that were first
published by The Washington Post . Available at:
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039>. Accessed on: 04 Mar. 2022. We return to this
example in the third chapter, in the midst of the continuity of the debate between the points of view illustrated by
Marcondes Filho, Heller and Nir Eyal.
125
socio-political stability in its markets and for the mental health of its users, a subject deepened
in the third chapter.
Finally, this discussion also serves to highlight the contradictory situation in which it
would matter little if a critical analysis identified a need as “artificial” if, implicated in
estrangement and in the commodity form and its fetish, it started to be experienced by the
producer-consumer as “necessary” or “social”. It is also important so that we can move on to
the next subtopic about the exchange between capital and labor, more aware of its objective
and subjective determinations.
With all this, we can conclude “[...] that if something provokes a state of need in the
worker to the point of determining his normal condition of life (regardless of his awareness
and nature of this need), and if its satisfaction is signified in the form of the use value of a
commodity” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 183), this may be part of the set of items
that express the value of the average workforce in a given capitalist socio-historical context –
123
be it a data package , supermatches or a streaming subscription . Finally, “[...] under
fetishism, it is the commodities that inform us about what we are able to sell our limited labor
power commodity for” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 183).

2.2.2 Variable capital in the game of mirrors between commodities

Based on the previous discussion, we can look at the movement between capitalist
production and consumption and infer that every time a worker, motivated by his needs, “[...]
takes possession of the use value of any commodity, he could only to do so on condition that
he exchanges it for a fraction of the value of his commodity labor power which he has
succeeded in selling. ” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 183). In other words, “[...] as
many times as the worker has the possibility to offer his workforce motivated by his needs, he
will” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 183). All this, regardless of the worker's degree
of awareness about the fullness of these relationships, as we saw in the seventh topic of the
first chapter and in subtopics 2.1.2 and 2.1.4 of this chapter.
Thus, in short, these would be the motivations and initial conditions for “free
individuals” to perform the simple exchange (at least in appearance) of goods among

123
Supermatch is the feature available on the dating app Happn (and with other names and variations on its
competitors) where a user pays for his attraction to another user (the match ) to be necessarily viewed by him –
since, otherwise, a person desired would only come to know of the interest of the other if it manifested the
reciprocal interest.
126
themselves – the owner of the labor power commodity needs to exchange it for the
commodities necessary for his normal condition of life, while the capitalist needs work to
produce and accumulate value. But this cycle of exchanges can also be mirrored in yet
another reading: “[...] every time value is realized, it will do so through the chain of
mediations in which a part of itself will be advanced as variable-capital to exchange it for
labor power” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 183-184).
In book 1 of Capital, Marx (2013) informs us that the social materiality of value is
expressed mainly from two poles: its relative and equivalent forms. To expose his discovery,
the author uses something like a mirror game metaphor, in which a product can only assume
the “objectivity of value” of a commodity if it can exist as such in relation to other
commodity-objects; if you have the ability to project onto them and have what both have in
common reflected in you: value as an inverted reflection of work. Furthermore, in order to
achieve the exchange, the “image” reflected in this mirroring needs to be identical. That is,
the abstract labor time contained in the portions of commodities traded among themselves
must be the same so that their exchange values are equivalent.
In still other passages, Marx (2013) investigates how, in the production process, live
work enters into this game of mirrors when it is re-signified as abstract work. “Thus reflected,
it can then be mirrored as a commodity and, with that, can be exchanged for its equivalent, its
reflection between the mirrors, the portion of capital advanced for this purpose, the variable
capital” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 184).
This discussion is important because the trap of the game of mirrors is that we take
one of its many reflections as a real object. By this we mean that the function of
variable-capital in the transformation of living labor into capitalist use value is not merely,
fixed and, finally, hiring the worker for working days in exchange for wages. The primary
causality of a given capital-variable is to represent ( vorstellen ), in the game of mirrors of
value, the respective fraction equivalent to it of the useful goods capable of “[...] keeping the
individual worker as such in his normal condition of life” (MARX, 2013, p. 317) . Variable
capital, commodity value, labor power, wage form, etc. “[...] are, in this context, different
mirroring, socio-abstract forms by which the normal condition of life is reduced to a given
portion of merchandise” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 185). Thus, in the inverted
reading referred to above, it is through this game of mirrors that the aforementioned
conditions and motivations are posed so that “free individuals” carry out the “simple
exchange” between capital and labor.
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 When these categories of capitalist alienated labor are thus replaced – in accordance
with Marx (2013) – as mirrors that intervene and formalize the normal condition of life as
variable capital, one can avoid the mistake of only understanding the exchange between
capital and work when variable capital assumes the form of wages in the form of money. In
this misconception, or objectivist simplification, one loses sight of the fact that this exchange
is, above all, another mystification from which (in addition to subsuming work itself) capital
presents itself ( vorstellen ) as a totalizing social relation . It is a mirror that imprisons the
original image (the needs, acts and products of humanization), reflecting it, in its real
quantitative abstractions, as capital. When humanization lacks us (needs and their use values),
what we see, among its fetishistic reflections, are merchandise. Finally, as in other human
exteriorizations, variable capital is an action, a force, one of the necessary mediations where
capital itself needs to alienate a part of itself to carry out the transformations indispensable to
its effectiveness.
In a long and heterogeneous capitalist development – until the current and increasing
prominence of the extended mind – this specific type of exchange/subsumption – by journey
or piece, by job or “entrepreneurship”, etc. – took on and restricted itself to the form of wages
based on: the organic composition of capital and its type of machinery; of the types of goods
produced and demanded; the division, control and working time (of production and
circulation); the competitively necessary rates of surplus value, exploration and accumulation;
and, of course, class struggle (MARX, 2013) – including laws, political forces and their
revolutions and counterrevolutions among many other forms. In capitalist production, this set
determines the way in which work needs to be appropriated and applied – how long and how
often; type of cooperation and activities, their expenditure and wear of energy, more or less
manual and mental; quality of the relationship between activity and consciousness; and its
value as a reflection of living conditions (its exchange value itself).
This reality has been revolutionized since the structural crisis of capital and its
financialization, in combination with telecommunications, electronic miniaturization, AI and
big data , have reshaped production, exchanges (bringing shopping malls into our pockets)
and sociability itself (SRNICEK, 2017; DANTAS, 2019; GONÇALVES; FURTADO 2021a;
GONÇALVES; FURTADO 2021b).
For all these reasons, that social need, “[...] as well as the mode of its satisfaction, is
itself a historical product” (MARX, 2013, p. 317), should not also mean a permanent
movement of mirroring between the “direct connection with life experience” (MARCONDES
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FILHO, 1985, p. 29), its normal conditions and variable capital, so that it can carry out its
determinations? On the one hand, of course, Marx (2011, p. 352) repeatedly describes that in
the exchange between capital and labor, the worker obtains “[...] the equivalent in the form of
money”. However, a plastered reading of these passages “[...] can lose sight of both their
totality and the dominion over reality that Marxian works can provide us, because money (in
this context and in the continuity of this quote) is the ' form of universal wealth', is the
reflection-form, and not the real object of the appropriation in question” (GONÇALVES;
FURTADO, 2021a, p. 200).
Finally, with this discussion, we take another step in the construction of our
hypotheses about the strange work of the user of the extended mind. We saw in item “a” of
subtopic 2.1.2 of this chapter that the creation of the workforce, regardless of its forms, is a
crucial need for capitalist determinations and contradictions . We have also seen that, in the
society of commodities, this creation and its subsumption start from the mystifications of
capital to the false simple exchange between capital and labor. We also indicate (and we will
see later) that the mirrorings between social needs, variable capital and abstract labor can also
be found in surprising and specific (but very comprehensive) ways in automagic machines.
As we will continue to build, all of this would become possible from an opaque
combination between propositions of normal living conditions (needs/outputs), their
respective use values (digital goods) and certain computational and interface resources (ways
of use and satisfaction , which we deepen in the fourth topic of this chapter and in the third
chapter). In this combination, the way in which the product or service – and, to some extent,
its demand – is idealized and realized, seeks to organize the activity of its consumption so that
it also occurs as an activity that produces certain objects previously idealized and that have
value of use for capitalist agents – digital data (SADOWSKI, 2019; DANTAS, 2014, 2019;
ZUBOFF, 2021; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b).

2.2.3 Variable capital, prosumption and the false simple exchange

For this strange hypothesis to become valid, however, the aforementioned combination
(needs, merchandise and modes of satisfaction) must express and mediate the false simple
exchange between capital and labor (MARX, 2011). In turn, for us to be able to recognize
both this exchange here and its respective variable capital, it is necessary first, of course, to
locate the user's work and its origins, a task that begins here and concludes spirally in topic
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2.3.4, With that, we enter definitively and objectively into the materialities of automagic
machines.

a) Origins and purposes of prosumption

Alvin Toffler (1980) coined , in the 1980s, the heterogeneous term prosumers – the
contraction of the English words producers and consumers – for consumers who, in some
way, participate in the production of the use value they consume – which happened especially
in the growing forms of self-service, such as snack bars, banks, etc. Over time, however, the
market has extended the variety of old and new activities that are now included in
prosumption (VARGO; LUSCH, 2004). For companies, the idea of co-creation was
generalizing , as well as that production and consumption should be placed in a perspective of
continuous process (VARGO; LUSCH, 2004). Toffler and many other prosumption
enthusiasts also described it as the consumer's liberation from the monoforms of mass
industry.
According to Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) and Schouten and McAlexander (1995),
when prosumers co -create products that are consumed by third parties, they feel like they are
collaborating with their community, including in a distinctive and reputational way. In this
sense, Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010, p. 21) believe that “[...] it is difficult to think of prosumers
as exploited in the same way as producers” as “a Marxist might argue”. For these authors, this
idea “[...] is contradicted [...] by the fact that prosumers seem to like, even love, what they are
doing and are willing to dedicate long hours to it without receiving anything” (RITZER;
JURGENSON, 2010, p. 21-22). Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) and Zwick et. al. (2008),
starting from opposing positions, agree that this engagement is a great asset for companies, as
consumers have the ability to define preferences and utilities that their marketing departments
are incapable of defining. And, much more frankly, Shapiro and Varian (1999, p. 35) – the
latter, soon afterwards hired as Chief Economist at Google – state that the strategy “should be
bribing” and “inducing” “consumers to provide marketers the information they want.
Despite these narratives, according to Comor (2011, p. 312), “[...] the historical
context for the recent rise of the prosumer [...] stems from the collapse of Fordism in the
1970s and the subsequent rise of neoliberalism and the political-economic turn [...] towards
ICTs as decisive economic resources”. Still for the author, the “[...] increasingly disordered
promotional environment, together with the growth of a cynical and ad-avoiding public”,
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forces these capitals to create new forms of “relationship” with their consumers (COMOR,
2011, p. 313). However, despite its “emancipations”, prosumption keeps consumption
organized and parameterized by the fetish of the commodity, for example, when this
consumption is driven by waiting for likes on social networks (COMOR, 2011).
However, until now the prosumer is generically presented as “[...] a mere facilitator
and partner” (ZWICK et. al., 2008, p. 173) of marketing companies for the co-creation,
through their insights, of goods more salable to other customers. However, in addition,
corporations rely on new technologies of engagement and control through socially
cooperative networks, in which the “[...] immaterial work of consumers to manufacture trust,
affection and shared meanings” becomes massively appropriated by them. (ZWICK et. al.,
2008, p. 178). For this, as Morozov (2018) points out,

The data-centric model of Silicon Valley capitalism seeks to convert every aspect of
our everyday existence – what used to be our only respite from the vagaries of work
and market anxieties – into a productive asset. This is done not only by blurring the
distinction between work and non-work, but also by making us tacitly accept the
idea that our reputation is a work in progress – something we could and should
improve 24/7. Therefore, everything turns into a productive asset: our relationships,
our family life, our vacations, our sleep (MOROZOV, 2018, p. 33)

design teacher and “guru” Rex Hartson and Google UX lead Pardha Pyla suggest that
this activity of sharing, by becoming autonomous from its own purpose, it becomes a
“workflow” that “[...] is the glue that unites the different subsystems within the ecology” of
the platforms (HARTSON; PYLA, 2013, p. 20 ). In a way, this picture can approximate the
transformations in the realization of relative surplus value due to the high productivity of
digital machinery, which makes Oliveira (2015, p. 89) point out the new “[...] exotic forms
where the work appears as fun, entertainment, community between workers and consumers”.
With that, Zwick et. al. (2008, p. 167) conclude that co-creation would be “[...] a set of
organizational strategies and discursive procedures aimed at the reconfiguration of social
relations of production” capable of capturing the know-how of consumers, making them
combined creative workforce.
Continuing on, Valente (2019, p. 342) states that the design of platforms gives
increasingly passive contours to the possibilities for user interaction, either through deciding
what appears in their news feed , or by providing and fixing the modalities of this interaction,
in what he calls the “private regulation of connected experience”. In the same sense, for
Gerlitz and Reider (2018), corporations “grammatize”, that is, they format the actions of
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prosumers through pre-defined resources ( tweets , retweets , replies , mentions , hashtags ,
etc.). Thus, companies restrict and shape users' expressions to the point of making feasible the
"[...] sequenced data capture, directly inscribing user activities in very formalized units"
(GERLITZ; REIDER, 2018, p. 531) . With this grammar, the platforms seek to standardize
“[...] the possible actions and enable their storage and exchange in the logic of datatification,
in addition to inducing algorithmic mediations based on engagement metrics” (D'ANDRÉA,
2020, p. 50) . In this competitive context of datifiable standardization, Humphreys and
Grayson (2008, p. 5-6) conclude that prosumers “ [...] not only add value at the end of the
process; they are 'a working resource' [...], 'a collaborative partner who co-creates value with
the company'”. Finally, as explained by Cava (2018, p. 747), “[...] the modern subsumption of
the subjective workforce has its reverse in the intensification of the productive dimension of
the final consumer”. In these terms, as we will continue to argue, prosumption thus integrates
a set of phenomena that we will now call work dilution due to the diversification and
intensification of consumption practices .

b) Prosumption information work

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In many cases , this process begins when individuals and groups are introduced to a
“free” product or service (Gmail, Google Drive, Facebook, TikTok, Zoom, among countless
others) that promises to satisfy needs, whether they are perceived or not, whether old or
proposed by the merchandise itself. It so happens that, according to cognitive and
computational sciences, the nature of these needs – to communicate, socialize, take care of
health, etc. –, along with other conditions of this subject – income, color, profession, etc. –
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and its context – location, beliefs, etc. –, among countless other sources , may also mirror
124
According to the website businessofapps.com there are about 2.56 million applications available worldwide
accessible through the Apple Store or Google Play Store. Available from:
<https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-statistics/>. Accessed on: 09 Mar. 2022. According to statista.com ,
in December 2021, 97% of Google Play Store apps were free. Available from:
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/266211/distribution-of-free-and-paid-android-apps/>. Accessed on: 09 Mar.
2022 .
125
For example, Facebook claims to be able to obtain: information and content that you provide; data with special
protections; networks and connections; the type of use of the “Facebook Products”; transactions carried out on
them; “communications and information that others provide about you”; information from devices such as
“computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices,” including “their operating systems,
hardware and software versions, battery level, signal strength, available storage space, browser type, names and
file and application types, and plugins ”; “operations and behaviors performed” on them, such as cursor
movements; your Bluetooth identifiers and signals, “nearby Wi-Fi hotspots, beacons , and cell towers”; data
from the settings of those devices “such as access to your GPS location, camera or photos”; “your mobile
operator or internet service provider, language, time zone, mobile number, IP address, connection speed”; and
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other non-explicit characteristics of theirs, such as consumption potential and individual and
sociopolitical predispositions (LAZER et. al, 2009; GEORGE; HAAS; PENTLAND, 2014 ;
CUKIER ; MAYER-SCHOENBERGER, 2013; KOSINSKI; STILLWELL; GRAEPEL, 2013;
MATZ et al., 2017; O'NEIL, 2020). This information has become competitively vital for
capitalist agents (from the baker to the sovereign wealth fund) that fight among themselves to
value their investments, both through the supply of goods and political-cultural attitudes, and
the shortening of their production and circulation time ( SHAPIRO; VARIAN, 1999;
DANTAS, 2006; 2019 ; SCHMIDT; COHEN, 201 3 ; SIEGEL, 2018 ).
However, this mirroring in refined and minimally reliable data, which produce
knowledge as a capital appreciation factor (DANTAS, 2006), is not immediately available .
This information needs to be produced – and produced by people (DANTAS, 2011, 2012,
2014; SRNICEK, 2017; SADOWSKI, 2019) 126.
As discussed in the third chapter, this is possible because the consumption activity of
those use values implies the codification of those dimensions and intentions in what
Thompson (1998) calls symbolic forms – which in our time can be files, memes, likes , GIFs,
stories , or WhatsApp audios among many other forms of signals . And when users do not
create signals more directly and consciously, the technology itself does so by design of its
developer – through sensors and the like to read biological, facial, kinetic signals, among
many others, as long as the device is next to or close to the device. user's body, just logged
into their account, or even by trackers spread across the internet, physical environments and
even utensils (the so-called internet of things).
Unlike what happens under the different forms of controlled observation of
conventional marketing, this immense variety of data – which in this research we call
127
existential data – can only be objectified when these devices mediate the “direct link with
the life experience” of these individuals ( MARCONDES FILHO, 1985). So, in possession of
these data (the symbolic forms) and through their salaried work and their extended mind, the
owners of these technologies seek to decode them to the point of interpreting those
dimensions and intentions – producing new data and, with them, knowledge as capital
cookie data . In addition, “advertisers, app developers and publishers [...] provide information about your
activities outside of Facebook”, and even whether or not you have “an account or whether you are connected to
Facebook” (FACEBOOK, 2020) .
126
In the past, this was done in precarious ways, compared to the possibilities of producing data and crossing
them through the extended mind – such as focus groups, opinion polls, observation polls, among others still in
use. These forms are not the subject of our debate. For more information, see Wu (2017).
127
We call existential data the set of psychometric, demographic, biological, financial data among many others
that, combined, have the ability to multidimension our individuality.
133
appreciation factor (DANTAS, 1996; FUCHS, 2013; SRNICEK, 2017). As digital health
researcher Debora Lupton (2014, p. 42) explains,

Bodies and identities are fragmented into a series of discrete components like digital
data and reassembled through this reconfiguration process. This agency then
becomes the target of various forms of intervention: increased security measures,
increases or decreases in social security payments, medical therapies, educational
interventions, etc.

For this reason, at least in the aforementioned circumstances, these data do not seem to
128
be produced by spoliation . It is necessary to provide a use value with which to live this
experiential relationship through this automagic mediation so that these new data emerge as
their representations and as components of patterns and probabilities (BRUNO, 2013;
GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b). In turn, for this to
happen, it is necessary, at first glance, for these companies to propose a “simple exchange”
between rights of use over certain useful objects – the right to enjoy someone else’s
intellectual property (software) in exchange for the enjoyment of another (the data produced
by users) (COSIO, 2017). And, once again, before this seems a bit imaginative, as Varian
(2014) himself clarifies, “[...] why am I willing to share all this private information? Because I
get something in return.”
Thus, for example, even the physical activity of a trivial run around a square, equipped
129
with a signal provided by a data operator, a smartwatch or a Samsung smartphone ,
130
listening to your favorite songs on Spotify , in these terms, is put concurrently as a
131
previously idealized activity that produces said data (SRNICEK, 2017) in an obscure
128
We are using the term dispossession here based on Harvey's definition (2004, p. 124-125) as “[...] the release
of a set of assets (including labor) at a very low cost (and, in some cases, zero). Over-accumulated capital can
seize hold of these assets and immediately put them to profitable use.” For Seto (2020, p. 158), the spoliation of
digital data originating from users would occur “[...] violently through legal coercion and the violation and
destruction of rights”. From these authors, we understand that this type of spoliation would occur when data
related to users are obtained in a coerced manner and without any exchange relationship between goods
(whether in the form of objects, services, work or money). As we have argued, if there is exchange (given by the
usufruct of use values of someone else's property), even if it is not perceived in that way, there is no spoliation.
This debate will continue to become clearer as this topic progresses.
129
SAMSUNG (2021): “Einstein and Samsung launch the Einstein Pulse app and start a study to assess how
technology contributes to changes in lifestyle”. Available at: < https://bit.ly/3AGf398 >. Accessed on: 20 Dec.
2021.
130
According to Spotify, the company has 252 million accounts in the free plan in 2022. Available at:
<https://investors.spotify.com/financials/press-release-details/2022/Spotify-Technology-SA-Announces-Financia
l-Results-for-First-Quarter-2022/default.aspx>. Accessed on: 03 Oct. 2022.
131
According to Lambiotte and Kosinski (2014), the latter responsible for creating the algorithms that led to the
Cambridge Analytics scandal, “physical states such as running or walking can be inferred from accelerometer
data; collocation with other devices can be detected using Bluetooth; geolocation can be established using WiFi,
Global Positioning System (GPS) or Global System for Mobile (GSM) triangulation”.
134
exchange relationship (HARTZOG, 2011; FRISCHMANN; SELINGER, 2016; COSIO, 2017
) . Certainly, the observation that, in these activities, the productive action of data by the user
is very indirect and non-semantic (endowed with social self-expression) seems absolutely
legitimate to us, so that it would be difficult to characterize it as work. Our answer is that, in
many of these cases – those that interest us –, due to the costs and benefits of making these
commodity-services available “free of charge” or at very low prices, without the possibility of
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producing and privately appropriating these data, we believe that probably these automagic
machines would not be accompanying us in this race in the square. And we insist that the user
is not fully aware that this process does not change its objective result 133.
These examples of extended mind (and their owners), experienced as automagic
machines with free benefits, have the technological capacity to intervene between individuals
and their normal life conditions; have the ability to suggest and mediate them in an
increasingly monopolistic way. With that, they (and they) have the capacity to simultaneously
manage and offer to billions of individuals a disguised and false simple exchange, in which
they only need to consent, in a more or less free and enlightened way, to the appropriation of
the data produced in the acts of consumption of these use values, as we will see in more detail
below.

c) Prosumption and capitalist alienation

Starting from Marx (2011, p. 352), we could then ask ourselves if for the user, “[...]
what is essential is that the purpose of the exchange [...] is the immediate object of the need,
not the exchange value as such”. It seems to us that, with automagic machines, it is now the
user, turned prosumer , “[...] he finds himself in this exchange as an equal to the capitalist, [...]
at least according to appearance” (MARX , 2011, p. 352). However, in the process presented
as a simple exchange – license to capture human activity in the form of data in exchange for
satisfying a need –, the capitalist could, in certain situations, be receiving “[...] the work itself,
the work as an activity that adds value, as productive work” (p. 352). In these terms, “[...] in
reality, this equality is already disfigured by the fact that [...]” (p. 352) the user-prosumer
relationship “ [...] with the capitalist, as a value of use [...] is presupposed for this apparently
132
And considering the discussion about concrete work made in subtopic 1.2 of this chapter.
133
Sometimes more than 90% of users do not read the contract, nor do they know what exchange they are
committing to, even though they legally consent to it. For more information, see Bakos et al (2009),
Marotta-Wurgler (2011).
135
simple exchange” (p. 352). The prosumer , then, would already be “[...] in a relationship
determined economically in another way” (MARX, 2011, p. 352). For example, changes to
Meta Platforms algorithms and datasets made more or less directly through the interaction of
its prosumers, added to the work of its salaried and outsourced employees on its fixed capital
(their extended mind systems), would contribute to conserving and multiplying the capital
invested there (BUCHER, 2018; DANTAS , 2014, 2019). With that, they would become “[...]
productive force and reproductive force of capital , a force belonging to capital itself”
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(MARX, 2011, p. 338, emphasis added).
In this way, we propose that the productive and commercial development discussed
here allow access to certain commodities and their “immaterial” use values not to pass
exclusively or necessarily through their exchange for the money commodity , but also directly
through the assignment of independent labor power. of the subject's awareness of this process
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. In these terms, we would have a new type of exchange between capital and work.
By paraphrasing Marx (2011), we are entering one of the biggest controversies within
EPTIC. Many critics (BOLAÑO; VIEIRA, 2015; MARQUES, 2018; VALENTE, 2019,
among others) of the hypothesis of “additional value 2.0” (DANTAS, 2014) argue that, for the
activity we are describing in this subtopic to be considered work productive for capital , it
would have to be the result of salaried work and its product would become a commodity. In
fact, the data generated in the aforementioned process, in general, are not immediately sold by
the appropriater in favor of third parties (MARQUES, 2018). In general, either this data is
reused to improve the use value of the applications (ZUBOFF, 2021), or they are combined –
to the point of losing their original form – with other data held by the owner of the software in
question for numerous purposes , from advertising micro-segmentation (VALENTE, 2019), to
sale (or provision of services) in the form of aggregated data (SADOWSKI, 2019).

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Although the context of Marx's quote (2011) refers to productive work (which generates surplus value), we
appropriated it (and this last section in particular) to emphasize that the work of prosumption that occurs in the
sphere of circulation (as in the case of social networks) can be considered a reproductive force of capital , as it
acts in this sense, that of mediation, reduction of friction and, thus, acceleration of the general circuit of its
valorization (HARVEY, 2019). Also, as can be seen, so far we have not discussed one of the main applications of
this data, advertising micro-segmentation. Indeed, this is one of the main determinations of the processes
described here (HUWS, 2014; DANTAS, 2012; FUCHS, 2015). However, by consciously postponing this
discussion, we intend to prevent it (which so dominates this debate at EPTIC), as yet another specular reflection,
from obliterating what we are trying to emphasize here: the false simple exchange that results from the
transformation of consumption activity into workforce that produces digital data with use value for capital. This
discussion will continue in the following pages.
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We emphasize the issue of user consciousness as a factor on which this result is independent for the same
reasons that this also occurs in conventional alienated productive work in terms of the construction of the labor
theory of value in Marx (2011; 2013) and his comments by Lukács (2013).
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 Mastery over the primary useful effects of products and the creation of new ones that
are offered in the form of services (often apparently free of charge) only increase the
uncertainties of categorizations. However, based on Marx (2013, p. 333) we can argue that the
fact that data is presented as “[...] raw material, means of work or final product is something
that depends entirely on its determined function in the labor process, of the position he
occupies in this process, and with the change in this position, the determinations of this use
value also change”.
So, for example, if this data contributes to increasing the use value of Instagram,
qualifying it for the false simple exchange that we are dealing with here, would they not act as
capital? Furthermore, following our hypothesis, we should consider these data (objective
results of each log , like and other interactions) as “partial products” (MARX, 2013, p. 381)
and, consequently, results of prosumption as partial work, which , alone, does not produce
goods. We will return to the issue of partialization in the third topic of this chapter.
Thus, to the extent that prosumption is an unregulated activity, involved in ambiguous
contracts and moving machinery that aim at commercially secret products and values, any
qualifications and relationships with the categories of the labor theory of value are delicate. At
least in part, we agree with Seto (2020), for whom the profit obtained by these platforms is a
combination of rent, productive and unproductive work, and spoliation.
At the same time, this important debate and its nuances are not decisive for our
hypotheses. We have purposely prepared this discussion since subtopic 2.1.3 of this chapter –
and it continues to be developed throughout the thesis. We argue that the forms of capitalist
alienated work and its estrangement necessarily become comprehensive and model for other
spheres of sociability. Still to be developed in more detail in the third chapter, in neoliberal
and digitized societies, the estrangement of the self and the human race takes forms where
presentation, belonging, participation and social enjoyment become competitive activities of
all against all ( COMOR, 2011; GROSSER, 2014; ANTUNES, 2018; FUCHS, 2012; 2013;
GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b).
The need to be social faces the private monopolization of sociability mediations on
digital platforms and applications. As the architect and designer Thomas Erickson (2011)
clarifies, “[...] social computing is not so much about computer systems that accommodate
social activities, but rather about systems that perform calculations on information that is
embedded in a social context” . That is, based on previous discussions, what interests us in
this debate is that this “social computation”, in its commodity form – the contradictory unity
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between use value and exchange value – can be placed as a second-order mediation and as a
vector for estrangement.
Thus, user satisfaction activities are deformed by algorithms, affordances, nudges and
interfaces in such a way that they can only be carried out if they produce digital data, as a
productive activity (generating surplus value) or reproductive activity (generating corporate
use values). for the capital. The radicalization of competition between capitals, depending on
the production of these data, instigates and coerces us to participate in this strange sociability
at the cost of losing job opportunities, friendships, self-esteem, etc. Finally, for a reading of
these socio-productive phenomena from the PSSH point of view, it is enough to understand
that, productive or reproductive for capital, the activities of sociability and individuation
instigated, coerced and mediated by automagic machines are forms of implicit work that, as
much as the explicit forms, they can make us suffer and make us and others feel strange. That
is what this thesis is about.

d) The false simple exchange and the three-way market

As we have argued so far, “[...] the appropriation of the use values of these digital
goods can occur in a sui generis way in relation to conventional exchanges. Facebook,
Twitter, TikTok, among others, offer their products 'free of charge', without exchanging
money for the universal commodity” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2020a, p. 193). This
“magic” was initially fancied by Chris Anderson with his book Free . Anderson (2017) fits
our examples into the so-called “three-party market”, in which a third party pays the
transaction cost between the two other agents. As, for example, Facebook itself (2020)
explains in its Terms of Service, “[...] instead of paying for the use of Facebook [...] you agree
that we can show you ads that companies and organizations pay us to promote on and off
Facebook Company Products.” In order to understand what this means, let's use this social
network as an example to cross two issues of this market: its contractuality and the third
agent.
When we download from Facebook, between us and the consumption of this
commodity the “I agree” button stands between us – just like “[...] a trivial annoyance, like an
annoying fly to be swatted when trying to get food at a picnic” ( FRISCHMANN;
SELINGER, 2016, p. 14). Usually next to the button, discreetly, there is the link to the Terms
of Service, the contract we signed without reading when we clicked “I agree”.
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 Certainly, the figure of the legal contract leads us to the ideology of the free, conscious
and unimpeded citizen, by providing security and protection “[...] to each of its members for
the conservation of their person, their rights and their rights. its properties” (MARX, 2010, p.
50). But Frischmann and Selinger (2016, p. 2) argue that standard electronic contracts are
“[...] like a tool of technosocial engineering”, which leads “[...] people to mistakenly assume
that they are deliberating when, in fact [...], they are behaving instinctively”. According to the
authors, this contractual environment is developed by “decision architects” to “magically”
hide, “behind user interfaces”, “[...] the complexity and incredible number of machines,
processes, data flows and real and virtual actors” involved (FRISCHMANN; SELINGER,
2016, p. 8). As part of this engineering, Zuboff (2021, p. 68) recalls that, “[...] in many cases,
simply browsing a website forces you to comply with your terms of service agreement, even
if you don't know it”. In addition, according to Varian (2014, p. 30), Google's Chief
Economist, “[...] as transactions are now mediated by the computer, we can observe behaviors
that were previously unobservable and write contracts about these behaviors. behaviors”.
This, according to him, “[...] allows for transactions that were simply not feasible before [...].
Computer-mediated transactions allowed new business models [...]” (VARIAN, 2014, p. 30).
Certainly, Facebook (2020) informs that if you do not agree to these contracts “[...]
and no longer want to be part of the Facebook community, you can delete your account at any
time”. However, there are many questions about whether in fact there is “[...] unequivocal,
free, specific and informed consent of the individuals involved” (VAN ALSENOY et al.,
2015). As Frischmann and Selinger (2016, p. 33) question, “[...] if the consumer clicks
automatically, habitually and without deliberation, it is reasonable to say that the consumer
has stated, communicated or expressed the intention to be legally bound or to constitute a
legal relationship? However, mainly, “[...] what are the potential impacts on my needs if I am
not on Facebook because I disagree with its Terms of Service” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO,
2021a, p. 194)? For example, Dantas (2019) argues that the use of these platforms has become
culturally obligatory, while for Fuchs (2012) this obligation is the result of ideological
coercion and Zuckerberg himself stated that “[...] it is almost a disadvantage if you are not in
it now” ( apud WU, 2017, p. 283). The justification that the standardization and inflexibility
of these contracts is one of the conditions for the scalability of the service, at best, is just one
side of the coin ( HARTZOG , 2011 ) .
The other side is that this premise provides unequal powers for service providers
(FUCHS, 2013; FRISCHMANN; SELINGER, 2016; COSIO, 2017; ZUBOFF, 2021;
139
SADOWSKY, 2019). Part of this power “[...] actually lies in our understanding that it is futile
to expect to equalize the terms of the exchange in question” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO,
2021a). As massive acceptance of the Terms is a precondition for establishing a profitable
relationship for Facebook investors, “[...] it is competitively inherent that this unequal
relationship is deliberately exploited – particularly in a market with little or no regulation .
That is, it is possible that, with greater or lesser subtlety, abusive items are inserted in the
Terms” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 194-195).
The acceptance of these standard contracts without being read and their clauses
considered “[...] puts to the ground the fables of the monad and rational individual and that of
freedom of contract” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 195). It is, according to
Frischmann and Selinger (2016), another pre-configured action that was carefully overlooked
136
by the user experience design – “as if there were no sensitive preconditions, as if it were a
mere formality. In the world of fetishism, standard contracts are part of the landscape and
determinations of things about people” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 195). Thus,
“[...] consent is degraded to assent, then to fictitious assent [...] until finally we are left with
only a fictitious or constructive notice of terms” (RADIN, 2012, p. 30).
137
In any case, the seriousness of this loss of liberal “citizens' rights” leads to the
second aspect of the “three-way market”. Frischmann and Selinger (2016, p. 35) recall that
“my act of entering into an agreement increases the autonomy of the other party to the
contract because I agreed that the other party can now do something that the other party did
not have the right or power to do”. do before”. In the case of Facebook, more than agreeing to
receive targeted ads, we agree that it provides “information and content to suppliers and
service providers that enable the operation of our business” (FACEBOOK, 2020). This data is
136
For example, according to Edelman (2009), sites that displayed certifications of trust are, in fact, significantly
less reliable than those that do not. Using MacAfee's SiteAdvisor tool to compare nearly 1,000 TRUSTe certified
sites to more than 500,000 uncertified sites, Edelman found that "TRUSTe certified sites are twice as likely to be
untrusted as uncertified sites."
In addition, the UX designer Chris Nodder (2013a), whom we discuss in depth in the third chapter, advises his
colleagues to design the interfaces of their digital goods to minimize users' attention precisely in the areas that
characterize and qualify the rules of the false simple exchange that we have been arguing. Among other
resources, this would involve the creation of “desire lines” with “paths of least resistance” in the architecture of
the commodity that would be distant from this critical information (NODDER, 2013a, p. 25-26).
137
We emphasize that, in light of the Marxian critique of the limits of political emancipation in civil society
(MARX, 2010), the so-called issue of privacy will not be present in our focus - although it is more a
reaffirmation of the contradictions involved in the contracts of digital products " free”. In this sense, we agree
with Fuchs (2012, p. 143) when he states that many of these approaches involve “the fetishism of privacy” by
conceiving it “strictly as an individual phenomenon”. For the author, “the moralistic tone of these studies ignores
how Facebook commodifies data and exploits users, as well as the needs and desires of society that support the
sharing of information on Facebook”, configuring itself in an “individualized and ideological discourse”. ”
(FUCHS, 2012, p. 143).
140
created from the “[...] content, communications and other information you provide when
using our Products” (FACEBOOK, 2020).
However, it is not merely the freedom of the platform that is increased. “A network of
other parties [...]” – people, organizations and companies – obtains from Facebook “[...]
magical ways in which many [...] gain autonomy through the back door of parallel
agreements” (FRISCHMANN; SELINGER, 2016, p. 35). There would be “[...] a unitary and
complex economic operation” in which “[...] a negotiation link between the contract signed
between the user and the manager of the social network and the contract signed by the latter
with the advertisers” makes the latter the real “[...] creditors of companies that manage social
networks” (COSIO, 2017, p. 144). Given the appearance of the phenomenon, the author
believes that it would only be “[...] an exchange contract for the enjoyment of intangible
goods”, a legal and reciprocal transfer “[...] of goods or services carried out within the scope
of of a single negotiation plan” (COSIO, 2017, p. 146). Even so, we agree with Cosio's
conclusion (p. 144, emphasis added), that “[...] on the one hand, the social media manager
grants the user a license to use the software , on the other hand, the The user grants the
manager a license over the contents of his/her intellectual property. As stated in the Facebook
Terms,

[...] the content you share or upload, such as photos and videos, may be protected by
intellectual property laws. [...] However, in order to provide our services, we need
you to grant us certain legal permissions (known as a “license”) to use that content
. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and
Services. [...] Specifically, when you share, post or upload content protected by
intellectual property rights on our Products or in connection with our Products, you
grant us a non- exclusive, transferable, sublicensable , royalty-free, worldwide
license to host, use, distribute, modify , serve, copy, publicly perform or display,
translate and create derivative works of your content [...]. (FACEBOOK, 2020;
emphasis added).

Of course, as can be seen, the “magic” of gratuity is, in part and in the form , paid by
third parties (advertisers) in the form of money for platforms and other companies that offer
the right to use their software and hardware for the users- prosumers . For example, Disney ,
Telefonica and PDCA/Stone invested in the first quarter of 2021, respectively, R$ 122.23
million, R$ 31.6 million and R$ 31.44 million in advertising on Facebook in Brazil, 138seeking
to achieve their most -value and other incomes (DANTAS, 201 9 ) through the active search

138
According to statista.com , these were the top three advertisers on Facebook in the 1st quarter of 2021 in
Brazil. Available at: < https://www.statista.com/statistics/1249683/brazil-facebook-advertisers/ >. Accessed on:
17 Mar. 2022.
141
for consumers for its products and services promised by this platform. Let's look at this more
closely.
Such advertising investments in platforms such as Facebook are due to their claim that
their technologies have a competitively superior capacity to deliver ads to the target audiences
139
of their advertising clients (ZUBOFF, 2021; GOOGLE, 20 18 ). This is because such
technologies manage to obtain massive knowledge about the characteristics and
predispositions of their users (the data matchings – GOOGLE, 20 18 ) because they
co-produce it during the consumption activities of these use values and as a condition for such
consumption to be “free” ( as Facebook itself described earlier). This can be verified
empirically by any Internet user, for example, if he uses the Brave Browser's script blocking
technologies , cookies and trackers to try to take advantage of usage values offered “free of
charge” on any website. According to this browser, “[...] in some cases, [...] websites crash
[stop functioning properly] if tracking-related code is blocked. This could be the result of an
intentional choice on the part of the website developers or an unintended side effect of other
choices.” Likewise, in those cases, the more the Internet user unlocks such codes, the more
“broken” utilities become available to him 140.
Therefore, it is possible to infer that there is an equivalence relation of “ exchange for
the enjoyment of intangible goods” occurring massively, uninterruptedly and algorithmically
in the use of many of the digital goods that we depend on daily. When we say that advertisers
pay Meta in part and form so that users can use Facebook “for free”, we mean that, in part and
concretely, users can only do so if they accept to be made to produce certain objects (digital
data) that have use value for those two market participants, as discussed in more detail in
topic 2.3.4.
Largely due to such claims and their practical results , in 2020, about 54% of the
world's advertising budget was applied in these digital media, with 35.1% in the hands of
Google and 20.8% with Facebook 141. Respectively, advertising accounted for 70.9% and 98%

139
It is interesting to place the qualities of the advertising targeting offer of companies like Facebook also as an
allegation, because there are those in this market who question them. For example, an internal experiment by
digital commerce company e-Bay argued that its advertising placement in these media was not superior to its
alternatives. For more details: https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-
here-its-called-online-advertising . Accessed on 14 Jul. 2020. In another episode, in 2020, it became public that
Facebook manipulated video view statistics to attract advertisers. For more details:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-overestimated-key-video-metric-for-two-years-1474586951 . Accessed
on: 17 Mar. 2022.
140
“Problem: Blocking trackers sometimes breaks websites”. Available at:
https://brave.com/privacy-updates/1-web-resource-replacements/. Accessed on: 21 Oct. 2022.
141
Insider Intelligence Report projections, eMarketer. Available at:
142
 142
of its revenues . Furthermore, 97% of the applications available for download on Apple and
143
Google platforms are “free”, replicating and consolidating this business model – the
production of data both for advertising micro-segmentation and for sale directly to third
144
parties . And, as high revenue and monopoly are central characteristics of ICT markets
(TIGRE; NORONHA, 2013), both the continuous growth of users and the intensification of
production and use of data co-produced by prosumers are competitively vital in these
segments (SRNICEK, 2017; WU, 2017). With this, we have the aforementioned “unitary and
complex economic operation”, of which the “simple false exchange” between the owner of
certain digital technologies and the prosumers is an indispensable part.

2.3 Automagic machines as means of production

In the Introduction (subtopic 4.1) and in the previous subtopic, we present some clues
about the participation of the extended mind, mainly the one experienced as an automagic
machine, in the capitalist mode of production. However, before reviewing here some elements
of this participation that are related to our hypotheses, it is necessary to place them in their
historical context, so that their existence and the link between them become clearer.

2.3.1 The context of the structural crisis of capital

The structural crisis of capital is a very broad topic, so that we can only touch on it (in
a very simplified way) in some of its points most related to our argument. Furthermore, given
its intricacy and its link with our topic, this discussion begins here and concludes in subtopic
2.3.5.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-digital-ad-spending-update-q2-2020. Accessed on: 10 Nov. 2020.

142
Google advertising revenue (2001 to 2019). Available at: https://bit.ly/3sYjB6C. Accessed on: 10 Nov. 2020.
Facebook's advertising revenue (2001 to 2019). Available at: https://bit.ly/2YpVoIl/. Accessed on: 10 Nov. 2020.
143
See note 117.
144
According to The New York Times (2018), “[...] for years, Facebook has given some of the biggest technology
companies in the world”, such as Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify, Sony and Amazon among others, “[.. .] more
invasive access to users' personal data than disclosed” in contracts with its users. Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html. Accessed on: 01 Oct. 2020.
And, in the opposite direction, according to The Washington Post Journal (2019), companies such as Azumio
Inc., Flo Health, Move/News Corp shared data of millions of users with Facebook. Available at:
https://gazette.com/business/you-give-apps-sensitive-personal-information-they-tell-facebook/article_ec1bd2a0-
36e0-11e9-8152-37b861c86bb1.html. Accessed on: 01 Oct. 2020.
143
 The 1970s demarcated a phase of capitalist crises different from the previous ones,
giving them a structural character that expresses the “metabolic contradictions” of this mode
of production with nature itself and humanization. The downward trend in profitability, the
excessive production of goods, the financialization of capital and the radicalization of its
competitive accumulation, among other factors, create a series of contradictions that require
even more problematic counter-trends that have not proved to be functional in the long term.
Its consequences disrupt/re/order markets, States, societies and individuals, especially in
peripheral countries, trigger climatic and health crises, exacerbate the estrangement of work
and the intensification of its exploitation and precariousness (TEIXEIRA; FREDERICO, 200
8 ; ROBERTS, 2016; MÉSZÁROS, 2002, 2020; HARVEY, 2018; ANTUNES, 2018;
CHESNAIS, 2018; ALVES, 2018, 2021; POCHMANN, 2020).
For those unfamiliar with the capitalist structural crisis, some doubts and suspicions
will probably arise. Its severity could suggest some kind of imminent collapse. But this differs
from its permanence (more than 50 years) and even from signs against these trends, such as a
continuous increase in wealth (real or fictitious), cycles of increased productivity and the
maintenance of a minimal and apparently functional globalized economy. However, this is not
an economic crisis that, like an outbreak, emerges and is followed by a new stability. Because
it is structural – that is, because it expresses the civilizing limits of capitalism itself – and
because of the strength of its counter-tendencies, its duration is the size of the natural and
social resources it subsumes and its ability to be faced in the class struggle. The structural
crisis of capital thus drags on indefinitely and becomes (as it already is) a new normal
(ROBERTS, 2016; MÉSZÁROS, 2020; HARVEY, 2016; ANTUNES, 2018; ALVES, 2018,
2021).
From this synthetic and incomplete introduction, it is interesting to briefly develop
some specific points of the structural crisis in which the extended mind (in its concrete sense)
and the automagic machines (in the fetishized sense) participate decisively.
Firstly, to a large extent, the increase in the organic composition of capital – its part as
machinery – is a necessity for the competitive increase of relative surplus value – more
technology generates more goods per labor time, therefore with lower unit cost. (MARX,
2011; 2013) –, which creates two effects that call our attention. On the one hand, this makes
this competition oligopolistic, as not all capital will be able to make constant technological
investments to remain in these markets ( TIGRE; NORONHA, 2013; ALVES, 2018).

144
 On the other hand, with this, the application of science and technology (increasingly as
AI and big data ) becomes such a determining factor that its development becomes even more
stimulated – at the same time that, in this way, it tends to reiterate the drop in the rate of
profitability. These demands ultimately create an expansive and diverse high-tech ecosystem
directly or indirectly geared towards their realization – venture capital funds, startups , big
techs , the military, creative and behavioral design industries , and even universities, among
others. , 2017; DANTAS, 2019).
Second, another of the directions that these contradictions take is that this
concentration of capital occurs in a strongly financialized way, a trend already foreseen by
Marx (2017). To the extent that this accumulation can be more lucrative and accelerated in
financial speculation than in production (ALVES, 2018; ROBERTS, 2016), both the 145stricto
sensu financial sector grows and strengthens as movements of fusion and deep coordination
between financial, productive and commercial capital, blurring its borders (TEIXEIRA;
FREDERICO, 20 08 ). Such movements and integrations, in general, would not be imaginable
without the development and expansion of networks of extended minds - in the form of digital
computing, electronic miniaturization, printed circuits, satellites, intercontinental cables, radio
transmission (WILLIAMS, 2019) and then in the form of the internet, AI and big data
(SRNICEK, 2017; DANTAS, 2019).
For this increasing digitization of production and value accumulation to take place, its
main ingredient, digital data, needs to be produced on an ever-increasing scale and scope. For
this, the aforementioned integration between capitals, precisely because it is mediated by the
extended mind, will shape it so that these data emerge in many ways and in all its spheres
(SRNICEK, 2017; SADOWSKI, 2019; DANTAS, 2019). This requires and allows sociability
activities to increasingly occur in the commodity form and be organized as an implicit work
of producing these data (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO,
2021b) – providing the dilution of work in diversification and intensification of consumption
practices, as we indicated in topic 2.2.3 of this chapter and will continue to develop.
Thirdly, and related to what we have just pointed out, another countertrend to the drop
in profitability is the increase in the rate of exploitation of the workforce in a very broad

145
As Alves explains (2018 , p. 53), “[...] the production of value grew in absolute terms, but decreased in relative
terms, that is, it falls short of the cumulative systemic needs of valuing the mass of goods. money capital
accumulated by global industrial corporations. [...] In this way, a 'crack' of financial instability is constituted
from which recurrent 'speculative bubbles' emerge that mark the dynamics of accumulation of factitious value in
global capitalism”.
145
sense. Roughly speaking, what is lost in relative surplus value is sought to be recovered in the
increase in intensity and working time, in the reduction of its value and in the subsumption of
more activities by capital (TEIXEIRA; FREDERICO, 20 08 ; ALVES , 2018 ) – these, often
related to social reproduction, such as domestic services, food, etc., which can now be carried
out by work subordinated by platforms (PILETIĆ, 2022; VILJOEN; GOLDENFEIN;
MCGUIGAN, 2021). And, in the case of the reduction in the value of the workforce, its
indirect parts are also reduced – in the form of cutting labor rights (POCHMANN, 2020), the
welfare state (COLLINGTON, 2021), in addition to the transfer of labor costs for workers
subordinated by platforms ( smartphones and data plans, trunks, motorcycles or bicycles and
their maintenance, etc.) (ABÍLIO; AMORIM; GROHMANN, 2021).
Once again, without the extended mind, this countertrend would not occur with the
necessary intensity. The reduction of labor participation in the distribution of wealth through
the State (services and public policies, etc.) combines with the two other countertrends
mentioned above in the form of what Morozov (2018) calls digital solutionism . As one of its
ideologues argues, “[...] today's social structures are not designed as integrated systems and do
not take advantage of new technologies” (PENTLAND, 201 2 , p. 1). So, “[...] the obvious
choice is to design market mechanisms” capable of creating “[...] a world where everything is
organized for your convenience – your health check-up is magically scheduled as soon as you
start getting sick [...] and there is never a queue of people at city hall” (PENTLAND, 201 2 ,
p. 4).
Certainly, there would be much more to consider on this topic. However, what we
want to stress about the structural crisis of capital and its link with automagic machines is
that, to a large extent, the second is an expression of the first. It is a combination of the
development of the productive forces, their role in the accumulation crisis, the
aforementioned counter-tendencies and their deleterious effects, the coercive and implicit
production of data on everything and everyone and, with all this, the deepening of the distance
between technological mediations and our understanding of them.
This discussion is also important, as we stated at the beginning, so that the aspects of
automagic machines as means of production that will continue to be developed, are not
considered as elements that explain themselves, or that correspond to some kind of “normal”
development. or part of those contexts. Certainly, in general these aspects perform renewed
functions for this mode of production, but, in the context of its structural crisis, they
dramatically participate in its “flight forward” (MÉSZÁROS, 2002).
146
 Finally, as a projected appearance and as a result of the meaning we make of this
whole process, when it presents itself before our eyes and fingers when we are hungry, in a
hurry or bored, it does not appear as a system in structural crisis that needs critically of more
work, more consumption and more social control. This whole process presents itself (
vorstellen ) as a practical, expansive, unbureaucratic, free, fun, self-determined, immediate
life. If the commodity fetish is the conceptual lens from which capitalist alienation is signified
and lived in such a way that exploitation, estrangement and exclusive humanization can be
reproduced, in the same way the extended mind as mediation of this reproduction will follow
its presentation ( vorstellen ) as automagic machines, as we continue to demonstrate in what
follows.

2.3.2 General intellect and capitalist production

This is an important point and deserves a brief recapitulation of the discussion made in
topic 4 of the Introduction and in item “b” of subtopic 1.5.2 of the first chapter. From those
discussions and from Vygotsky (2004) and Lukács (2013) we can start from the following
synthesis:
1. In complex contemporary societies, the digital extended mind is the main artificial
device by which we master our own or others' psychic processes (alarm clock and
digital agenda, search engines, GPS, wearables, medical hardware and software ,
146
communication applications , predictive analytics , social networks, etc.);
2. The digital extended mind can be unfolded into two simple existences: (a) as the
object to which the psychic domain is directed (remembering, measuring, calculating,
etc.), namely, knowledge records – in their various forms, banks of data –; and (b) as a
working medium that processes and synthesizes these records into new records as
needed – in general, hardware , algorithms and other software that, for example, use
x-ray exams for medical diagnosis/treatment, image banks for AI training, stat
databases for new stats, etc. –; It is
3. Within this “psychological tool” function, in these societies, the extended digital mind
has also become crucial mediation of our theological pores in general, whether they

146
Wearables can be simply described as wearable computing. That is, digital devices usually in direct contact
with the body that capture and process vital signs of various types. The best-known wearables are smartwatches
(see note 115).
147
 are productive or reproductive for capital – managing the production and distribution
of goods or the accumulation of goods. capitals – whether they are in the sphere of
consumption or mere enjoyment and sociability – what and how to watch, buy, express
yourself, etc. Increasingly, without it, we do not know what and how to objectify and
subjectify.

In all these moments, we can also say that the extended digital mind comprises the
main materiality of what Marx (2011) called general intellect . As we discussed earlier, based
on this author's quote (Introduction, subtopic 4.1), the general intellect would be the set of
social knowledge accumulated and improved in history, on which we are decisively dependent
for our social metabolism and with nature. Materialized in the digital extended mind –
hardware , software , cables, satellites, antennas, datacenters , etc. – it is increasingly the
main development factor of our productive forces (GEORGE; HAAS; PENTLAND, 2014;
ECONOMIST, 2017 ; ZUBOFF, 2021; WARD, 2022); not because it replaces any material or
energy source, but because it can create and apply them in a way that without them social
reproduction is no longer possible (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a). In a way, both knowledge “[...]
became an immediate productive force” (MARX, 2011, p. 943) and its products –
infrastructure, houses, means of transport, games and medical, industrial, scientific devices,
etc. – are impregnated with it and are extensions of it.
This discussion is important to highlight the materiality and role that the extended
mind has as object (data), medium (CPU) and product (new data and other useful objects) in
globalized capitalism. In general, and considering the capitalist “drama” summarized above,
each piece of data in each bank, each processor, processing and transmission, each input and
output associated with them perform “coded quantifications of sociability” (VAN DIJCK,
2013, p. 202) that directly or indirectly fulfill or are liable to fulfill a productive or
reproductive role in this system (VILJOEN; GOLDENFEIN; MCGUIGAN, 2021). This is not
a mere inference from this researcher, but a must-be expressed by the capitalists themselves
and their agents, as we will see below.
A detailed treatment of all the productive aspects of the extended mind mentioned here
escapes this research – although some of them will be addressed later. Therefore, focusing on
our hypothesis of work implicit in the use of this object – and as a synthesis and index of this
productive dimension and as a substance of the digitalized general intellect –, we will discuss

148
one of its main products, digital data (the codified quantifications of sociability and of other
objectivities).

2.2.4 Mining, surveillance or data production work?

Metaphors and euphemisms can both help us on the path to knowing our concrete
realities and can also keep us on the sidelines, whether by accident or bad faith. Our literature
review suggests that this is the case for broad lexicons entrenched in digital culture regarding
where, how and why digital data arise 147.
This is a discussion full of subtleties and confusion that, as far as we've researched,
starts with the term data exhaust. According to George, Haas and Pentland (2014, p. 2,
emphasis added), the term would refer to:

[...] to environmental data that is collected passively, non-essential data with limited
or zero value to the original data collection partner. This data was collected for a
different purpose , but can be recombined with other data sources to create new
sources of value.

Still according to these authors, such data may arise as by-products of our daily
activities and “information search behavior” when we use digital technologies (GEORGE;
HASS; PENTLAND, 2014, p. 321). According to Zuboff (2021), initially, the usefulness of
this data was only cybernetic, in the sense of feedbacks related to the uses and states of
hardware and software (for example, which sections of a website a user visited, with which
devices, what actions he/she performed there). completed or not etc.). Recorded in cookies ,
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temporary files, logs and trackers , among others, this information guides developers to
locate problems and make improvements to the system.
However, according to the author, Google was one of the first companies to realize
“[...] that detailed stories about each user – thoughts, feelings, interests – could be built from
147
It is noteworthy that almost all the critical authors surveyed (including Marxists) refer to digital data as
“minable”, or “extractable” from systems of extended minds, just like given and not posited causalities.
148
Tracker “[...] is software whose task is to collect information about the person using the application, how they
use it or about the smartphone being used. A tracker is usually distributed by companies as an SDK (Software
Development Kit), a kind of ready-made toolkit, with the aim of making life easier for application developers”.
Available at: <https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/info/trackers/>. Accessed on: 21 May. 2021.
Logs are records in text format, of the chronological sequence of occurrences in an operating system or software
connected to it and that aim at its monitoring, auditing, security and correction of problems. Cookies are packets
of data inserted by a website into the user's browser when the user visits it. When the user returns to the same
website, the cookie “reminds” the website of the user's previous activities performed there (eg saved passwords,
items added to the shopping cart, etc.), thus increasing the efficiency of the activity.
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the awakening of unstructured signals that tracked each online action ” (ZUBOFF, 2021, p.
89). Now, “[...] prediction and analysis are so crucial to Google AdWords 149, [that] any bit of
data, even seemingly trivial, has potential value” (LEVY, 2009). This made this and other
companies start to build their systems in such a way that their use actively created even more
data about users (IBM, 2014) – more than necessary for the development of their use value –,
generating what Zuboff (2021) called “behavioral surpluses”, or “cognitive surpluses”,
according to consultant Clay Shirky (20 08 ).
According to Andrew Ng (STANFORD, 2017), an AI researcher who has held
leadership positions at Google, Baidu and Coursera, “[...] in large companies, sometimes we
launch products not for revenue, but for data. In fact, we do it quite often... and monetize the
data through a different product” ( STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS,
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2017) . As we mentioned previously , 97% of digital applications are free, with their
operations funded directly (sales) or indirectly (advertising, etc.) by the excess data generated
by their use.
For example, the report by Bruno et al. (202 1 ) of 10 well-being and mental health
apps used in Brazil identified 75 trackers in them , 33.3% of which were advertising and 44%
were analytical and profiling. Hartzog (2018) cites the application for the flashlight function
on smartphones Brightest Flashlight which, in order to function, required the collection of
geolocation data from the device. As the author comments, there is no reason for a flashlight
app to need geolocation data. However, “[...] because 'data is the new oil', the company could
not resist the opportunity made available by the architecture and features presented by the
small surveillance devices that we all keep in our pockets” and “[...] designed the app to
collect our location data because it could and because it was financially advantageous to do
so” (HARTZOG, 2018, p. 24).
In this way, these surplus signals (anonymized, recombined, synthesized or not),
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increasingly structured , began to be projected by what Zuboff (2021) calls “markets of
future behavior”. They produce, appropriate and organize them to act as exchange value for
third parties (when given in full or as a service); or as an internal use value for the

149
Currently called Google Ads , it is “[...] Google's main advertising service and this company's main source of
revenue, representing 96% of the nearly 37.9 billion dollars that the company earned in 2011. [1 ] The service
uses the cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) advertising system, which consists of ads
in the form of links found mainly in search engines related to the keywords that the Internet user is searching
for”. Available at: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Ads. Accessed on: 23 Apr. 2021.
150
Subtopic 2.3, item “c” and note 116.
151
As indicated in item "a" of subtopic 2.3.
150
performance of your offer for end users and other commercial customers (mainly advertisers)
(DANTAS, 2011; 2014; FACEBOOK, 2020; ERICKSON, 2011; FUCHS, 2012; 2013;
SADOWSKI, 2019; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b;
ZUBOFF, 2021).
According to Zuboff (2021, p. 86, emphasis added),

In this new context, goods and services are merely supply routes linked to
surveillance. It's not the car; is the behavioral data of driving the car. It's not the
map; are the behavioral data of the interaction with the map. The ideal here is to
continually expand the boundaries that eventually describe the world and everything
in it, all the time.

It turns out that, along with the emergence of these markets (targeted advertising, data
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brokers , behavioral design , etc.), data were increasingly presented ( vorstellen ) from
mining lexicons, especially after Clive Humby, a mathematician at Tesco , coined the famous
phrase “data is the new oil” in 2006. For researchers from MIT ( Massachusetts Institute of
Technology ) - and Oracle, Lo and Brynjolfsson (2016, p. 6, emphasis added), “[...] from a
data production perspective, activities are like land waiting to be discovered. First movers and
keepers get their resources – in this case, their wealth of data.” “Mining” also inspired
ideologues such as Pentland (2012, p. 1) to project the “[...] exponential growth of data on
human behavior” so that the market creates a “[...] nervous system for the humanity that
maintains the stability of the systems of our societies across the globe”.
According to Zuboff (2015, p. 33), “[...] once data is redefined as waste, contestation
of its extraction and eventual monetization is less likely”. She also recalls that “[...] extraction
is a unidirectional process, not a relationship. Extraction has the connotation of 'taking
something' instead of 'delivering' [...]” (p. 34). Based on what she calls the “extraction
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imperative” (also due to the espionage systems that emerged after the September 11, 2001
attacks), Zuboff (2021) then develops her concept of surveillance capitalism . In it, while
individuals may be unaware of “the many factors that determine their concern for privacy”

152
According to the digital security company Kaspersky, data brokers “[...] are companies that [...] collect
information from various sources to create a detailed picture of who you are and then sell it. Data brokerage is
big business – the industry is estimated to be worth $200 billion a year, with up to 4,000 data brokerage
companies worldwide . Some of the most important data brokers are Experian, Equifax, Acxiom and Epsilon.
Available at:
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/preemptive-safety/how-to-stop-data-brokers-from-selling-your-perso
nal-information. Accessed on: 08 Oct. 2022.
153
According to Roy (2020), Facebook alone generates around 4 petabytes (or 4,000 gigabytes) of “cognitive
surplus” daily in data produced by the interaction between its users.
151
online , “entities whose prosperity depends on the disclosure of information by others are
much more sophisticated” in developing “expertise in exploiting behavioral and psychological
processes to promote ” this disclosure (ACQUISTI; BRANDIMARTE; LOEWENSTEIN,
2015, p. 7). For this, such entities – States, large companies and other organizations – create
or take possession of different spaces of sociability, individuation and privacy as data “supply
routes” (SEAVER, 2018; ZUBOFF, 2021). The idea of surveillance capitalism has also
inspired the emphasis, among the general public and many researchers, on the idea of
invading users' privacy, highlighting cases of pregnancy discoveries (BRUNO et al., 202 1 ),
gender orientation and diseases (ZUBOFF, 2021) among many other potentially vulnerable
personal data.
These themes – mining and privacy – will continue to be built throughout the thesis,
however, we can already make some considerations. In addition to the aforementioned
examples, our review found many other cases where the association of these digital data to the
idea of mining is yet another upgrade of the mystifications of capital indicated by Marx
(1978) so that its private appropriation becomes trivial and legitimate. As we characterized in
subtopic 2.2.3 (and deepened in subtopic 2.3.4), the idea of mining removes from the field of
view the fact that “[...] in digital machinery, as in industrial machinery, human activity is
conditioned in order to necessarily introduce objects into it and produce changes in them with
the previously idealized purpose that this work and its results, “ultimately, contribute to the
appreciation of the invested capital” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 198).
If, on the one hand, the existence of data exhaust illustrates the cybernetic
development of the use value of the extended mind, the “behavioral surpluses” and the like
reveal the human activities performed in it being modulated by the commodity-form and
subsumed for the production of surplus value. or the reproduction of these relationships. Of
course, it was clear from our review that “mining”, “scraping” and the like are used as
technical terms to define different ways for recording and retrieving data as use values
(ANDERSON, 2008; LAZER et al., 2009 ; PENTLAND, 2012, 2014, 2015; KUEK et al.,
2015 ; DOMINGOS, 2017; ROY, 2017; SIEGEL, 2018; LEITH, 2021). However, digital data
relating to users, whether “environmental” or “surplus”, cannot, under any judicious
argument, be denoted as minable in the sense of “[...] something foreign, objective,
pre-existing to them [users ], which are there [...]” (MARX, 1978, p. 86). In the words of
Sadowski (2019, p. 3),

152
 mining is a misleading name; a more appropriate term would be data manufacturing
. Data is not out there waiting to be discovered as if it already exists in the world like
crude oil and crude ore (Gitelman, 2013). Data is a registered abstraction of the
world created and valued by people using technology. Framing data as a natural
resource that is everywhere and free for the taking reinforces regimes of data
accumulation.

Finally, it is not (anymore) about something that was there, a residue, a side effect that
someone decided to put to some use. It is something that existed before in the minds of
mathematicians, psychologists, programmers, designers and investors, which can only occur
in reflection of our activity and which generates use values for capital.
On the other hand, our accumulations so far also allow us to criticize the concept of
surveillance capitalism. Not only from its internal mechanisms, but also from this concept to
deeper understandings of automagic machines as a mode of production and as mediation of
the flight forward of capitalism in structural crisis.
First of all, the concept of surveillance capitalism does not help us fully understand
why we are harassed day by day by capitalists in search of the most intimate details of our
existence. This is because Zuboff (2015; 2020) and his peers build their arguments based on
the assumptions of the liberal subject, with his individualism, privacy and self-determination
as central elements of sociability. It is obvious that having intimate and potentially
compromising aspects of our lives disturbed, somehow publicized and valued by deregulated
markets in radical competition is a very serious problem – which, potentially, could be
mitigated through state regulation of this market (NADLER, 2018; BRUNO et al., 202 1 ;
WESTRUP, 2020). Due to the way digital commodity services are constructed, these aspects
tend to be registered with our greater or lesser awareness and consent, because they can
denote consumption potential or behavior that interest mutually competing economic and
political agents (ACQUISTI; BRANDIMARTE; LOEWENSTEIN , 2015; ZUBOFF, 2015;
2021; FUCHS, 2012; 2013; SEAVER, 2018; FRISCHMANN; SELINGER, 2018; BRUNO;
BENTES; FALTAY, 2019; GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES; FURTADO,
2021b). This “surveillance” causally refers to the competitive struggle for production,
appropriation and acceleration of capital circulation in a regime of structural crisis of
profitability. Therefore, the invasion of privacy is not the purpose of “surveillance capitalism”,
nor the greatest of its consequences.
Second, there is the relationship between privacy and the publicity of private personal
information that refers to the discussion in the previous topic. According to data privacy

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specialist, Alan Westin (1967, p. 33-34), this would be “the claim of individuals, groups or
institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them
is communicated to others". In this sense, the research by Aljasir et al. (2017, p. 119) on
privacy on Facebook suggests that “[...] there is a linear increase in both the breadth and depth
of self-disclosure when individuals expect favorable outcomes”. Thus, as we suggested in
another review (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 96), “[...] the need to value social
capital through self-disclosure could make the user feel induced to use records sensitive parts
of your life in search of positive feedback ”. Submitted to the laws of exchange value, privacy
(or rather, the data that can be produced from it) becomes a user resource in the sociability
market that is expressed in likes , views and other forms of digital engagement.
Surveillance capitalism is an inverted reading of the process we have been describing
in this chapter. From the discussion of subtopic 2.2.3, we can understand that, before our
privacy is invaded, it needs to occur (or be placed) in a place that, by design, is “violable” – or
more precisely, productive –, the platforms and digital applications. The raison d'être of these
spaces and their contents, like everything else in the commodity form, is to be useful and
represent value. Therefore, without the exchange of values , there is no assignment of use
value by their owners (digital commodity services). Our privacy is not merely being invaded
and mined; we are working on it, converting it into use value for capital in the discussed false
simple exchange.
Although Zuboff (2021) stumbles upon the political-economic causalities that cause
the loss of privacy (financialized concentration of capital, etc.), given her theoretical position
and interests, she cannot properly qualify them, losing sight of sociometabolic transformations
even more deleterious effects that such causalities need to accomplish. As outrageous and
dangerous as it really is, talking about the loss of privacy in platform capitalism, ultimately
and in light of everything we have already discussed here, is similar to questioning the
privacy of work on the production line. In it, as Fordism taught, the competitive addition of
relative and/or absolute surplus value depends crucially on the “surveillance” of each
movement and operation of the worker. As Frischmann and Selinger (2018, p. 20) comment,
“[...] in contrast to workers who at least understand that they are being managed and
optimized like cogs in a machine, consumers are blissfully unaware of technosocial
engineering”.
The assumptions of Zuboff's liberal beliefs still deprive him of consideration of certain
assumptions of actually existing economic liberalism. Namely, the need for realization of the
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social being, fractured by alienated work, is reduced to its realization in the private sphere of
consumption (MARX, 2013) – as discussed in topics 1 and 2 of this chapter . That is, in
capitalism, self-realization, consumption and privacy form the same unit, the same process. In
order to influence our valuations and needs, as well as the forms of their satiation – and, with
that, to drive consumption competitively –, it is increasingly necessary to violate people's
privacy – as the journalist and legal scientist Tim Wu ( 2017) very well demonstrated in the
historic movement of American marketing.
So Zuboff's discomfort does not primarily concern the fact that such capitalism is
actually implicit and coerced labor. The objectification/appropriation of our privacy in the
form of useful objects (data) is another new facet of capitalist alienation as discussed in topic
1 and subtopic 2.3 of this chapter. With this, the author and her peers lose sight of the fact
that, just as “[...] as subjectivity is being colonized by the productive system, it must also be
produced as a workforce” (CAVA, 2018, p. 747).
The concept of surveillance capitalism, therefore, veils an economic process with a
moral veil and diverts critical analysis, consciously or not, to the limits of the abstraction of
the liberal subject, instead of pointing to the dilution of work through the diversification and
intensification of consumption practices.

2.3.5 The question of the transfer of work in the product, or in the commodity

In order to continue clarifying our argument, we are going to observe in conceptual

and technical detail how digital machinery can specifically transform consumption and
fruition activities into work of objectifying digital data. In this way, this subtopic is worth and
ties mainly to the discussions of item “a” of subtopic 1.2, of subtopic 2.3, in addition to the
previous discussion.
Our starting point (and ending point) is the issue of transferring work into the product,
or merchandise . Marx characterizes this process, in its simple aspect, as follows:

[...] the activity of man, with the help of the means of work, transforms the object of
work according to a purpose conceived from the beginning. [...] The work was
incorporated into its object. [...] What on the side of the worker appeared in the form
of movement, now manifests itself, on the side of the product, as immovable quality,
in the form of being. (MARX, 2013, p. 330)

155
 In the different forms of production prior to capitalist industry, this process depended
decisively on the individual producer's knowledge and psychophysical skill, as well as on the
technical division and simple cooperation between workers (MARX, 2013; LUKÁCS, 2013;
LESSA, 2012). However, from industrial to digital work, these aspects are profoundly
transformed.
154
On the one hand, from the steam textile machine to AutoCAD , science is
increasingly being incorporated into production and organizing it (MARX, 2011; 2013).
Increasingly, the subjective dimension of the productive act expands and externalizes itself as
an extended mind, as a general intellect in constant social creation that is objectified in the
new equipment that is put in place by this process (ANTUNES, 2018). As Oliveira (2015, p.
139) explains, “[...] the molecular-digital revolution erases the boundary between science and
technology: the two are now worked on in the same process, in the same
theoretical-methodological unit”. For example, in the case of digital goods production,

In general, the “machinery” with which the work is transmitted and crystallized [...]
are the hardware and software specifically organized for this productive purpose.
Some of these software [...] have the ability to introduce information (commands or
data) from the outside into this productive system (a registration, an upgrade ,
biometrics, a purchase, etc.). In this addition, the product is constituted as a use
value, either in a semi-finished form (a cookie log ) , finished (an e-book ), or
updatable (a database). (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 187)

On the other hand, capitalist production (material or “immaterial”) begins with the
partialization of work (and the product). According to Marx (2013), the capitalist partialized
work is the one that results from the dismemberment of the necessary transformations in the
objects worked in smaller and more specific operations possible; “[...] process in which each
operation crystallized as an exclusive function of a worker” (MARX, 2013, p. 512). These are
“[...] partial and mutually complementary operations” (p. 513) that, within the limits of the
productive sciences of each era, segment and competitor, are now attributed simultaneously to
partial workers and to the machines that cooperate with them in a different way. equally

154
“' AutoCAD' is CAD-type software — computer aided design or computer-aided design [...]. It is widely used
in architecture, interior design , civil engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, geographic
engineering, electrical engineering and in various other branches of industry.” Source:
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoCAD. Accessed on: 10 Mar. 2022.
156
specific and flexible way 155, 156.
Partialized, these works are organized in new forms of cooperation , that is, “[...] the
form of work within which many individuals work in a cooperative way . planned side by side
and together , in the same production process or in different but connected production
processes ” (MARX, 2013, p. 498; emphasis added). Existing in unity, partiality and
cooperation produce a series of unprecedented results: work expands beyond the
psychophysical capacities of capitalist pre-industry 157; productivity increases, relative surplus
value and the value of labor power decreases; and the unilaterality of the partial activity
158
stimulates the worker's cognitive limitation , even though the social interaction of
cooperation acts as a dynamo of such productivity (MARX, 2013).
The partialization of work and its cooperation reach their apex in the production of
digital “immaterial” goods. This production “[...] develops on a technological base that
159
allows, for example, human intelligence tasks (HITs) and their crowdworkers , as in the
case of the Mechanical Turk platform” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 186 ). In
microwork, as Oliveira (20 15 , p. 136) would say, “[...] work productivity takes a somersault
towards the fullness of abstract work”. A new commodity (for example, a new sales site for
Adidas) “[...] can be produced by countless workers acting synchronously and
asynchronously, possibly in different countries, in countless parts and tasks with very varied

155
This applies both to machines that were made for a single function (eg, for soldering SMD – Surface Mounted
Device , or component mounted on the surface of electronic boards), and to conventional computers, which can
perform numerous different tasks but which, in a given circumstance, are configured or are simply used for a
specific purpose (eg image labeling for AI training). Likewise, crowdworkers do not always know which product
they will co-produce, and it is up to them to accept or reject the microtask (ABILIO, 2019).
156
“Because the partial product of each partial worker is only a particular degree of development of the same
article, each worker or group of workers supplies the other with its raw material. In the result of the work of one
is the starting point for the work of the other. Thus, one worker directly occupies the other” (MARX, 2013, p.
522). “Each partial machine supplies the next machine with its raw material, and since they all act
simultaneously, the product is found both in the different stages of its formation process and in the transition
from one phase of production to another” (p. 558). ).
157
“[...] the method of part-time work is perfected after being made autonomous as an exclusive function of one
person. As experience demonstrates, the continuous repetition of the same limited action and the concentration
of attention on that action teach how to achieve the intended useful effect with the minimum expenditure of
force” (MARX, 2013, p. 515). The question of learning for the effectiveness of the interaction between live work
and machines has other objective aspects already presented in the Introduction and to be deepened in the third
chapter, namely HCI and the corresponding neurochemical and anatomical changes in the brain.
158
For example, Marx (2013, p. 542) describes how Adam Smith naturalizes this limitation: it “[...] corrupts [...]
the courage of his mind”, “[...] annihilates even the energy of his body [...] except for the detailed operation for
which he was trained [...]. But in every industrial and civilized society this is the state into which the working
poor must necessarily be degraded.
159
Crowdworkers are individuals who, in a highly divided (partialized) and combined manner, perform parts (or
micro-jobs) of a product or service, usually digital . The regimentation of this workforce is also known as
crowdsourcing ( HOWE, 2006 ). According to Kuek et al. (2015), in 2013 there would be 4.8 million workers in
this condition.
157
fixed working time ” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021b, p. 186). In many of these cases,
part of the production process is connected through Applications Programming Interface (
160 161
API) and Software Development Kits (SDK) , while trackers , pixels and cookies
162
encode our internet browsing into data with capitalist use value (BRUNO, 2020 ; POELL;
NIEBORG; VAN DIJCK, 2019; FACEBOOK, 2020). The partial works of programmers,
designers , turkers , etc. they can be delivered in different forms and measured in seconds, in
an algorithmic management that Abílio, Amorim and Grohmann (2021, p. 32) call “dispersion
of work and centralization of control”.
163
Based on this discussion, under certain circumstances , we can say that extracting
the value of the welding work force from an SMD ( Surface Mounted Device, in Portuguese,
“component mounted on surface”) could come from the same social relationship and express
the same results as “bodies of value” than in work, for example, creating a registration
processing algorithm or typing data in this same register (HUWS, 2015). This because,

The quality of singular work or the variation in the organic composition of capital
would not change this result. The process would also be the same if the product is an
internal step in the development of the product (a user validation module, for
example), or if it is in a complete state (an application); whether it is carried out by a
highly specialized engineer, or by a telemarketer ; if the goods can be owned ( smart
TV ) or if it is expressed as a service (NetFlix); whether your buyer will carry out
private (Duolingo) or productive (Photoshop) consumption. Finally, it would be the
same process whenever a work environment, regardless of its form, has the technical
and scientific capacity to determine the human activity to be carried out; if it can be
activated by and absorb the workforce, aiming in this process at a previously
idealized result that transforms objects into other objects, specifically with the
intention of being socially presented as bodies of value. (GONÇALVES;
FURTADO, 2021b, p. 187)

These and countless other forms of partialization and cooperation, in combination with
the technological and subjective bases of its communication, articulation and command, and
the incalculable purposes, buyers and intermediaries of this workforce (as a reflection of the
160
APIs are programming interfaces (“shared boundaries”) that organize exchanges of information between
different systems or software . Metaphorically speaking, APIs fulfill a certain logistical function in the flow of
data, allowing and organizing the access of certain agents to certain databases according to their specifications
(D'ANDRÉA, 2020). The APIs allowed, for example, the data of Facebook users to be retrieved by Cambridge
Analytics.
161
SDKs are packages of programming tools that make it easy to build software that conforms to other major
software , rather than having to code it from scratch. So, for example, applications that create illustrations or
special effects on Instagram users' profile photos, to work on the platform, need to be programmed using the
SDK provided by Meta.
162
Pixels and cookies, as well as trackers (see note 139) are different tracking codes that are invisibly active in
applications and other software installed on users' devices. Its role is to monitor user activities that are of interest
to the developers of these codes, converting them into data.
163
Mainly those discussed in subtopic 2.3.
158
coordination of capital that we alluded to in subtopic 3.1) , are contemporary examples of
complex cooperation . More than a mere technological and managerial evolution, complex
cooperation is “[...] a new form of commodity production, to prevent the replacement of live
labor by dead labor from breaking with the limits of value appreciation” (TEIXEIRA ;
FREDERICO, 2008 , p. 108). For Souza (2018, p. 63), it represents “[...] a powerful
interaction between productive and unproductive, material and non-material, intellectual and
manual work, which makes it very difficult to understand the creation of value and extraction
of surplus value”. In this sense, Alves (2020, p. 52) discusses an “interpenetration – not by
fusion or substitution – of material productive forces and social and human cognitive
productive forces; that is, the interpenetration of material and
informational/digital/immaterial”. Therefore, for this author, “[...] cyberspace as a material
space of the 'immaterial' opens up objective-real possibilities for the production of subjectivity
[...] determined by these new social relations of production” (ALVES, 2020 , p. 53).
As pointed out in subtopic 2.1.2 of this chapter, Marx (2013, p. 326) explained that, in
capitalist production, the worker “[...] becomes actu [in act] what before he was only potentia
[in potency] ], namely, workforce in action”. What we are describing here is that what was
potentia in the 19th and 20th centuries, today has been expanded mainly due to the
development of productive forces and the capitalist structural crisis – which forges these
“exotic forms” of production relations (OLIVEIRA, 20 15 ; FONTENELLE, 2015). Now,
there is a radical transformation in work as potency , that is, human activity that can be
incorporated into use values (and exchange values) has become widely and increasingly
available and demanded, explicitly or implicitly.
Thus, in addition to the articulation of global chains of explicit work, complex
cooperation denotes “[...] the persistence and expansion of abstract work as an organizing
principle of the production of social life [...] in which all individuals are involved. transform,
outside of work, as 'consumers', into workers without a paycheck.” (AQUINO, 2008, p. 24).
Now, according to Berardi (2007, p. 90), capital can take advantage of separate fragments of
work time “[...] to recombine them in a sphere separate from that corresponding to the
individual life of the worker. Thus, a veritable split is produced between the subjective
perception of flowing time and the objective recombination of time in production”. Finally, in
164
this context, “[...] society itself becomes a large 'factory without walls'” (TEIXEIRA;

164
Just for the record, the term “factory without walls” is very close to “social factory”, used, above all, by the
field that revolves (or revolved) around the so-called Italian operaismo. Although Teixeira and Frederico (200 8 )
159
FREDERICO, 2008 , p. 98).
Combining this discussion with that of subtopic 2.2.3 of this chapter, it is difficult not
to recognize prosumption as implicit, disputed, exchanged, systematic, pre-organized, partial
and complexly cooperated work, regardless of whether it is productive or not. In the everyday
use of smartphones (6.5 billion devices in the world) 165, it is a set of actions: partial (a log , a
166
post , 15 minutes of running with the Nike Run Club ); intermittent (opening WhatsApp
167 168
between 23 to 25 times a day ); intensive (about 5 hours a day ); massive (4.2 billion
169
Instagram likes per day ); complexly cooperated (millions of users with the same
170
psychometric profile co-producing it ); whose product (partial or not) will be appropriated
and/or enjoyed by different capitalists who invest in the production of these digital goods 171,
in a new and strange type of phenomenology of the commodity-form, the false simple
exchange and the labor-form (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a; GONÇALVES;
FURTADO, 2021b).
Regardless of the means of acquisition (sensor or typing), its nature (text or
audiovisual), size ( bytes or terabytes ), reference (cardiological or location) or purpose
172
(leisure or work), this data can be considered as partial products of other products – even
if, in them, such data completely lose their original existence (as happens in industrial

differ from this political-theoretical field in many ways, the term alludes to the same phenomenon that, however,
is theoretically constructed in substantially different ways between these references, a subject that is beyond our
focus.
165
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/ . Accessed on: 13
Mar. 2022.
166
Nike Run Club is Nike's run management app with over 1 million users.
167
Source: www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/how-much-time-does-the-average-person-spend-on-social-media.
Accessed on: 11 Mar. 2022.
168
The data on the number of accesses and their total duration by users on their smartphones is very diverse and
therefore inconclusive and varies within a relevant range. As an example, around 4 billion people spend an
average of 6 hours online per day ( We Are Social, 2018 ). According to the website statista.com , in 2021
Brazilians were connected to the internet on average 5.25 hours a day.
169
Source: https://siteefy.com/instagram-statistics/ . Accessed on: 11 Mar. 2022.
170
As far as researched, the micro-segmentation organized by Alphabet with the implementation of its Privacy
Sandbox and Topics technologies (which they claim to mitigate the privacy problems of advertising in their
products) does not change our statement, as user activity continues to inform their profile.
171
As described in subtopic 2.2.3, item “d” in the case of Brave Browser and as mentioned in subtopic 3.2 in the
case of trackers in the report by Bruno et al. (2021). Furthermore, according to Leith's hardware and software
reviews ( 2021 ) , “even when minimally configured and the device is idle, iOS and Google Android share data
with Apple/Google on average every 4.5 minutes [. ..]. Both iOS and Google Android transmit telemetry,
although the user does not explicitly choose to do so. When a SIM is inserted, both iOS and Google Android
send details to Apple/Google. [...] Currently, there are few, if any, realistic options to stop this data sharing”.
Schmidt (2018) reached similar results, identifying data being sent from Android to Google around 40 times per
hour. Other experiments can be seen in Wang and Wu (2015) and Zhou et al. (2013).
172
As quoted in the Facebook Terms of Service, described in our item “d”, subtopic 2.2.3 of this chapter (“The
false simple exchange and the three-party market”).
160
processes); even if the final product is offered to the user- prosumer precisely in the form of
the use value that originates this cycle (eg TikTok, DropBox); and even if such end product is
offered to third parties in the form of services (eg credit scores, insurance, etc.; advertising
micro-targeting; demographics for public policy, etc.).
As indicated in the Introduction and to be detailed in the third chapter, such devices
(including the computers to which these data are sent) are universal machines, that is, they are
capable of multiprocessing and their many possible outputs (outputs), even under the same
database (LEVY, 2009; RADIN, 2012; VAN DIJCK, 2013; VARIAN, 2014; O'REILLY, 2017;
DOMINGOS, 2017 ; SADOWSKI, 2019; SIEGEL, 2019; LEITH , 2021).
173
As tools , the interfaces (and their promises and decision engineering) just need to
push the prosumers (the nudges ) in order to carry out the work of producing this data (“what
174
are you thinking about?”) . Each piece of data ( like, login, log, CPF, meme), composing
massive datasets and processed with the increasing participation of AI, integrates the
production of new data and products, whether one or the other is in the position of raw
material , means of work or final product” (MARX, 2013, p. 333).
From the moment the user- prosumer formalizes the “simple exchange”, clicking on
the terms of use of a product or service, the ownership of the data produced there or derived
from it is obtained by its owner and, since then, they tend to act as capital (HARTZOG, 2011;
DANTAS, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2019; SRNICEK, 2019; FUCHS, 2012, 2013, 2015;
FACEBOOK, 2020; LEITH, 2021 ) .
Certainly, the data produced by you in seconds and half a dozen taps on WhatsApp ,
while your company goes back and forth from the bathroom in a bar, seems negligible as
work and apparently unrecognizable, as production of use value for the appreciation of
invested capital . However, both we refer in this example to an application used by 2 billion
175
users (or partial producers) and that, as Marx (2013, p. 533) reminds us, under certain
circumstances, “[...] the partial worker does not produces merchandise. Only the common
product of the partial workers becomes a commodity”.

173
Detailed aspect in the third chapter.
174
To the extent that we are interested here in data resulting from the interaction between individuals and
extended mind circumstantiated by simple false exchanges, we are excluding data objectified by spoliation from
the discussion. An example is the data that could be objectified by facial recognition on the São Paulo Metro
(see: https://bit.ly/3IaZIiZ . Accessed on: May 13, 2022). These data, which also have use value for capital (and,
eventually, exchange value), also occur on an increasing basis and bring countless implications worthy of
research. However, in this case, there are no traces of capitalist alienated labor as there is no exchange between
capital and labor.
175
Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/2018/whatsapp/ . Accessed on: 10 Mar. 2022.
161
 These diverse transformative activities, computationally partial, connected by
telecommunications and APIs and managed in a gamified and algorithmic way, update the
cooperative work unveiled by Marx in the 19th century. More than ever and now
automatically and often virtually, these activities that produce pre-idealized objects occur as
“partial and mutually complementary operations”; with these prosumers acting virtually and
factually “alongside each other and together”; and in “different but connected production
processes” (MARX, 2013) (just look at what most people do on a public transport trip or in
queues 176).
Finally, even if distinct from the historically determined ways in which the labor
theory of value captured them; even if in the absence of stable and socially agreed forms of
work (ABÍLIO, 2019); even if in surprising, innovative and even more contradictory and
poorly understood ways; and even if regardless of the phenomenal form in which they are
expressed and the degree of awareness of individuals, as a concrete result, such processes and
their practical effects continue to be that of transferring work into products or, under certain
circumstances, into goods.
Thus, regardless of whether the transformation of the consumer activity of the user of
digital technologies produces value or not: 1) it exists in general; 2) this activity is organized
to also concurrently produce data with use value for capitalist accumulation; 3) this data
production is sufficiently imperative for it to be the main reason for the existence of many
applications and their markets – not that the needs related to them do not exist or are not
satisfied, but that is not the purpose for the market , but a mediation ; and 4) the radical nature
of this competition puts pressure on users in different ways (which we will see in detail in the
third chapter), in order to distort the possibilities and results of their social and personal
process of humanization.

2.3.6 Platform capitalism and its “clouds”

In this topic, we have already presented: the relationship between extended mind,
general intellect and capitalist production; conceptual and technical arguments about the work
implicit in the use of digital goods; and the context and determinations of the structural crisis
176
For example, according to Ibope, in 2012 alone, 58% of Brazilians used smartphones while traveling on public
transport and 84% while standing in queues. Available respectively at: https://glo.bo/3MNYjT0;
https://epocanegocios.globo.com/Informacao/Resultados/noticia/2012/08/ibope-84-
dos-brasileiros-acessam-internet-while-estao-em-filas.html. Access only on: 13 Mar. 2022.
162
in which these phenomena occur. To close the topic and the chapter, we deal briefly with
some themes of the general structures that participate in the articulation and mystification of
all the elements discussed so far: digital platforms and their “clouds”. Through this exit, we
walk towards the surface of the automagic machines, towards their form as a new “skin of
culture” ( DE KERCKHOVE, 1997 ).

a) Technological, institutional and market innovations

While the stagnation of the 1970s made the industrial forms of the time insufficient for
the capital accumulation rates necessary for the system, many interrelated technological and
institutional innovations emerged to counteract this dynamic – which, to a large extent,
constitute globalization (HARVEY, 2004; 2019; ALVES, 2018). At first, in the sphere of
production, some of these innovations sought to develop and establish areas with market
potential that had not yet been exhausted, such as telecommunications and computing
(SRNICEK, 2017). For example, in 1965, integrated circuits replaced transistors; in 1973,
Motorola made the first connection between cell phones and AT&T connected the first fiber
optic network (1973); and between 1980 and 1990 integrated software appeared
(WILLIAMS, 2015; SRNICEK, 2017).
In the sphere of circulation and finance, the monopolistic (and imperialist) structure of
previous capitalist innovations served as an investment base and geopolitical force for the
development of these new markets and their monopolies (WILLIAMS, 2015). For example, in
1971, the dollar-gold standard was extinguished – which increased the capacity to create
fictitious capital –; in 1985, the USA framed the German and Japanese industrial development
with the Plaza Accord – which guaranteed the primacy of its goods in the global market
(PADULA, 2021); and in 1994 the TRIPS ( Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights ) was signed , an international agreement that establishes
common rules for intellectual property worldwide (ORMAY, 2019). Combined with the
capital market deregulation of the 1990s, these and other events played a part in the boom and
177
bust of so-called “dot com” companies and reorganized investment agents increasingly in
177
The denomination of “dot com” companies refers to those that emerged approximately between 1994 and
2000, mainly in the USA, offering digital products and services (with an electronic address ending in “.com”)
and that gave rise to a huge movement of venture capital to your financing. This race of startups , investors and
speculators inflated the value of these companies, which did not necessarily have monetizable or really useful
products and services, so that this boom was succeeded by a collapse of the shares of these companies. For more
details, see Srnicek (2017).
163
the form of venture capital ( VC). (SRNICEK, 2017). All of this contributed to the “[...]
installation of an infrastructural base for the digital economy and the shift to an
ultra-accommodative monetary policy in response to capitalist economic problems”
(SRNICEK, 2017, p. 11).
This movement also determined other new arrangements and transformations in the
productive sphere. According to Rieder, Sileno and Gordon (2021), with intellectual property
as a financial asset and with the capitalist concentration already described, a select group of
companies “began to dominate research production in computer science, particularly around
deep learning, leading to a process of 'de-democratization' in the production of knowledge”.
Even among large capitals, the situation is “particularly acute in the AI and ML [machine
learning] space, where a small handful of large companies have continually bought a
remarkable number of new entrants as they emerge” (RIEDER; SILENO; GORDON, 2021).
For example, in 2021 alone, the technology acquisition market surpassed more than $3 trillion
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.

b) artificial artificial intelligence

In addition to all of this, there is the issue of the workforce. According to psychologist,
philosopher and economist Nick Srnicek (2017, p. 19), the collapse of communism
contributed to “[...] a long-term trend towards both greater proletarianization and a greater
number of surplus populations”. Such factors participated in the new forms of precarious
work with their mediation by platforms and applications (ANTUNES, 2018). What interests
us most in this topic, on the one hand, the big techs narrate a growing omnipotence of AI and
big data (ANDERSON, 2008; LAZER et al. , 2009; CUKIER; MAYER-SCHOENBERGER;
2013 ; SCHMIDT; COHEN, 2013 ; VARIAN, 2014; PENTLAND, 2014 ; DOMINGOS,
2017; O'REILLY, 2017). On the other hand, it becomes evident that its power depends
decisively on the human workforce – cheap and highly exploited, precisely in many of the
countries affected by the neoliberal political-economic crises – to label images, train
algorithms and even pretend to be chatbots (COULDRY; MEJIAS, 2019; ABÍLIO;
AMORIM; GROHMANN, 2021; CASILI, 2021; CRAWFORD, 2021 ) . No wonder, the

178
The GAFAM Empire. Available at: https://gafam.theglassroom.org/#timelines-of-expansion. Accessed on: 3
Oct. 2022.
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owner of Amazon Mechanical Turk, Jeff Bezos, refers to the services provided by his
platform as “artificial artificial intelligence”.

c) “Immaterial” Goods

To the extent that this framework links the development of the digital industry to the
determinations of financialization (SRNICEK, 2017; DANTAS, 2019), the question posed by
sociologist Vinicius Santos (2013) is opportune. Turning to the creation and
commercialization of work software , games , social networks, databases, streamings , etc. –
179
“immaterial” goods –, the author asks us: “[...] for what reasons does the majority (about
60%) of the global capital investment flow prefer the immaterial production cycle?”
(SANTOS, 2013, p. 159). The answer would be in one of the movements that countertend to
the fall in the rate of profit: the participation of these goods in accelerating the total
circulation time of capital – that is, the time in which it leaves the money form and goes
through the productive and commercial cycle until it returns. as capital valued again in the
form of money. While in physical goods capital suffers temporary stoppages in stocks,
circulation and financial transactions, with digital (or “immaterial”) goods and services they
180
simply do not exist . The immaterial good-service is, in general, produced only once (in
addition to updates) and is delivered on demand immediately (SANTOS, 2013; DANTAS,
2019). In addition, through the enclosure of informational products in the form of monopoly
intellectual properties, another form of capitalist accumulation is renewed, which are the
extractable informational rents, in certain circumstances, by charging for access to these
products (PAULANI, 2016; DANTAS, 2019). In this sense, as we will further discuss, for
Sadowski (2019, p. 6) “[...] the main strategy of these rentiers is to transform social
interactions and economic transactions into 'services' that occur on their platform”.

179
We don't have space here for certain and important problematizations about the (false) immateriality of digital
goods. Suffice it to say, on the one hand, that they fully depend on and occur incorporated in physical objects,
intermingling with them (MARQUES, 2020). On the other hand, the nature of its consumption activity and the
needs and subjectivities that derive from it and participate in it are different from those of eminently physical
goods. This overlap generated a series of questionable analyzes about these phenomena that have already been
exhaustively criticized (SANTOS, 2013; TEIXEIRA; FREDERICO, 20 08 ; DANTAS, 2018) and that are
outside our research scope. On the other hand, in the section that interests us (their objective-subjective existence
traversed by the commodity fetish), such objects and their dematerialization as part of their fetish are discussed
in the third chapter.
180
This does not prevent this set of innovations from also having a countertrend impact on the circulation of
physical goods, as is the case of high technologies and financialization that shape the business model of Amazon
and the like (O'NEIL, 2016; CRAWFORD; JOLER, 2018; VAZQUEZ et al., 2021). Kaufman (2018), for
example, calls the work regime propagated by Amazon “digital Taylorism”.
165
d) californian ideology

Let us briefly see how the transformations already discussed have their social
meanings mystified. According to Morozov (2018, p. 15, 19), the so-called Californian
ideology emerged with the ebb of the hippie movement , when some of its protagonists linked
to computer sciences proposed the figure of the hacker as “someone capable of spoiling
global capitalism , the State or any other institution that came in its way thanks to smarter
technologies”. For Turkle (2005), these agents “[...] were computer populist utopians who saw
the computer as a means of widespread access to information (previously available only to
elites) that would encourage political engagement”. For Morozov (2018, p. 19), this set of
narratives would be a “[...] fairy tale [that] convinced the American middle class that they too
could be bold and cool – but within the scope of the market ”.

e) Productive, cumulative and epistemic restructuring

It so happens that these narratives do not emerge in isolation, as a spontaneous and

internal product of the digital technology revolution. According to Morozov (2018, p. 18),
they participate in the environment of “[...] postmodern distrust of everything that is remotely
consolidated [...], corrupt, at the service of vested interests”. In this context, the nascent big
techs presented themselves ( vorstellen ) as if they were confronting the “established system”
– Airbnb versus hospitality; Uber versus taxis; Amazon versus bookstores etc. – acting, in
fact, as Trojan horses in the struggle between capitals.
These presentations are in line with the “triumph of neoliberal ideology” by
contributing to “[...] the identity of the consumer surpassing that of a citizen” in a world “[...]
in which social ties and solidarity are scarce ” (MOROZOV, 2018, p. 20). By the way, and not
coincidentally, these elements are also present in the so-called post-truth and in the rise of the
far-right side of neoliberalism. Based on a dialogue between Streeck (2012), Cesarino (2020;
2021; 2022), Mirowski (2019) and Lewandowsky , Ecker and Cook (2017) among others,
such convergences point to a true nucleated productive, cumulative and epistemic
restructuring , mediating and resulting from the aforementioned capitalist structural crisis. For
Cesarino (2020), neoliberal capitalism needs to “release speculative forces and, in their wake,
'non-modern' epistemic forms based on messianic temporalities and hidden causalities. These
166
forms would be, so to speak, the 'superstructure' adequate to contemporary neoliberal
capitalism”. The very logic of social network algorithms (and/or their business model) would
correspond to (or would integrate) this convergent (or unitary) restructuring of illiberal cadiz,
insofar as it would tend to favor the visualization and engagement with content of extreme
right, according to recent studies by the author (CESARINO, 2022).

f) Platforms and apps

The apparent lack of mediation offered by digital solutionism takes advantage of and
forces the emptying of public and common social structures, which “[...] are not designed as
integrated systems and do not take advantage of new technologies” (PENTLAND, 201 2 , p .
1). Health, transport, culture, education, sociability, among others, cease to be made possible
and/or regulated by the welfare state and other equitable structures, while migrating to digital
markets. (LUPTON, 2017; SADOWSKI, 2019 ; MOROZOV, 2018; COLLINGTON, 2021).
This is very important in our discussion because it represents yet another upgrade of
fetishism. That is, the loss of the reality of capitalism in crisis and the experience of
relationships between people (mediated by their extended minds) as relationships between
digital goods. In technological solutionism, law and social power reappear as applications and
other “immaterial” products.
It is as a cause and consequence of this broad neoliberal context that digital platforms
and applications establish and expand rapidly (VALENTE, 2019; AMORIM; GROHMANN,
2021). In the description of Schmidt and Cohen (201 3 , p. 9-10) (the former, former CEO of
Alphabet), “[...] almost nothing, except a biological virus, can scale as quickly, efficiently or
aggressively as these technology platforms, and that makes the people who create, control and
use them powerful too.” But, after all, what is the materiality of this new “virus”? According
to Dantas (2019, p. 1),

Socio-Digital Platforms (SDPs) such as Alphabet/Google, Facebook, Amazon and

similar sites are physical and logical infrastructures for processing and
communicating information that allow two or more users to interact directly with
each other, whether those interactions are recreational, professional or commercials.
These users can be buyers or sellers of goods and services, marketing advertisers,
software developers, or most of the time just ordinary people exchanging messages
with other ordinary people about everyday issues or engaging in leisure activities to
occupy their free time. .

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 In turn, Poell, Nieborg and Van Dijck (2019, p. 4) highlight the reprogrammable
aspects “[...] that facilitate and configure personalized interactions between end users and
complementers [developers, companies, influencers, etc.], organized by through systematic
collection, algorithmic processing, monetization and circulation of data”. Such
181
reprogrammable and datatifying character (related to the universal machine and its API )
allows platforms to unfold in a “myriad of extensions” that transform “practically all instances
of human interaction into data: classification, payment, research, observation, conversation,
friendship, courtship, direction, walk, etc.” (POELL; NIEBORG; VAN DIJCK, 2019, p. 9).
However, in addition to these moments of sociability, according to Srnicek (2017, p.
27), the platforms also embrace sociometabolic dimensions “[...] of natural processes (weather
conditions, crop cycles, etc.), of production processes ( assembly lines, continuous flow
manufacturing, etc.) and from other companies and users ( web tracking , usage data, etc.)”.
This is because, “[...] instead of having to build a market from scratch, a platform provides the
basic infrastructure to mediate between different groups”, positioning itself between them
“[...] which their activities take place, which gives them privileged access to record them”
(SRNICEK, 2017, p. 25).
According to Tarnoff (2022), such breadth of digital platforms allows companies like
Google to project an aura of openness and neutrality onto themselves. Thus, they can “[...]
present themselves as supporting actors, merely facilitating the interactions of others. Their
control over the spaces of our digital life and their active role in ordering those spaces are
obscured.” This further reaffirms the increasingly infrastructural character of digital platforms
which, according to Durand (2020), should be considered in the same category as electricity
providers, railways or telecommunications.
Miller and Matviyenko (2014, p. 28), in turn, explain the difference between platform
and application, where the latter is “[...] a type of interface layer within a larger global
computing stack. [...] Within the logic of platforms, an application transforms some capacity
of the cloud and renders and frames it for the user as a handy service”. Therefore, according
to Abílio, Amorim and Grohmann (2021, p. 38) the application is “[...] just the visible
interface of the software on cell phones, like the tip of the iceberg of exactly what platform
means”. And yet, for Dantas (2019, p. 18), one of the main characteristics of this hidden
iceberg is that, given its private nature, we are experiencing a new process of “[...] closure of

181
About the universal machine, see Introduction and notes 10 and 17. About the API, see note 160.
168
knowledge and [of] all cultural practices or social aspects of human society [...]”. Especially
in the case of social networks, for Silveira (2019, p. 248-249), these are walled gardens that
“focused attention that was scattered on the meshes of distributed networks”.

g) Cloud

According to Amazon Web Services (AWS), in cloud computing, “instead of buying,

owning and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology
services such as computing capacity, storage and databases [...] using a “remote provider”,
that is, computers physically located in places that the user is generally unaware of (AWS,
2022). In this type of platform, “new companies started to offer multiple free services for
search, e-mail, data storage, geographic information, in addition to basic software and
applications” ( TIGRE; NORONHA, 2013, p. 119), whose forms of monetization have
already been introduced in subtopic 2.3.3.
As one of the faces of platforms, “[...] the concept of cloud is very important because
it allows computing to become a public utility , as information goods are non-rival and can be
used simultaneously by unlimited users” ( TIGRE; NORONHA, 2013, p. 119, emphasis
added) . Given this scope, only considering data from 2018, these data centers (or clouds)
182
grew at investment rates of US$ 20 billion per year and consumed 3% of all electricity in
the world 183.

h) network effect

In all these cases, for platformization to happen in this way, it depends on its “network
effects”, which refer to the realization and increase in the use value (and as capital) of these
infrastructures as more users join them. (SHAPIRO; VARIAN, 1999; SRNICEK, 2017;
POEL; NIEBORG; VAN DIJCK, 2019). This is a rather tricky concept that, to a large extent,
contributes to the mystification of platform capitalism. For example, in the case of Facebook,
the social network “[...] expands its network effect by creating different types of links

182
Available at:
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/global-forecast-bright-for-the-data-center-construction-market/.
Accessed on: 20 Oct. 2022.
183
Available at: https://www.supermicro.com/wekeepitgreen/Data_Centers_and_the_Environment_Dec2018
_Final.pdf. Accessed on: 20 Oct. 2022.
169
between people and institutions, including encouraging its expansion” (VALENTE, 2019, p.
302).
It so happens that, according to journalist Cory Doctorow (2021), the narrative of the
network effect elides the fact that, if on the one hand, it is with him that the social network
attracts its users, on the other hand, the platform “[... ] deliberately designs its system to block
'interoperability' – the ability to connect rival services on its network. The term in economics
for this is 'switching costs'”, which is the “[...] you have to give up to switch between products
184
or services” . Thus, although the network effect is an observable fact in the capitalist
economy, it may be more a result of its performativity (it self-realizes) (CALLON, 2007) and
less a natural and meritorious effect, as its ideologues propose.

i) Platformization of sociometabolism

We could detail much more the points raised here and continue enunciating many
other aspects that denote the dichotomies between the concrete existence of the extended
mind under capitalism and how it presents itself ( vorstellen ) as automagic machines.
However, to conclude this subtopic, it is possible to propose a critical synthesis of these
expositions in order to argue, once again, that it is this very dichotomy that co-produces the
automagic machines.
We have seen that neoliberal technological, institutional and market innovations were
decisive countertrend forces against the profitability crisis; that this escape produces and
depends on the increase in rates and forms of exploitation of the workforce, as well as the
replacement of social rights by private technological solutions, in addition to dangerous and
potent epistemic restructurings – results decisively mediated by algorithms. We have seen that
this techno-solutionism is expressed in very concrete infrastructures, but which are presented (
vorstellen ) through automagic metaphors such as platforms, applications, clouds and network
effects.
Based on all the discussion accumulated in these two chapters already passed, we
argue that what we see in this subtopic are upgrades from the human use of human beings to

184
According to internal platform memos obtained by the journalist, “[...] if we are where all the users' photos
reside... it will be very difficult for a user to switch if he cannot take those photos and data/comments associated
with them”. See “Facebook's Secret War on Switching Costs”. Available at:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs. Accessed on: 20 Oct. 2022.

170
super-humanization – from turkers to the work implicit in the use of digital goods; and that
these social relations, in turn, create and depend on upgrades in pure “abstractions of
non-empirical forms”, which have “a peculiar and proper normative sense”, “from the
beginning with its own sense of truth and untruth” ( SOHN-RETHEL, 1978, p. 68) – from
“inexplicable” machine learning to its dataism.
We also saw that, in order for these purposes to be established, capitalist mystification
also undergoes upgrades , assuming certain forms of logically and naturally given causalities
– from the ontological reductions already introduced (which we will delve into in the next
chapter) to digital clouds. In the case of so-called platform capitalism, we have seen that the
crisis of profitability, when aggravated by the competitive struggle for more capital
accumulation, in addition to creating fictitious value with the help of the extended mind, also
intensifies the invasion of common, state spheres. and deprived of social life to commodify
them. Extrapolating real mathematical abstractions into ideal abstractions from behavioral
economics, platform capitalism encrypts its monopoly and geopolitical strength, its
constraints via “switching costs” and its behavioral design , presenting them self-deservingly
and automagically as network effects – ultimately, yet another variation on the archer's tale.
While the concrete human-social world continues, under the capitalist mode of
production, deepening its metabolic fracture with nature and with the potentialities of
humanization, the response of this system now is the platformization of sociometabolism .
Increasingly creating and taking advantage of political, epistemological, economic and social
instability, capital produces (or radicalizes) a kind of scarcity of mediations sociometabolic
activities still little or not commodified. At the same time that it scarces them communally on
the one hand, it monopolizes them privately on the other. Between constraints, crises and
mystifications, more and more sociometabolic mediations belong directly or indirectly to
capital.
185
A consultation in a SouGov chat about the retirement of a civil servant is supported
by the IBM cloud, while, as an implicit work, this activity trains the artificial intelligence of
that company for free (SILVEIRA, 2021). The satisfaction of psychological, affective and
sexual needs is increasingly resolved by default/cultural coercion in applications such as

185
Application of the Brazilian federal government that concentrates the interactions of one million servants and
pensioners, civil and military, with the people management system of the federal public administration.
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 186 187
Cíngulo or OkCupid , which also convert these activities (as part of their core business )
into a workforce for the production of data and AI training. The same goes for food, health,
art, education, mobility, leisure and whatever else fits our imagination and that of venture
capitalists and technology developers (including psychologists) – just click on the PlayStore
icon on your cell phone and you will find 188out How far can you go for now.
However, it is still possible to observe this monopolization in reverse. In 2022,
journalist specializing in technology Kashmir Hill did an unscientific experiment with herself,
in which she applied software to block any products or services from Amazon, Facebook,
189
Google, Microsoft and Apple on her digital devices to find out how she could survive
without them. . In this case, it was not just about depriving yourself of social networks or
online shopping . According to Hill (2022), she experienced a collapse in her life and that of
her family for three months, as a series of services (payments, transport, communication,
streaming, etc.) are executed in the cloud services of some of these companies, including
190
services available only on the so-called dark web . What seems most revealing in this case
is how much growing aspects of everyday life increasingly occur within or from private data
storage and transmission infrastructures.
To conclude, it is important to reiterate that, obviously, these are not technophobic
criticisms, that is, they are not directed at our computational ability to “[...] take advantage of
properties of substances to impose ideal forms on them” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. . 255) as
mediation to carry out our humanization. After all, at the same time that, tendentially, each
machine frees the human being from a quantum of work, it produces, with it, more free time
to enjoy freely (and through machines, if you like) the natural and social riches (MARX,
2013). In summary, our criticism refers to the fact that, in capitalist society, through the
control and fetishization of the extended mind, “[...] free time is produced for a class by
transforming the entire life time of the masses in working time” (MARX, 2013, p. 733).

186
The mental health and wellness app Cíngulo (over 1 million downloads ) has 23 built-in trackers , many for
commercial purposes. Available at: https://psiapps.medialafufrj.net/ . Accessed on: 21 Oct. 2022.
187
Until at least the beginning of the last decade, the OkCupid dating application was the one that most shared
data from its users (including texts produced by them) with commercial companies. Available at:
https://chupadados.codingrights.org/suruba-de-dados. Accessed on: 03 Apr. 2020.
188
According to TechTudo magazine, the Google PlayStore has more than 2.5 million applications available
there, already downloaded 108 billion times . Available at:
https://www.techtudo.com.br/listas/2021/05/google-play-store-conheca-seis-curiosidades-sobre-a-loja-de-aplicati
vos.ghtml. Accessed on: 21 Oct. 2022.
189
HILL, Kashmir. I Cut the 'Big Five' Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell. Available at:
https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-the-big-five-tech-giants-from-my-life-it-was-hel-1831304194. Accessed on: 12 Dec.
2022.
190
Dark web is the part of the internet that is not crawlable by browsers and search engines in general.
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173
CHAPTER 3: PSYCHOTECHNOLOGIES – PART 2

In subtopic 1.7.2 of chapter 1, in the discussion of second-order mediations, Grespan

(2019) demonstrated how the “impossible” social relations of alienated capitalist work must
permanently present themselves ( vorstellen ) in new social forms that would act as “
channel”, “dimension” or “method” through which its contradictions could move and be
realized.
In this way, as we have argued throughout the thesis and concluded in this chapter,
ontonegativity and appropriation without work (including the structural crisis of this social
relationship as a crisis of valorization) have sought to enjoy and realize their contradictions by
modeling the extended mind and its interfaces as such channels, dimensions and methods. We
have seen that, for this must-be to come to an end, it depends on the cooperation of the
billions of users of digital technologies. To do so, we saw that capital (mystified as
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“intellectual work” ) produces systems with an extended mind in the form of: 1) A growing
oligopolistic concentration of sociometabolic mediations (platformized techno-solutionism);
and 2) as psychotechnology, that is, as a technique for directing the subjective dimension of
reality – superstructurally, neurostructurally, conceptually and in the production of personal
meanings. And finally in this chain of mediations, as we will argue in this chapter, the
existence of the extended mind as psychotechnology (second-order mediation) occurs through
the orchestration and fetishization of human-computer interaction (HCI).
For this last argument, we debated with some authors who, in different ways, have
addressed this broad issue. Many of them, such as those based on the Foucauldian concept of
governmentality (FOUCAULT, 2005), or on the cognitive “predictably irrational” subject
(ARIELY, 2008), have produced relevant knowledge about psychotechnological structures
and elements – knowledge that, we believe, PSSH should hurry to dominate critically.
However, in many of these approaches, the issue of psychotechnological influence and
persuasion is not always properly situated in the context of societies of appropriation without
work. In these cases, one can fail to consider the centrality of the fact that the “[...] attempt to
induce another person (or group of people) to perform, on their part, concrete teleological
pores” (originated in the conscience of the inductor ) is, “[...] in the last instance – but only in

191
See note 85.
174
the last instance –, a mediation for the production of use values”, as well as the “teleological
pores” and the “[...] causal chains that they pose in motion” (LUKÁCS, 2013, p. 62) –
scrutinized in subtopic 1.6.3 of the first chapter, namely, the super-humanization by the
human use of human beings. That is, in these societies, in general and ultimately, attempts to
govern individuals and populations are not an end in themselves , they do not have unspecific
or merely egoic, perverse or moral causalities, but are second-order mediations . As we
discussed in subtopic 2.3.3 of the second chapter, this escapes poststructuralism and
cognitivism because, in many of these cases, the ontological foundation of both fields is the
liberal individual. Both fields may also tend to isolate the elements of their totality in facts
and factors that are too autonomous (KOSIK, 2002) – which can cause certain mediations to
be taken as finalities ; or even, that the chain between mediations and purposes that make up
the complex of complexes that is the social totality is lost sight of (LUKÁCS, 2013).
Certainly, the aforementioned centrality cannot be confused with determinism, as
Lukács (2013) highlighted above. In the same sense, Mészáros (2011, p. 31) also makes it
clear that, “when it comes to genuine historical explanations” it is necessary to take into
account (as we did in subtopic 1.4.2 of chapter 1), “the 'active side' by which history is
constantly being made and not simply given as a brute combination of a fatalistic conjuncture
of self-propelling material forces”. Therefore, instead of accusing psychotechnologies and
other second-order mediations as deterministic, infallible, the intention of this thesis is to
demonstrate the mechanisms by which super-humanization as a must-be (a possibility) try
becoming a teleological posit (a reality, a social fact) through digital extended mind systems.
Ultimately, the criterion of truth for the effectiveness of these mediations is history and class
struggle, that is, the ability (or not) of organized subjects who live off work to deny such
denials – which, in certain circumstances, it may even involve laws and regulations for the
commercialization of the extended mind.
Even so, by becoming posited causalities, these psychotechnological techniques,
theories, tools and infrastructures themselves become relatively autonomous causal chains,
systems, markets and subjective dimensions; they form their own capitals (and their explicit
and implicit workforce), their purposes, needs and their own visions of the world. Their
success as second-order mediation allows them to postulate the extrapolation of their
techniques outside their systems, assuming increasing centrality for expanded capitalist
reproduction itself (NORMAN, 2008; ARIELY, 2008; PENTLAND, 2012, 2014, 2015;
KAHNEMAN, 2012 ; 2014; THALER; SUNSTEIN; BALZ, 2013; VARIAN, 2014; SIEGEL,
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2018). Thus, in this last chapter of the thesis, our objective is to decrypt the main elements of
digital psychotechnologies as the last pieces that form the great figure of automagic machines
and their fetishism.

3.1 Ontological reductionism – part 2

As we indicated in the third topic of the first chapter, ontological reductionism is a

belief that contradictorily self-realizes through a series of practical and theoretical procedures
that we have been analyzing spirally. This reductionism, or ontonegativity, is an
epistemological assumption for the separation between manual and intellectual work, seeking
to justify it “for the good of all”. It begins from the gnosiological point of view, according to
which it is mediation and product of racism, patriarchy and all forms of coerced surplus labor
(SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; ANI, 1994; ENGELS, 2019; MARX, 2004; 2013 ; TONET, 2013).
From the Greeks to the moderns and from them to certain cognitivists, these beliefs seek to
support themselves in different twists of scientific knowledge to, in different ways, postulate
the “[...] state of nature as the matrix of human action” (COTRIM, 2008, p. 305). In this last
turn around this theme, we will detail and unfold more specifically the myths of
ontonegativity introduced in subtopic 3.5.1, which, under various scientific veneers, claim a
type of insufficiency of human consciousness that can only be overcome by subsuming work
manual by intellectual work, now mediated by automagic machines. This is a necessary path
because, in order to arrive at the psychotechnologies themselves, it is first necessary to
understand what their more specific epistemological, theoretical and ontological bases are, so
that they do not appear before us as a mere ethical deviation (therefore, correctable) from the
digital goods.

3.1.1 Predictably irrational

The first of these twists refers to the “discovery” that most of our choices and
behaviors may not be rational (CIALDINI, 1984; ARIELY, 2008; KAHNEMAN, 2012; 2014;
THALER; SUNSTEIN; BALZ, 2013). In the intersection between the emergence of the
structural crisis of profitability, the crisis of really existing socialism, the uncertainties
unfolded from the theories of relativity, post-modernity and post-structuralism, in addition to
the emergence of neurosciences and digital technologies, among other events , psychologist
and bestseller Dan Ariely (2008, p. 58) denounces that:
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 Traditional economics assumes that product prices on the market are determined by
the balance between two forces, production at a given price (supply) and the desires
of individuals with purchasing power at a given price (demand). [...] It's an elegant
idea, but it rests essentially on the assumption that both forces are independent and
that together they produce a market price. The results of all the experiments
presented [...] challenge these assumptions, [...] [as] the amount that people are
willing to pay is easily manipulated and this means that, in reality, consumers do not
always dominate the their preferences and the prices they are willing to pay for
different products and experiences.

Based on these experiments, Ariely (2008) argues that, in concrete reality, people
adopt what he calls “arbitrary coherence”, that is, that purchasing or sociability decisions in
general do not follow an a priori rationality , but a set that is often immediate and not very
conscious of considerations depending on the context of the choice, which he calls relativity .
That said, it is necessary briefly to place the issue of economic rationality in historical
perspective. The consolidation of the Enlightenment and capitalism brings with it the
sacralization of the free, conscious, interested and rational individual. This subjective
dimension, in general corroborated by the same scientific methods that later falsified it, was
imperative in the society of the social contract, of legal and individual accountability and in
the exaltation of the nascent capitalist entrepreneurship (MARX, 2010; BOLTANSKI;
CHIAPELLO, 2009). If, in the past, “the closure of the question” (MOROZOV, 2018) was
given by sacred scriptures, now the rationality carried by every free citizen fulfilled this role –
after all, what can be argued against rationality?
Taking a step back in history (more specifically referring to the discussions in topic 6
of the first chapter), we can locate at least part of the origin of these rationality beliefs in the
real abstractions of merchandise and value, as well as in their unfolding in ideal abstractions
already discussed by Sohn-Rethel (1978) and Marx (2013) – in particular the comparison and
quantitative equivalence of labor and its products. Furthermore, the successful application of
science in industry highlighted and invited the extrapolation of the paradigms of precision and
mathematical rationality to all possible aspects of sociability (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978;
OLIVEIRA, 1999; GARCIA, 2014). Since all these times, we have seen that the attribute of
rationality has been changing in a social way, but always justifying the division between those
who hold it and those who objectify it with their workforce.
Ariely and his peers, however, revolutionize the foundations of rationality in order to
preserve them. For this, they resort to behaviorist methodological assumptions that seek to
“reduce human behavior to a frame-by-frame narrative, to isolate individual strengths and to
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 192
examine them carefully and in detail” (ARIELY, 2008, p. 21) . With this, it is expected to
provide “[...] knowledge about our way of thinking and acting, not only in the context of a
specific experience but also as an extrapolation to many other contexts of life ” (ARIELY,
2008, p . 21, emphasis added). Here, once again, “[...] for social scientists, experiments are
like microscopes or strobes” (ARIELY, 2008, p. 21), where the epistemological point of view
allows for the convenient illusion of intellectual optics ( VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a) of the
“vision of the other” (SKINNER, 1974; PLANK, 1949), or of the “vision of God”
(PENTLAND, 2014).
As a result of their experiments, Ariely (2008) and colleagues discover what had
already been understood by historical-dialectical materialism and Soviet psychology, but
which was always neglected by modern sciences. Namely, that the movement of constitution
of our needs and the cognitive process do not exist detached from emotion (AGUIAR, 2001);
is that:

Thought itself is generated by motivation, that is, by our wants and needs, our
interests and emotions. Behind every thought there is an affective-volitional
tendency, [...] [and] a full and true understanding of another's thought is only
possible when we understand its affective-volitional basis. (LANE; CAMARGO,
1995, p. 118)

We also already knew that, in turn, such an affective-volitional base does not exist
loose, independent and a priori in our subjectivity, but that it takes place in a “complicated
synthesis” where “[...] general norms regarding both the self-awareness of the personality and
the awareness of reality” (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 126). Despite this, as in the case of Ariely's
positivist approach to the reason-emotion relationship,

[...] anyone who does not know that the jealousy of a person related to the
Mohammedan concepts of woman's fidelity are different from those of another
related to a system of opposing concepts about the same thing, does not understand
that this feeling is historical, that of This fact changes in different ideological and
psychological environments, despite the fact that there is undoubtedly a certain
biological radical in it , due to which this emotion arises. (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 128,
emphasis added)

192
In this regard, it is worth reviewing the quote by Vygotsky (1997, p. 55) in the first chapter (subtopic 1.5.2).
There, he also states (subtopic 1.5.2) that “by dividing the operation into panels, you have missed the most
important part: the peculiar activity of man, which aims to dominate his own behavior”. It is in the confrontation
between Ariely's quotes and Vygotsky's that the beliefs and techniques of the “impossible” relationship of the
human use of human beings are revealed.
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 In any case, Ariely and his peers then propose a reorganization of theories of economic
behavior and in general. In a kind of liberal “narcissistic wound”, they argue that “[...]
humans rarely make absolute choices. [...] Most people don't know what they want until they
see it in context” (ARIELY, 2008, p. 24). Just like his ontonegativist predecessors, Ariely and
others will anchor a good part of our “irrational behavior” in the origins of hominization in
search of its negentropy (flight, struggle, conservation, etc.).
Thus, as dreamed by Skinner's behaviorism and schematized by Wiener's social
cybernetics, for Ariely (2008, p. 20) “[...] our irrational behaviors are neither random nor
meaningless. They are systematic and, as we repeat them over and over again, they are also
predictable.” From then on, in a series of circular references, where some cite the experiments
and theories of others, Ariely, Kahneman, Tversky, Thaler, Sunstein and Balz among many
will classify such “systematic errors” that “repeat in a predictable way in circumstances
particular” such as cognitive biases (KAHNEMAN, 2012, p. 10) – priming , anchoring,
confirmation, perspective, availability, etc. bias. More importantly, for these authors, such
systematic errors could be elicited in response to certain previously idealized environmental
stimuli – that is, through psychotechnologies.
At this point, the theoretical body of the so-called behavioral economics not only
extrapolates laboratory occurrences into social laws, but, with that, it assigns itself the power
to apply them, so that the specific determinations that would make us irrational could “[. ..] be
identified, categorized and rectified” (MOROZOV, 2018, p. 108). So, in possession of these
theories and their markers, social scientists (and whoever can hire them) can deliberately
distribute such stimuli, restrictions and possibilities in the environments in the search for an
increase in the probability of the occurrence of a previously idealized behavior - which, in
general, it is in the interest and conscience of those agents, but not necessarily of the
stimulated individuals.
Certainly, as we discussed in subtopic 1.8.1 of the first chapter, today we have a
volume of reviews that belie “[...] the extrapolation to many other contexts of life” of these
limited and questionable experiments in behavioral economics. Also, as we argued in subtopic
1.8.4 of that same chapter, what is proven with this is not that the social being is naturally
constituted by the defensive, petty or impulsive characteristics of our prehistoric ancestors, or
of the current monad that bears some property toilet. As our review points out, it is precisely
the restriction and modeling of the circumstances of the social reproduction of life (at the
limit, its subsumption) that, in its reflection, can co-produce certain functional structures of
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consciousness and its behaviors as classifiable and predictable – or, as Ariely prefers,
predictable (HELLER, 1976; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; KOSIK, 2002; MARX, 2004; ALVES,
2008; AGUIAR et al., 2009; BOCK; GONÇALVES, 2009; FUCHS, 2009; COMOR, 2011;
ANTUNES , 2018; GRESPAN, 2019) .
Does all this mean that we are not predictably irrational? The fact that Dan Ariely is
capable of committing fraud in his experiments – and that this resource is not rare in his field,
as we saw in subtopic 1.8. critical analysis. Like Vigotski (2004), Gonçalves (2005) and Lessa
(2016), we do not doubt replicable scientific experiments nor their empirical evidence; we
question how these data are signified, what is postulated from them and for what. What we
mean is that the “irrational”, described by behavioral economics as limitation and nonsense
193
, seeks to hide the active side , the rich and necessary condition with which we leave the
animal world through the taking of its consciousness and its control (to this, even resorting to
the extended mind). On the other hand, for them, “rational” has as its epistemological
backdrop the presumption of the existence of a transcendent reason, the reification of the
world and the abstraction of merchandise (SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; KOSIK, 2002). It turns out
that, as a product of these postulations,

[...] not only is the activity of reason restricted to the simple sphere of the technique
of behavior, but at the same time, the field of means, of manipulation, of technique,
falling into the sphere of "reason", is radically separated of evaluations and ends,
that is, [...] it excludes from science the judgment relative to the end, to its
legitimacy and rationality (KOSIK, 2002, p. 104).

In turn, the idea of “predictably”, also discussed in this thesis (topic 1.4, first chapter),
encrypts the origins of the pretense of such a capacity. In capitalism, behavioral predictability
is not restricted to its biological radical but, fundamentally, to the ontological, symbolic,
productive and distributive restrictions discussed in chapters 1 and 2. In them, in the first
place and according to Heller (1976) and Marx (2002), our affective-volitional tendencies are
reduced to the category of interest , expressions of needs as greed, “[...] something that could
only be interpreted within the framework of the fetishized reality of capitalism [...]”
(HELLER, 1976, p. 60). Secondly, according to Kosik (2002, p. 96, emphasis added), “[...]
the innumerable chaotic individual actions, apparently spontaneous and unpredictable, are
reduced to accidents of a characteristically typical movement and explained on this basis”.

193
For example, Thaler and Sunstein, in their bestseller Nudge A Little Push compare us 14 times to the animated
character Homer Simpson.
180
Therefore, the author speaks of the preoccupied subject as the one who is previously expected
to behave within his role in his social class. That is, the predictable refers less to the allegedly
typical regularities of individuals and more to the regularities necessary for the capitalist
mode of production – which appears inverted in Ariely and his peers.
Finally, the concept of “predictably irrational” refers to the alleged view of the rational
observer about his irrational object; the old positivist rationality, based on its pure abstract
concepts derived from the abstractions of merchandise and value, but now under the guise of
relativity . What we intend with this first criticism is to denote that the concept of “predictably
irrational”, by re-editing the ontonegative beliefs discussed in the first chapter, is one of the
first (and/or most symbolic) logical-theoretical foundations of digital psychotechnologies.
This is because it is these fundamentals that qualify the (rational) subject who applies
psychotechnology, its object (the irrational subject) and its justification (rationality and
economic efficiency).

3.1.2 Systems 1 and 2

The second assertion to be verified is Daniel Kahneman's (2012) version of the Dual
System Theory (SAMSON; VOYER, 2012), the so-called system 1 and system 2 (which we
introduced in subtopic 1.5.1, first chapter). According to Kahneman (2012, p. 42), “[...] as you
specialize in a task, the demand for energy decreases. Brain studies have revealed that the
pattern of activity associated with an action changes as skill increases, with fewer brain
regions involved.” Thus, carrying out and learning a new task require the activation of
attentional, critical, analytical, self-control mechanisms, which therefore require more energy
– system 2 –, whereas with mastery of this skill, the activity would become be performed by
194
heuristics , more practical and automatic reflexes, which therefore consume less energy –
system 1.
These systems would still act in an integrated way, so that system 1 “generates
impressions, feelings and inclinations; when endorsed by system 2, they become beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions”. As system 2 “trusts” system 1 to save energy, sometimes this

194
According to Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier (2011, p. 454) heuristic is the “[...] strategy that ignores part of the
information, with the aim of making decisions faster, simpler and/or more accurately than with more complex
methods” .
181
“delegation” can be “the origin of many systematic errors in its intuitions” (KAHNEMAN,
2012).
It is important to emphasize that the concepts surrounding the dual system are not the
novelty that part of the cognitive literature suggests they are, having already been researched
for at least almost a century. In item “a” of subtopic 1.5.3 (chapter 1), research by Vygotsky
(2003) pointed to habituation as the automation of actions by executing them in lower nervous
centers, in order to release more conscious attention to other tasks . As Leontiev (2004, p.
111) explains, “[...] the action and its end, when they enter into the composition of another
action, are not 'presented' directly in consciousness. This does not mean that they cease to be
aware. They occupy only another place in consciousness [...]”.
This process, which, for Soviet psychology, is a facet of self-control as mediations and
results of the humanization process, in Kahneman (2012) and his peers, however, is observed
from the ideal abstraction of the economy . Even though it is an objective fact that the human
body manages its energy consumption (as part of homeostasis), for Kahneman (op. cit., p. 42),
“[...] in the economy of action, effort is a cost , and skill acquisition is driven by the balance
of benefits and costs” 195.
As in Wiener and Ariely, the absence of social laws that supersede the inorganic and
organic laws in Kahneman leads him to a series of reductionist and adjective extrapolations
and speculations. For him, to the extent that there would be a “'law of least effort' to both
cognitive and physical effort [...], people will end up tending to the less demanding course of
action” (KAHNEMAN, 2012, p. 47); that “[...] although I have not conducted a systematic
study, I suspect that the frequent switching of tasks and the acceleration of mental work are
not intrinsically pleasurable” (p. 47); that “[...] laziness is something deeply rooted in our
196
nature” (p. 42); and “[...] this is how the law of least effort becomes a law” (KAHNEMAN,
2012, p. 47).
From there, continuing in the tradition of transposing behaviorism to marketing
initiated by Watson (WU, 2017), Kahneman (2012, p. 76) concludes that:

These findings add to the growing evidence that good humor, intuition, creativity,
credulity, and increased System 1 trust form a cluster. At the other pole [system 2],
sadness, vigilance, distrust, analytical approach and expanded effort also go together.

195
For example, based on these precepts, the title and theme of Steve Krug's (2006) book is “don't make me
think”, as we have already introduced in subtopic 4.2 of the Introduction and will detail below.
196
Review note 43.
182
 As we already discussed in topic 8 of the first chapter, the theories and extrapolations
of Kahneman and colleagues have been increasingly questioned, including among
cognitivists. In addition to what has been stated, we must make some more important
additions to situate this repertoire as a basis for psychotechnologies.
As Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 563) clarify, “[...] the use of system 1 and system 2
depends more on how the information is presented”. For example, it can appear as a vorstellen
(a representation as if it were a presentation) when, for example, a decision with complex
consequences is presented with “good humor, intuition, creativity” etc. (KAHNEMAN,
2012). For media researchers Nadler and McGuigan (2018, p. 7), in this way, behavioral
economics would seek to organize the decision-making process, restricting it to shortcuts and
habits “as a matter of conserving the energy that a reasoned deliberation would entail”.
According to Berardi (2007, p. 183), this is how large corporations can “[...] directly
influence ways of life, language and imagination”, by suppressing “[...] the premises of
critical thinking and the very cognitive skills that made it possible to exercise free thought,
free choice [...]”. Anticipating the subversion of the extended mind as automagic machines
and, as we discussed in neuroscientific detail in subtopic 1.5.2 of chapter 1, for Baudrillard
(1995, p. 107) “[...] it is not a matter of reflection time, but of reaction time. The apparatus
does not activate the intellectual processes, but the immediate reactional mechanisms”.
In this sense, Boldyrev and Herrmann-Pillath (2013, p. 18) warn that “[...] the
externalized system of contextual cues” (“on which individual preferences depend”) “do not
necessarily involve higher order cognitive functions, but it can operate on the basis of
primordial neuronal processes”. As Jacob Ward (2022, p. 51) ponders, if in prehistory “[...]
our highly efficient System 1 was a fabulous way to find fruit and detect danger”, now “[...]
we are using this same rule-bound system for making complex choices. For the author, “[...]
no company wants System 2 to come to the door. And for the same reason, no company wants
to build AI that strengthens System 2” (WARD, 2002, p. 110). On the other hand, regarding
system 1, “[...] what company wouldn't want to sell to that part of our minds?” (WARD, 2002,
p. 68).
Based on this provocation by Ward, as we discussed in the second chapter and as we
will continue to explore in the next topics, it is possible to admit, for example, that in the
consumption of the use value of a digital platform, certain purposes of interest to third parties
can be inserted in the actions and objectivations that derive from it, without the fact appearing
as such to the user's conscience. That is, a decision and a commitment involving the work of
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producing data for third parties, which should be under the scrutiny of system 2, are presented
by the UX/UI design as trivial, fun and painless. Based on Leontiev's (2004) previous notes,
the user's implicit work is part of the composition of another action, in order to be automated,
relegated to a pragmatic heuristic, a habit, handled by system 1. As concluded by Ward (2022,
p . 69), “[...] the modern world is mainly System 2, dressed as System 1”.
But Kahneman (2012, p. 138-139, emphasis added) is attentive to the transformation
of system 1 into mediation for the human use of human beings. According to him,

Many others find the results disturbing , as they threaten subjective perceptions of
agency and autonomy. If the content of an irrelevant screen saver on a computer can
affect your willingness to help strangers without your realizing it, how far is your
freedom? However, you must assume that whatever number is on the table has had
an anchoring effect on you, and if what is at stake is very valuable, you must
mobilize (mobilize your System 2) to counter the effect.

Kahneman (2012) is aware that an attentive, informed and critical attitude can mitigate
the “disturbing results” that economic or political agents can obtain based on their theories. In
line with this possibility, the review by Eysenck and Keane (2017, p. 567) suggests that “[...]
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the framing effect can be eliminated when individuals are urged to carefully reflect on the
available options”. Even so, as Kahneman (2012) admits, “[...] little can be done [to 'improve
judgments and decisions'] without a considerable investment of effort [...], both our own and
those of institutions that we serve and that are at our service” (p. 444).
Thus, at the center of the discussion proposed by Ariely, Kahneman and colleagues
(and by us and our authors) about the characteristics, capabilities and limits of consciousness
and decision-making is the tensioning of human agency . This is a very widely discussed
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concept that, in a way, we have already discussed , so here we will summarize it as being
“[...] the individual's exercise of control over the conditions relevant to the satisfaction of his
needs through of participation in social production” (SEVIGNANI, 2019, p. 530). With this
issue in mind, we believe that Berardi (2007) makes a very perceptive synthesis of the
capitalist contradictions involved here and that ties together several of our discussions.
Relating human agency, the work of meaning – discussed by Dantas (2006) and Thompson
(1998) in item “b” of subtopic 2.2.3, chapter 2 – and the circulation time of

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Framing effect refers to decisions that “may be influenced by situational aspects (eg, statement of a problem)
that would be irrelevant for good decision making”.
198
Especially in topics 5 and 7 and subtopic 1.6.3 of chapter 1, as well as in subtopic 2.2.3 of chapter 2 and
throughout the present chapter.
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merchandise/capital – pointed out by Santos (2013 ), Srnicek (2017) and Dantas (2019) in
item “c” of subtopic 3.5, chapter 2 –, for Berardi (2007, p. 107),

The denser a message with meaning is, the slower the transfer of information. The
more time is needed for the interpretation of a commodity-sign, the less the
commodity fulfills its main task, that of valuing the capital invested in its
production. That is why the entire cycle of technological innovation is aimed at
simplifying user journeys, consumption and interpretation.

3.1.3 Libertarian Paternalism

We have seen so far that, according to the cognitivists heirs of the Greek ideal
abstractions, behaviorism and social cybernetics, the conscience of the social being has
limitations that prevent him from living a fully optimal and rational life - rationality that
historically demonstrated a particular perspective that asserts itself as universal. When we
combine this reductionist perspective with the set of discussions we had in chapters 1
(especially topic 1.6) and 2 (especially subtopic 2.1.2 and topic 2.3) it is possible to claim
their convergence not only epistemologically, but also sociotechnically and politically.
economy with the social relations of appropriation without work.
As we will continue to demonstrate, as these social relations are expressed today as
late and neoliberal capitalism; in which the digital extended mind acts as its decisive means of
(re)production; and that the manifest function of these specific forms of cognitivism is to
produce psychotechnologies that justify and renew the fetishism around the promises of “[...]
an existence in harmony with the demands of accumulation, so that a large number of actors
consider that it is worth the effort. worth living it” (BOLTANSKI; CHIAPELLO, 2009, p. 43),
like Han (2018) and Bentes (2022), we call this theoretical (and political) field neoliberal
cognitivism .
In the continuity of neoliberal cognitivism's approach to predictable and lazy
irrationality, two images emerge. The first “[...] is that of busy people who seek to face a
complex world, in which they cannot afford to think deeply about all the choices they have to
make” (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018, p. 61 ). The second image, as in systems 1 and 2
theory, is that of the individual as two semi-autonomous entities, a 'planner' and a 'doer'. “The
planner can be someone who speaks on behalf of your reflective system, or Mr. Spock in you,
while the operational can be heavily influenced by the automatic system or the Homer
Simpson in us” (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018, p. 68).
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 However, for the good of all, the division between manual and intellectual work would
allow this Mr. Spock, with his rational and outside view of human passions, protect us from
our own weaknesses. He would do so by organizing our mental structure (including our
valuations), as well as social teleology and its decision-making structures without this
incurring, according to neoliberal cognitivism, in the loss of our individual freedom
(THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2003). These assumptions make up the third logical-theoretical
assumption of psychotechnologies, libertarian paternalism .
Although libertarian paternalism repeats most of the postulates of behavioral
economics already presented, its particularity is that, while Ariely and Kahneman point out
the “symptoms”, Thaler and Sunstein (2018) prescribe the “treatment” for our ontological
Pekingese. In his critique of the concept, political philosopher Johannes Kniess (2022, p. 3)
introduces it as follows:

Individual well-being […] is simply “what [individuals] think would make their
lives go well”. In other words, the government must 'respect the ends of the people'.
Because of behavioral biases, misinformation, or weakness of will, however, people
often fail to advance their own goals. In order to promote welfare, then, government
can engage in paternalism of means (but not ends).

This is a definition rich in intricacies and developments. First, this engagement,

according to libertarian and aligned paternalists, is distinct from coercive forms of social
cooperation. For cognitive psychologists Ávila and Bianchi (2015, p. 110), approaches of this
type, such as nudge , “[...] preserve freedom and are intended to influence people in certain
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directions, but also allow them to decide”. Likewise, for BJ Fogg et al. (2009, p. 15) , the
social power of persuasion in this approach is “[...] a non-coercive attempt to change attitudes
or behaviors”. Thus, in the classic example of behavioral economics, healthy foods can be
displayed in a cafeteria window in the foreground in relation to unhealthy alternatives as a
form of persuasion to improve health; at the same time, this does not prevent the consumer
from buying the unhealthy food if they prefer (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2019).
The libertarian paternalist approach to cooperation , despite having been baptized by
Thaler and Sunstein (2003) in the 21st century, has been part of our history for a long time.
For Vygotski (2003, p. 123), “[...] in the subjective aspect, for the student, guidance
represents, above all, an expectation of imminent activity”. According to Leontiev (1999, p.
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Social scientist BJ Fogg is one of the pioneers of behavioral design using computers, which he named
captology (we'll see later) from his research at the Stanford Behavior Design Lab , formerly known as the
Persuasive Technology Lab, at Stanford University.
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20), “[...] by influencing the social environment, man creates a system of conventional stimuli
with the idea of dominating other people's behavior”. And, as Wu (2017) reminds us, Edward
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Bernays had already posed this question even more acutely and frankly through his
“engineering of consent”. In the words of Bernays ( apud WU, 2017, p. 35)

[...] [the public] could very easily vote for the wrong man or want the wrong thing,
so they would have to be guided from above. According to him, “the conscious and
intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society.

Although these constructs seem to be restricted to the relationship between States and
citizens – from messages about the harmful effects of smoking on cigarette packs to voting for
the right man – in capitalist societies markets also have the right to promote their prospects of
well-being to citizens -consumers through their goods and infrastructure. Often exempt from
public regulation, these agents can theorize and apply “conscious and intelligent
manipulation” in elections, health, consumption and wherever else intellectual work so
scientifically decides (CIALDINI, 1984; FOGG, 1998; KRUG, 2006; ANDERSON, 2008;
PENTLAND, 2014; BRUNO, 2013; EYAL, 2014; ZUBOFF, 2015, 2021; O'NEIL, 2016;
MOROZOV, 2018; NADLER; MCGUIGAN, 2018; SIEGEL, 2018; WARD, 2022; BENTES
2022 ).
Such scientific decision-making capacity of libertarian paternalism is based on the
potential, often unconscious, of individual and collective behavior to fit into social models
which could not be avoided. According to this field, “[...] the 'adherence' of standard rules is
the product of identifiable factors, including the power of inertia, the power of suggestion and
loss aversion” (SUNSTEIN, 2017, p. 1). For the psychologist Zajonc (2006), “[...] the 'mere
exposure effect', which is well documented in the social psychology literature, can lead people
to develop preferences and positive affective reactions through repeated exposure to a certain
stimulus". According to economists and psychologists Acquisti, Brandimarte and
Loewenstein (2015), “[...] adhering to standards is convenient, and people generally interpret
standards as implicit recommendations”. The review by Perdomo et al. (2020, p. 4) on
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performativity in machine learning suggests that this dynamic of modeling and adaptation

200
Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, was a pioneer in the field of public relations and advertising.
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“ Machine Learning is the study of computer algorithms that automatically improve through experience”
(MITCHEL, 1997).
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develops in the use of the extended mind so that, in them, “[...] individuals usually adapt to
the specifics of a rule decision making to gain an advantage.
Kosik (2002) has already characterized, as we pointed out in the previous subtopic, the
pre-occupation of individuals in capitalist societies. In turn, Zuboff (2015, p. 45) addresses the
issue, calling it “anticipatory conformity”, according to which “[...] one assumes a point of
origin in consciousness from which the choice is made to conform, in order to avoid sanctions
and social camouflage”. As a kind of effect of libertarian paternalism, anticipatory
conformity, as we warned earlier, may not be limited to the relationship between the State,
society and the individual. In the author's words, surveillance capitalism “[...] imposes a
compliance regime based on rewards and punishments and privately administered, sustained
by a unilateral redistribution of rights” (ZUBOFF, 2015, p. 45).
With these presentations of the concept, we can move on to some of its especially
delicate aspects. The first refers to the weaknesses of the tautologies already illustrated in the
quote by Kniess (2022). As he has characterized many times, “[...] government paternalism
can only be justified, if at all, when it promotes the good of the individual, as defined by his
own preferences” (p. 1). However, as behavioral economist Cass Sunstein (2015, p. 6) admits,
the social environment, be it public, private, state or commercial, “[...] inevitably structures
the choices that individuals make – nudging even if they don't want to ”. Thus, on the one
hand, “[...] the economic system is not just an institutional device to satisfy existing desires
and needs, but a way of creating and shaping desires in the future…” (KNIESS, 2022, p. 5).
On the other hand, if “[...] governments generally shape the social environment in
ways that affect the preferences that individuals adopt, [...] on what grounds, then, can
paternalism be justified?” (KNIESS, 2022, p. 1). That is, social agents with asymmetric
powers can not only “take care” of the means for individuals to achieve their ends, but they
can edit the setting in which these purposes and motivations are co-produced by individuals
and society in a way that, in the end, it may not neither paternalism nor freedom remain. As
Kniess (2022, p. 5) concludes, “[...] just as we said that the 'architecture of choice' is often
inevitable, we can conclude that 'architecture of preference' is also inevitable”.
All this unfolds into increasingly worrying possibilities, including given the ambiguity
with which Sunstein deals with the agency of individuals and the “[...] idea that an
enlightened elite formulates simple rules for ordinary people to follow, believing that all the
complexity of making moral decisions would overwhelm them” (KNIES, 2015, p. 11). And
yet, like Edward Bernays, Sunstein (2019) in recent works, we understand that paternalists
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must sometimes make 'independent' judgments about the well-being of individuals and
society, which leads us to question the beliefs of the authors themselves on the foundations of
this concept.
Libertarian paternalists themselves admit other risks of this social power. For Sunstein
(2015, p. 21), “[...] choice architects may be designing the very judgment for which they are
claiming authority”. And this judgment can hide the fact that “[...] the architects of choice in
all areas have their incentives to encourage people to follow a path that benefits the architects
themselves (or their employers) and not both users” (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018, p. 309).
And they conclude:

[...] the invisible hand, under certain circumstances, leads all those who try to
maximize profits to also maximize consumer welfare. However, when consumers
are confused about the features of the products they are buying, exploiting that
confusion can be a way to maximize profits.

In this way, a series of psychotechnologies opens up that seek, by shaping contexts,

restricting alternatives and stimulating behaviors, presenting ( vorstellen ) the intentions and
interests of agents with asymmetrical powers as part of the social landscape – such as in the
discussion of ideal abstractions in topic 1.7 of the first chapter. Analyzing the effects of media
as psychotechnologies, researchers in this area, Oliver, Raney and Bryant (2019) argue that
“[...] often, interactive interfaces provide several heuristic cues that help the user to quickly
evaluate media content , decreasing the amount of cognitive elaboration”. For example,
compared to other search engines, Google's interface minimizes decorative design and
promotes its automatic algorithm that retrieves objective search results. This approach would
provoke what Sundar (2008) calls the machine heuristic , a contextual and environmental
suggestion in which “[...] if a machine chose history, it must be objective in its selection and
free of ideological bias”.
Law, ethics and informatics researcher Karen Yeung (2017) characterizes the use of
resources such as machine heuristics as hypernudges – stimuli created from patterns assigned
by AI and big data that, in turn, seek to result in behaviors that perform behavioral designers '
goals , while suggesting a highly personalized human-computer interaction to the user.
According to the author (YEUNG, 2012), in these cases, the purpose of this type of
psychotechnology is “[...] deliberately circumventing the rational decision-making process

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[...] implying illegitimate manipulation, expressing contempt and disrespect for individuals as
autonomous beings [...]”.
In the same vein, Bakir (2020), in his research on psychological operations ( PsyOps )
in political campaigns, on the one hand, recalls that “[...] nudging has been criticized by
public policy scholars for several reasons (including the lack of long-term efficacy)”. On the
other hand, nudging and other psychotechnologies, ultimately, are forms of “[...] application
of force to prevent opportunities for reflection and deliberation and to limit people's choices”
(BAKIR, 2020, sp, emphasis added). ) which, thus, can lend themselves to deception and
social control. In addition, for Zuboff (2015, p. 51) the exploration of “needs strongly felt as
essential for a more effective life [...] produces a kind of psychic numbness that accustoms
people to the reality of being tracked, analyzed, mined and modified”.
The discussion of these three subtopics allows us to make some considerations that
reinforce the link between the three chapters of this thesis. In the first place, perhaps due to
the influence of neoliberal cognitivism itself, it became general to characterize this whole
process as the use of our cognitive weaknesses , behavioral biases. In light of the discussion in
topic 1.5 of chapter 1, it is important to reiterate once again the crucial role that heuristics and
practical-experimental associations have played over thousands of years for hominization and
humanization. As the reviews by Mithen (2002) and Ward (2022) suggest, what is here called
system 1 may have been one of the doors of trial and error learning that participated in the
development of higher psychic functions, the so-called system 2 – which , then, could
sediment part of this knowledge again in System 1, in a flow and in the context of what
Mithen (2002) called cognitive fluidity. Therefore, we must be wary of what might be a
reiteration of the ontonegative mystifications that neoliberal cognitivism promotes with its
psychotechnologies when it treats our “cultural-psychological attributes” (BAKIR, 2020) as
cognitive weaknesses. This in no way calls into question the existence of schemas and mental
models that we apply in different situations, but deals with their deliberate use for deception,
as already qualified.
We must also be aware of the fact that, in most criticisms of this approach (as in the
case of the authors above), the weaknesses manipulated would be in opposition to another
capitalist mystification that we alluded to in subtopic 3.1.1 of this chapter, which is the liberal
individual rational. As we continue to argue, this attack on subjectivities (FERREIRA et al.,
2021) is a phenomenon that affects us singularly, but which takes us as the locus of conflicts
of both universal and historically particular dimensions that we discuss in chapters 1 and 2 –
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they are manipulations of one class over another. It is the deprivation of the objective
conditions of agency (SEVIGNANI, 2019) and the consequent imposition of social
homeostasis (WIENER, 2017) as a condition for the human use of the working being,
imposing objective and subjective barriers to a rich praxiological apprehension of social life
and of their conflicts (HELLER, 1976; MARX, 1978, 2004; SOHN-RETHEL, 1978; LANE,
1984; KOSIK, 2002; VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a; BOCK; GONÇALVES, 2009; 2015;
FURTADO, 2011).
In addition, Kniess (2015) brings a final question that approaches our reflections. On
the one hand, in any society (emancipated or exploited), given that cooperation is a
presupposition for its existence, it would be inescapable that “[...] the architecture of
preference must guide the development of citizens' preferences” ( KNIESS, 2015, p. 931). In
other words, for a project of society to be presented and realized, it must be able to influence
the way in which individuals seek to humanize themselves. The point for the author is how
individual preferences should be considered and how the architecture should be designed and
executed. Kniess's answer (2015, p. 931) is that “[...] democratic deliberation not only confers
legitimacy on the government's power to shape future preferences; under conditions of free
and informed public discussion, existing preferences are also subject to change”.
Thus, for us, the architecture of ends and means , rather than being a product of the
intellectual work of an enlightened elite, can and should (with the help of AI) be a collective
work that reflects the systems of extended minds as mediations for an emancipatory
humanization. As an example, despite the controversies (sometimes false, sometimes true)
involving its cybersecurity laws, China recently enacted, after public consultation, its
“Provisions on the management of algorithmic recommendations in Internet information
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services” . In them, a series of devices are created that regulate algorithmic
recommendation mechanisms and other forms of architecture of purposes and choices, while
creating others that are allegedly more transparent and community-based.
Finally, what has been retained so far is that the extrapolation of neuroscientific
discoveries and psychological-cultural attributes carried out by neoliberal cognitivism invites
them to claim social control from theoretically and technically implicit, asymmetric and
furtive psychotechnologies, in the name of a well-being that does not necessarily come from

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To access the original sources: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2022-01/04/c_1642894606364259.htm. Accessed on: 15
Nov. 2022.
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individuals and societies, which, when ontologically reduced by these premises, become
involuntarily paternalized by these hidden agents.

3.1.4 Architecture of choices

In the previous subtopic, we argued that, in the complex of neoliberal cognitivism,

while Ariely and Kahneman diagnosed our ontological reductionism, Thaler and Sunstein
prescribed the treatment. In this subtopic, we will deal with how these same authors and their
affiliates describe the methodological details of this intervention. His paternalism – which we
now know to be means and ends and not so libertarian – cannot exist in the abstract. Such
prescriptions need to be objectified in hierarchies of activities and choices that both push
individuals and societies towards these well-being projects and increase the “interaction
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costs” of preferences for alternatives that deny or move away from such projects
(JOHNSON, 2022 ).
Thus, as defined by Sunstein (2017, p. 2), choice architecture is the design of the “[...]
background environment against which people choose products, services and activities”.
Following behaviorist precepts, this manipulation takes place in the form of stimuli , which
would be “[...] that aspect of the architecture of choice that alters a person's behavior in a
predictable way without prohibiting that choice and without significantly altering its
economic incentives” (THALER; SUNSTEIN, 2018, p. 19). His argument is that “[...] when
people are unable to make the best choices, choice architecture can make their lives easier
(based on their own preferences and not those of one or another bureaucrat). )” (THALER;
SUNSTEIN, 2018, p. 24).
But this ease, according to psychologist Eric Johnson (2022), usually implies the
occlusion of information that can distance the subjects object of the architecture from the
“plausible path” traced by the behavioral designer ; while for Sunstein (2017, p. 3), this path
tends to become inevitable for those who seek alternatives “after significant damage has been
caused” to this subject by the inflexibility of this architecture. As an example, Sunstein (2017)
mentions websites, platforms and applications where the user is placed in contexts that he did
not choose, but can seek resources to leave them, the so-called opt-out systems . These

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According to Frischmann and Selinger (2018, p. 30), “[...] the user's 'interaction cost' is defined as the sum of
the mental and physical efforts that users must expend when interacting with a website to achieve their goals.
objectives or expected benefits”.
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systems, “[...] impose a decision burden on those who do not wish to participate and also
provide a signal that the architect of choice thinks participation is a good idea” (SUNSTEIN,
2017, p. 7). Thus, based on the discussion between these authors, stimulus may be meaning
inaccurately, since the architecture of choices also depends on information asymmetry and
involves limits, restrictions and other types of closure and pre-selection of alternatives that
individuals are unaware of and/or have no control over.
Once again, neoliberal cognitivists know that “[...] the architecture of choice can be
used maliciously” (JOHNSON, 2022, p. 18). But for Johnson, as “[...] an optimist [...], I will
generally assume that the designer has the best interests of the chooser in mind and is
selecting tools in a way that improves the well-being of the chooser. ” (JOHNSON, 2022, p.
18). However, as we have already discussed, the reality under the psychotechnologies
embedded in digital goods is much more complex and elusive. The review by Nadler and
Mcguigan (2018, p. 4) demonstrated that, on the one hand, in public conversations,
“prominent digital marketers” “interpret digital marketing as if their only strategy was to
match ads with the pre-existing interests of consumers”. users”, thus presenting them as utility
maximizers and sovereigns over the market. However, in other speeches, they “turned to BE
[behavioral economics] research for guidance on using detailed knowledge of consumer
behavior to influence their choices” (NADLER; MCGUIGAN, 2018).
In this sense, according to UX designer Steve Krug (2006, p. 24), author of the
bestseller Don't Make Me Think! and one of Silicon Valley's most popular choice architects,
"Most of the time we don't pick the best option." Generally, “[...] we choose the first
reasonable option, a strategy known as 'doing enough'. Once we find the link that looks like it
might lead to what we're looking for, there's a good chance we'll click on it” (KRUG, 2006, p.
24). In this link , the architect can embed his preferences and objectives, which would reflect
the contradictions between the determinations of use value and exchange value of digital
goods (which we introduced in chapter 2 and concluded here), in addition to reflecting the
issue of transfer of the product at work (subtopic 2.3.4 of the second chapter). In these cases,
the goods need to be able to fulfill/mediate the users' actions and needs as much and only to
the extent in which they are able to carry out/mediate the determinations of the invested
capital. According to philosopher and philologist Konstanty Szydłowski (2018), the user “[...]
is subjected to a particular experience and pushed towards a possibility. However, it's not
exactly correct to call it a possibility when, in fact, it's a restriction. On the one hand, the
interface opens up a certain space, but it does so on its own terms”.
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 According to Frischmann and Selinger (2018), decision architecture can also be
problematic in the case of terms of use and other types of contracts involved in the
consumption of digital goods. In their research, the authors reinforce that, many times, when
the transaction involves the explicitation of the costs involved, we believe and choose not to
read the “fine print” because we are able to identify the central elements of the decision
(“price magnitude”, quality, delivery time etc.). However, as we discussed in subtopic 2.2.3 of
chapter 2, when the cost is not only not explicit, but requires reading the fine print (which is
uncomfortable and will only increase the anguish of accepting inflexible conditions),
autonomy and “freedom” ” of individuals in front of such goods ceases to exist. “By design ,
we are led to trust blindly, as if we had relationships worthy of that trust, when in fact we do
not” (FRISCHMANN; SELINGER, 2018, p. 20).
Still, for Yeung (2017, p. 5), the architecture of choices of users of the extended mind,
in addition to being conceptually and commercially configured as we have described, is
continuously altered by the algorithms of digital goods in three directions based on the user's
behavioral data : 1) “refinement of the individual's environment of choice in response to
changes in the target's behavior and the wider environment"; 2) “ data feedback to the choice
architect, which can be collected, stored and retrieved for other applications of choice”. Big
Data ”; and 3) reframing the environment of the individual’s choices according to the
dynamic trends of the general profile in which he may be considered. Yeung (2017, p. 171)
concludes that such automagic changes keep us in closed circuits of needs and options that we
can hardly escape and that, when we are online seeking to satisfy these needs (including those
related to intimacy and self-expression), we can be:

[…] following scripts written by others – algorithmic instructions that few of us

would be able to understand, even if the hidden codes were revealed to us. When we
search for information through Google or other search engines, we are following a
script . When we look at a product that Amazon or Netflix recommends to us, we are
following a script . [...] As the computer programmer Thomas Lord argued, software
can end up transforming the most intimate and personal human activities into
thoughtless “rituals”, whose steps are “coded in the logic of web pages ” (YEUNG,
2017, p. 171).

3.1.5 Modulation

In closing this topic, we argue that the set of theories (predictably irrational, systems 1
and 2, etc.) and methods (libertarian paternalism, architecture of choices, etc.) of neoliberal

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cognitivism are assumptions and mediations for the modulation of individual and collective
behavior through the psychotechnologies. However, to characterize this set as the must-be of
modulation, it is first necessary to review this concept so that, from the point of view of
PSSH, it becomes a useful analytical category to deal with psychotechnologies and the fetish
of automagic machines.
Our research located the origin of the dissemination of this concept in Deleuze (2006,
p. 2), which problematizes that:

[...] the different modes of control, the controllers, are inseparable variations,
forming a system of variable geometry whose language is numerical (which does not
necessarily mean binary). The confinements are molds, different moldings, but the
controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming mold that changes continuously, at
every moment, or like a sieve whose meshes change from one point to another.

In addition to Deleuze, other authors thought about the concept of modulation and the
like. As Silveira (2017, p. 59) reminds us, ​“[...] in electricity, the term modulation can be
understood as a deliberately provoked change in the characteristics of an electrical oscillation.
In music, modulation allows you to change the tonality of a piece of music”. In the case of the
modulation of societies, it can turn to “acting on desires, creating new needs” and also “[...]
constituting general trends from the construction of experiences of modulation of
intersubjectivities in networks” (SILVEIRA, 2017, p. 59). All this “[...] because they are
almost always based on our revealed subjectivity and our affective potential” (SILVEIRA,
2017, p. 57). For Lazzarato (2006, p. 73), modulation is the “diagram of production flexibility
and subjectivity”, so that, through it, “the company does not create the object (the
merchandise), but the world where this object exists (LAZZARATO, 2006, p. 98). Finally,
Bourdieu's (1983) concept of habitus (which we will review below) can be useful for
characterizing modulation, as it is a “[...] generating and structuring principle of practices and
representations that can be objectively 'regulated' and 'regular' without being the product of
obedience to the rule” (BOURDIEU, 1983, p. 60-61).
In these terms, modulation is not exactly new and can occur from any sphere of
sociability. However, in current times, to the extent that its exercise is not explicitly coercive
and stems from the capacity for knowledge about the revealed subjectivity and the affective
potentials of individuals and societies on a large scale and in continuous time, it primarily
depends on extended mind systems. to be carried out (SILVEIRA, 2017; MACHADO, 2018;
BENTES, 2022). Thus, in terms of the discussion carried out so far, based on the growing
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monopolization of sociometabolic mediations on digital platforms and the like, the activities
involved in carrying out these mediations (knowing if it is going to rain, what to eat,
communicating, making a pix, consulting a doctor etc.) and in exchange for the right to this
realization, users produce data about themselves that can trigger (not just reveal) a series of
probabilities. In reverse engineering made possible by big data and AI from this data, “[...]
companies offer paths, solutions, definitions, products and services for their samples, that is,
for a potential set of consumers who had their data processed and analyzed” (MACHADO,
2018, p. 59).
In this algorithmic modulation (MACHADO, 2019), the circular movement between
data inputs and affordance outputs , decision architectures and commodity solutions – which
require more activities, which produce more data –, two occurrences are fundamental . First, it
depends on the profile of the users. According to Bruno (2013, p. 161), “[...] the profile is a
set of traits that does not concern a specific individual, but rather expresses relationships
between individuals, being more interpersonal than intrapersonal”. Its objectives are “to use a
set of personal information to act on similar ones” and to act “as a categorization of conduct,
aiming at the simulation of future behaviors” (BRUNO, 2013, p. 161). In this sense,
concludes Bruno (2013, p. 161), “[...] a profile is a category that corresponds to the
probability of manifestation of a factor (behavior, interest, psychological trait) in a table of
variables”.
Second, as a self-deforming mold , platforms and the like adjust cybernetically and
automagically in the game between profiles and goals. Thus, those outputs vary whether you
are a woman on Mondays (ROSEN, 2013), a teenager on Fridays (LEVIN, 2017), an
LGBTQI+ in a conservative country (KOSINSKI; STILLWELL; GRAEPEL, 2013), or if you
are a man with erection problems (REVIGLIO, 2022) or with gambling (MATZ et al., 2017).
In each context, in an attempt to modulate the individual's behavior, the digital commodity
itself modulates, providing apparently personalized experiences, so that the modulation
product is more a process than a specific goal (MACHADO, 2018).
Some evidence of these arguments can be found in research on patents requested by
big techs carried out by social scientist Débora Machado (2018). In the case of Facebook
(current Meta), in the category “Recommendation that leads to action”, the “algorithmic
recommendation systems and processes [...] have, among their purposes, the function of
guiding the user to act in some way that is advantageous for the platform” (MACHADO,
2018, p. 5-6). Those classified as “Deciding by the user”, are those “[...] that correspond to
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systems that help the platform to cut steps in the user's decision-making process” (p. 6). “[...]
in the 'Prediction and Inference' group, they have predictive analysis as an essential function
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for their functioning” (MACHADO, 2018, p. 6). In the case of Google, there are also
models that would determine the probability of a user accessing and interacting in specific
ways with offered content, for how long, and other “[...] models that predict any other
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appropriate interaction with an item of content presented to the user” (MACHADO, 2018,
p. 12).
Still according to Machado (2018, p. 12, emphasis added), the analyzed patents
suggest that “[...] the content is delivered with the intention of making the user perform a
specific action after having contact with him” and that such action it is primarily “what the
platform would like the user to execute, and not the relevance (for the user) of the result in
relation to the searched term” (MACHADO, 2018, p. 11). Thus, these requested patents allow
us to reinforce the postulations we made at various times in the second chapter, namely: the
representational ( vorstellen ), dissimulated, fetishized (subtopic 2.1.5) and monopolistic
(subtopic 2.3.5) character of these goods; and its invitation, or nudge , for us to participate in
an opaque and falsely simple exchange between capital (a private sociometabolic mediation)
and labor (implicit in data production – use values for capital) (subtopics 2.2.3, 2.3.3 and
2.3.4). However, if we still put this debate in composition with realism (the production of the
real) discussed in the first chapter (especially in topics 6 and 7) and the human use of human
beings in the second chapter, this is the point from which we can propose an evaluation and
upgrade of the modulation concept.
On the one hand, the researched authors give different meanings to this broad set of
phenomena. In a critical cognitivist approach, for Crary (2016, p. 17), “[...] we are witnessing
a decrease in mental and perceptual capacities instead of their expansion and modulation”.
The studies most influenced by Deleuze plead for differences between the concept of
modulation and those of coercion and manipulation (SILVEIRA, 2017, 2019; MACHADO,
2018). Furthermore, as summarized by Bentes (2022, p. 137), “[...] the new behavioral
sciences applied to digital technologies incorporate a plural broth of references, investing in a

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Among the cited patents: United States Patent No US20170351675A1, 2017; United States Patent No
US20170186042A1, 2017; United States Patent No US20170186101A1, 2017; United States Patent
US10002168B2, 2018.
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For more information, see: Predicting latent metrics about user interactions with content based on
combination of predicted user interactions with the content (United States Patent No US20170352109A1, 2017).
Available from: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170352109A1/en?oq=+20170352109. Accessed on: 18
Nov. 2022.
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subject who is at the same time neurological, cognitive and behavioral and , more importantly,
'predictably irrational' and influenceable”.
On the other hand, we have already stated that there is no society without cooperation
– in particular, the activities of individuals in tasks that are generally neither immediate to
their personal needs nor arising directly from their volition and teleology (HOLZKAMP,
1983; LUKÁCS, 2013); that, in turn, there is no cooperation without a system of stimuli and
environmental influences (LEONTIEV, 1999); and that, finally, it is through these immediate
behavior control mechanisms that, in a game of dialectical contradiction, we achieve freedom
from nature to open ourselves to the possibilities of humanization (HEGEL, 1978; LUKÁCS,
2013). But we also argue that cooperation can arise: (a) from some kind of “participatory”
paternalism (KNIES, 2022) in which, under more democratic and transparent social
structures, its purpose can lie closer to the purposes of individuals and society ; or (b) a set of
second-order mediations (in the human use of human beings) that may be more coercive
(from mining in the Congo to click factories in Brazil) or be exercised surreptitiously by
Thaler's “neoliberal paternalism” , Sunstein and colleagues.
Thus, we propose in this thesis that, as an analytical category appropriable by PSSH,
modulation, ultimately, refers to any type of control system by privations, stimuli and
influences that seeks to create subjectivities and intersubjectivities probabilistically favorable
to the human use of human beings and the reproduction of current social relations through
digital psychotechnologies. As it is possible to perceive, the must-be of modulation also keeps
the “strange affinity” (PINTO, 2015) between the actions possible and selectable by
behaviorist reinforcement and cybernetic control already commented in chapter 1.
In this sense, also ultimately, modulation is a form of coercion and manipulation , an
ideological practice, as it integrates the complex of second-order mediations, the subsumption
of the working being and capitalist alienation. Although it may not be applied directly for
these purposes, as in the case of religious manipulations, sexist etc., modulation continues to
mediate the human use of human beings, both in the relationship between modulators and
modulated and between these in relation to third parties (other religions and sexual
orientations, etc.). In these cases, even enjoying relative autonomy in relation to the
socio-reproductive base, these superstructural modulations materialize in these bases, depend
on them and serve them – as in the link between disinformation and the attention economy,
which we will see later.

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 The predictably irrational social being, systems 1 and 2 and the demands of
cooperation may stem from certain social and neuroscientific objectivities but, in the case of
modulation, they also seek to be, as part of the psychotechnological complex, a reality
imposed by libertarian paternalism, by architecture of choices and the fetish of merchandise.
In these terms, modulation is the antithesis of free association, as it is based on the
production and reproduction of power and information asymmetries. The must-be of
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modulation – which is not precise and occurs amidst resistance (FUCHS, 2013) – implies
the restriction of alternatives and the imposition of ways of seeing and being (BRUNO, 2013)
that can result in the posed reality (praxis estranged) that neoliberal cognitivism presents (
vorstellen ) as a given reality (human nature) – once again, the archer's tale. In this realism ,

[...] our lack of freedom is most dangerous when it is experienced as the very means
of our freedom [...]. As our societies elevate permissiveness and free choice to
supreme values, social control and domination can no longer appear as elements that
infringe upon the subject's freedoms: they must manifest themselves as (and be
sustained by) the self itself. individual experience of freedom. What could be freer
than our unrestricted web browsing? This is how “Fascism that smells like
democracy” operates today (ŽIŽEK, 201 9 ).

Based on this discussion, we can also state that modulation aims to create, through a
representation that is experienced as a presentation, a reality dissociated from its objective
events (strange and implicit work via an extended mind in the context of a capitalist structural
crisis), that is, a pseudoconcreticity . In these terms, as somehow foreseen by Kosik (2002, p.
91), in this automagic modulation,

[...] the subject abstracts from his own subjectivity and becomes an object and
element of the system. This purely intellectual process of science, which transforms
man into an abstract unit, inserted into a scientifically analyzable and
mathematically describable system, is a real reflection of the metamorphosis of man
produced by capitalism.

Finally, as we have already indicated, modulation may be the purpose of capitalists

and scientists in the field of psychotechnology but, primarily, it is mediation for expanded
capitalist reproduction, which includes the epistemic restructurings previously discussed in
this thesis. And, to the extent that in this reproduction sociometabolism and humanization

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For example, according to Venkatadri et al. (2019), at least 40% of user attributes projected by data brokers on
Facebook are not accurate, even when it comes to financial information.
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largely depend on goods and their fetish, the next step towards the characterization of
psychotechnologies, their mediations and causalities is the appreciation of digital needs.

3.2 Digital needs

The discussion about digital needs is, in a way, a spiral continuity of the debate in
subtopic 2.2.1 of chapter 2. In it, we discuss some constituent elements of social needs, their
means of satisfaction in capitalism in general and in fetishized forms how we mean and
experience these processes. Here, we need to see how that discussion is updated and unfolds
more specifically in the case of digital goods. This is important because, as we will
demonstrate, it is with these needs that psychotechnologies dialogue and seek our modulation
and, to a large extent, it is within and from the digital goods and their fetish that they exist.
Our point of continuity with that discussion is the categories of productive,
informational and digital needs by Sevignani (2019). For the author, unlike other animals,
social beings have a specific need to mediate their metabolism, that is, the need to produce .
To the extent that this production is social, the individual's effective power is expressed in a
“[...] relationship of possibility with the activities that must be carried out in a specific
society”, aimed at their (re)production ( SEVIGNANI, 2019, p. 529-530). It is the need for
integration and individual participation in these social relationships that Sevignani named as
productive needs . For example, disposing of your workforce, being able to sell it
(communicate it), transport it and ensure its reproduction.
Still according to Sevignani (2019), regardless of their starting point and their class
limits, the individual needs to develop their capacities for integration and productive
participation, so that informational needs would be the deficiencies related to the
interiorization of the corresponding social meanings, to the production of their respective
personal meaning, as well as their externalization focused on the labor relations in question –
literacy, technical and scientific learning and the ability to objectify them being some of their
examples.
Finally, for the author, in the current digitized development of the productive forces,
both the productive mediations and their informational needs tend to be increasingly
concentrated and expressed in the extended mind, especially via the internet. Thus, satisfying
these needs depends on the development of specific capabilities for interacting with and
through the extended mind, fulfilling digital needs (SEVIGNANI, 2019) - for example, access
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to digital devices, internet connection, presence on social networks, registrations online
audiences , etc.
The concept of digital needs unfolds into an infinity of new objectivities and their
consequences. Let's look at some of which we will delve into later in the chapter.

3.2.1 Design of demands

Still based on topic 2 of chapter 2, we know that social needs (including those
described above) can be placed as mediations for the production and appropriation of value
through digital goods and that, in this way and to a large extent, their fetishism participates of
the processes in which the subject means “[...] something from the social world as possible to
satisfy his needs” (AGUIAR; OZELLA, 2006, p. 228). In this sense, as we have argued,
behavioral economics and its various psychotechnological techniques and applications will
act more as a science of producing consumer realities than of discovering the “nature” of its
functioning. Or, according to Van Dijck (2014, p. 6), through automagic machines, making it
possible “[...] to detect specific patterns in consumer habits, often results in simultaneous
attempts to create demand”.
According to Nadler and Mcguigan (2018, p. 1-2), “[...] the justification for digital
marketing practices rests on the assumption that rational and perfectly informed consumers
exchange personal information for 'relevance'” – to some extent , the simple false switch we
described in subtopic 2.2.3 of the second chapter. However, for the historian of digital
technologies Luke Stark (2018, p. 212), what we have called psychotechnologies here “[...]
are put into action to determine an inner reality from external cues in a game of
correspondences variously defined as causal or correlational, or sometimes both”. Not by
chance and with some irony, the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, in the
early days of this software , already expected that “[...] search engines financed by advertising
are inherently biased towards advertisers and distant from the needs of consumers” (BRIN;
PAGE, 1998, p. 18). This is largely because behavioral marketing approaches will focus “[...]
on finding 'the right step' to match consumers' inclinations and vulnerabilities with the
industry discourse of 'relevancy', which points only to mailing targets with products that fit
their pre-existing interests” (NADLER; MCGUIGAN, 2018, p. 7).
As Wu (2017) demonstrated in his historiography of advertising and the attention

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economy, from Bernays to Watson and Cialdini among many others, the transversion of
human characteristics and predispositions precede digital psychotechnologies. However, with
them, a new space opens up for competing capitals to realize the value contained in their
goods by seeking to modulate consumption habits (WU, 2017). For the review by Nadler and
Mcguigan (2018, p. 10), these capitals, when involved in their different brands, will use
psychotechnologies as simplifying heuristics so that we consume their goods and services
quickly and impulsively, different from a more contextualized would require. For this, based
on the monopolization of sociometabolic mediations already discussed, “[...] they aim to
influence consumers at a mundane, and sometimes microscopic, level of habits and cognitive
shortcuts on which humans depend to deal with infinite decisions. necessary in daily life”
(NADLER; MCGUIGAN, 2018, p. 10).

3.2.2 Uses and Gratuities

In order for these purposes to be established, it is also necessary, once again, to reduce
the systems of human-social needs and satisfactions so that they fit into the grammatization
(GERLITZ; REIDER, 2018) of the user's activity, which we discussed in the second chapter.
In a first layer, the neobehaviorist ontological reductionism applied to marketing by
Kahneman (2012) and peers will emphasize and contain (theoretically and objectively) these
systems to the experiences of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, as well as to the way we
justify our choices 208to from that.
Reiterating the positivist scientific method, for the computer scientist and UX designer
, Marc Hassenzahl (2003), although emotions are complex, when they are framed (or
reduced) in an evaluation of pleasure and pain, their qualitatively different possibilities could
be compared , which could make them measurable and articulable by UX and UI design . For
him, to the extent that “the satisfaction of the need is what makes a pleasurable experience”,
when offered by digital goods-services, this pleasure can awaken feelings of “stimulation,
relationship, competence and popularity” (HASSENZAHL, 2003, p. . 36). Using the same
approach, systems analyst Nabeel Makkan, HCI specialist Jacques Brosens and software
engineer Rendani Kruger state that, although pragmatic attributes (“meeting functional and

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Robert Cialdini is a celebrated psychologist and marketer, a reference for some of the authors and themes that
unite these two areas, especially in the exploration of behavioral biases to increase commercial competition,
which we will return to in this chapter.
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Subject already introduced in chapters 1 and 2 and that we will deepen later.
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usability needs”) are “related to the affection positive, the hedonic quality ['related to emotion
and pleasure'] seems to have a stronger relationship” than the first attribute (MAKKAN;
BROSENS; KRUGER, 2020).
In addition, according to media effects researchers Sundar and Limperos (2013, p. 9),
in the use of digital goods, “[...] users are not always goal-directed at the beginning of their
engagement with the media, but they tend to develop needs during the course of their
interaction” – for example, the need for self-presentation in social networks can generate the
need to master specific software features, such as image filters, hashtags , etc. This, in a way,
can be related to the idea that production creates needs (MARX, 2013; HELLER, 1976),
which we saw in subtopic 2.2.1 of chapter 2. But it can also mean that such directions can be
structured and suggested previously, “[...] resulting in gratifications of needs and other
consequences, perhaps mainly unintended” for the user (SUNDAR; LIMPEROS, 2013, p. 5).
This discussion leads us to the theory of uses and gratifications (KATZ; BLUMER;
GUREVITCH, 1974; MCQUAIL, 1994). Developed by early behavioral psychology and
mainly for the study of mass media, it has also been applied in research on digital social
networks (ALJASIR et al., 2017; GADEKAR, 2017; JIANG et al., 2020). This theory “[...]
relates psychological needs to media use (or use of a specific medium) and postulates that the
public consciously uses a specific medium to seek certain gratifications in order to satisfy
their psychological needs” (GADEKAR, 2017 , p. 2).
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In this sense, although the theory itself is old , many of its foundations can be
recognized in the development of digital goods, as well as it is possible to locate it in the web
of neobehaviorist theories discussed in the previous topic. This is because gratification would
refer to positive emotional reactions associated with a behavior that tend to motivate him or
that, in some way, is linked to them (MCQUAIL, 1994). And, even if the etymology of a
word does not always represent its social meaning, the Latin origin for gratification (
gratificationem ) can give clues to its historical use linked to exchange relations, with its
meaning also linked to reward, prize, tip, counterpart , compensation, etc.
In turn, all these approaches can frame the need-satisfaction relationship in what
sociologist Elihu Katz and psychologist Rober Kahn (1976), theorists of uses and
gratifications, called instrumental satisfaction . According to the authors, instrumental
satisfaction “is evoked by the use of rewards” (KATZ; KAHN, 1976, p. 437, emphasis added)

209
Our review identified the earliest appearance in “Uses and Gratifications Research” (KATZ; BLUMER;
GUREVITCH, 1974).
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– that is, when the reward is not only a direct consequence of the activity, but also a means, or
behaviorist reinforcement, to guarantee its realization – and “is more strongly evoked as the
rewards are immediate, constant and adequate” (KATZ; KAHN, 1976, p. 437).
Here, Leontiev (1978, p. 18) perceives that there is an exaggeration of the “role of
emotional experiences in the regulation of activity”, where “emotions are not subordinated to
activity, but seem to be its result and the 'mechanism' of its movement". These constructs are
what the author calls the “hedonistic conception” of the need-activity system. For him, by
focusing on the “conquest of satisfaction and freedom from suffering [...], all ideologically
perverted representations about the sense of human existence and about his personality are
collected” (LEONTIEV, 1978, p. 17). In fact, the author continues, human beings “[...]
struggle to be happy. But psychological hedonism immediately contradicts this great truth,
exchanging it for the small coin of 'reinforcement' and 'self-reinforcement' within the spirit of
Skinnerian behaviorism” (LEONTIEV, 1978, p. 17). And finally, when responding to the
controlled experiments that give a scientific veneer to these theories, for Leontiev (1978, p.
18), “these phenomena say absolutely nothing about the real nature of motives, about the
confirmation of human life . On the contrary, these actions ruin life.”
Thus, as we saw in subtopics 1.3 and 1.4 of this chapter, respectively, both libertarian
paternalism assumes that paternalizing predictably irrational individuals is a way of nudging
them ( nudge ) in more rational directions, and the architecture of choices is a way to gratify
or expose to pain behaviors that approach or deviate from the projected path. In this sense,
instrumental satisfaction can be: a) an objective and subjective state that moves away from
the social being rich in needs (MARX, 2004; HELLER 1978) – satisfaction moves away from
the end position; b) with that, it could be framed as a second-order mediation – causing a
feeling of satisfaction as an instrument of an external motivation to the person performing the
activity (the human use of human beings); c) or even, it can be related to the anticipatory
conformity of Zuboff (2015) or to existence in harmony with the demands of accumulation by
Boltanski and Chiapello (2009) – satisfaction as an instrument of adaptation of individuals to
alienated social relations. In all these cases, the individual may be being “trained to adapt to
abstract-quantitative units such as work or leisure institutions, which misrepresent their
innermost needs, going, in general, to their ignorance” (MARCONDES FILHO , 1985 , p.
57).
At this point, we can raise the suspicion, which we have verified throughout this

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chapter, that, in the competitive struggle between capitalists for user engagement ,
developers of digital goods can change the content of their use activity to add other
perceptions. These can increase the feeling of gratification of these users and, ultimately, their
valuation and habituation to these goods, which might not happen otherwise.
Of course, this does not mean that all gratification derived from the context of using a
digital product is an external device and implemented by unscrupulous marketers. As we saw
in the first discussion of needs (chapter 2) and will see in another entry in the next topic, the
production-needs-activity-satisfaction/humanization relationship intrinsically involves social
and personal meanings of valuation, including emotional ones. Once again, what we want is
to draw attention to the estrangement that tends to result from the subsumption of this relation
to the commodity form – the conflict between the use value and the exchange value imposed
on human products – which make it mediation for the exclusive humanization as opposed to
generic.
Thus, we are interested in finding out how the “[...] industry of manipulation and
persuasion [...] is based on our unconscious tendencies to trap us in a circular escape route of
consumption and acquiescence” (WARD, 2022, p . 70), where “[...] the whole system of
gratification and solicitude is reduced to affective modulation” (BAUDRILLARD, 1995, p.
180). Based on Marcondes Filho (19 8 5, p. 26) we can also ask ourselves whether, in
gratification as such a circular escape, digital goods can “[...] drain collective aspirations
(frustrated, unrealized, blocked from the most different forms), through which lost illusions
are directed”; and if, intentionally, “[...] for the very reason of their non-fulfilment, these
desires always return and claim satisfaction again” (MARCONDES FILHO, 1985 , p. 26),
confronting, again, with the goods digital technologies and the hidden needs of their
developers.
Finally, in the digitized consumer society and having its aspirations restricted and
directed towards feelings of gratification, we can agree with Deleuze (2006, p. 3), for whom
“marketing is now the instrument of social control”.

3.2.3 Hook model

As we build the map of capitalist psychotechnologies, it becomes visible that they seek

210
In the broad terms of Chapter 2 and Sevignani's digital needs (2019).
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to turn the ontological reductionism of neoliberal cognitivism from an ideal abstraction to a
method for its realization as modulation. In turn, we saw that the modulation of reality and
behavior is itself a prerequisite for the human use of human beings. Now, in this subtopic, we
are going to map how these psychotechnologies operate the contradictions and objectives
inherent to the commodity form through its presentation of needs, promises of use values, as
well as in the design of activities and gratifications present in the user experience and
interface . of digital goods.
The most widespread psychotechnological model for these realizations is the so-called
hook model . It was created by Nir Eyal (2014) from a long course of attempts at behavioral
control that began in the cold war, according to detailed research by psychologist Anna
Bentes (2022). In this context, the hook model also derives from captology – an acronym for
“computers as persuasive technologies” (FOGG, 1998). In captology, the behavior designed
by the designer of a digital commodity depends on: 1) whether it aligns with the user's
motivations ; 2) its ability to carry out the scheduled activities; and 3) a trigger present in this
commodity capable of activating such behaviors (FOGG, 1998; EYAL, 2014).
Both in captology and in the hook model, the capture of individuals' motivation
appears as the key element for this behavioral control inspired by the premises of libertarian
paternalism about predictably irrational subjects (FOGG, 19 9 8 ; EYAL, 2014). So, taking
advantage of the monopolization of sociometabolic mediations of their decision architectures
and the fetish of the extended mind, this “unsolicited engagement” (EYAL, 2014, p. 104)
seeks to be realized by stimulating and restricting the motivational field to search alternatives.
of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. As the author himself recommends, by incorporating in
these oppositions the search for hope and acceptance and the avoidance of fear and social
rejection, they can be used “as levers to increase or decrease the probability that someone will
perform a specific action” in a digital commodity. (EYAL, 2014, p. 33).
As we have insisted, this domination over alien motivation would actually be a
second-order mediation to capture – or rather, create – something else, cooperation 211. At the
same time, as a science with its “peculiar and proper normative sense” (SOHN-RETHEL,
1978, p. 43) that excludes its “levers” of the causalities it seeks to investigate, neoliberal

211
In terms of the discussions made in subtopic 5.3 of chapter 1, subtopic 3.4 of chapter 2 and subtopics 1.3, 1.4
and 1.5 of chapter 3. That is, that cooperation as a workforce for capital (for production or expanded
reproduction), regardless of its forms, meanings and productive development, it is a contradictory and
permanently expanding need of this system. It is, to a large extent, his way of being (MARX, 1978; 2013;
SOHN-RETHEL, 1978).
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cognitivism will present ( vorstellen ) such behavioral occurrences (clicks, purchases, profits)
as a confirmation of the reductionist ideal abstractions that justify their own realization.
And yet, reiterating instrumental satisfaction and behaviorist conditioning, Eyal (2014)
continues the reduction of needs systems by unfolding those three captological assumptions in
his hook model, which revolves around four stages - triggers (external and internal ), action,
investment and variable rewards – in addition to a constant goal – habituation.

a) triggers

As a revamped version of behaviorist stimuli, external triggers are understood as

environmental cues, sensory stimuli or contexts that highlight or suggest a need (EYAL,
2014). In the case of digital applications, the different forms of notifications (images,
vibrations, sounds, etc.) propose this trigger by letting you know that someone has liked your
post on Instagram, wants to talk to you on WhatsApp, that your favorite YouTube channel has
released a new video , or that you should check the summary of your fitness activities on
Fitbit 212.
On the other hand, “you cannot see, touch or hear an internal trigger” (EYAL, 2014, p.
36). This is because, to the extent that “our life is full of small stressors and we are generally
unaware of our habitual reactions to these persistent problems” (EYAL, 2014, p. 36), the
internal trigger would be triggered by emotions, especially the negative ones . , independent
of external stimuli. “Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion and indecision
often instigate mild pain or irritation and lead to almost instantaneous and often irrational
action to suppress the negative feeling” (EYAL, 2014, p. 36).
Not by chance, for Watson, the father of behaviorism who, like Eyal, joined marketing
“[...] to make your consumer react, it is only necessary to confront him with fundamental or
conditioned emotional stimuli” ( apud WU, 2017, p. 59). By the same token, UX/UI designer
Chris Nodder (2013a, p. 79) recommends that his colleagues make “[...] people afraid and
show them how to remove that fear using your product” . Thus, in the words of
psychologist-marketers, “[...] our goal is to solve these problems and eliminate the pain – to
scratch the user's itch. Users who find a product that relieves pain will form strong, positive

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According to the Canaltech website, “ Fitbit is one of the leading brands of wearable devices focused on
exercise. The company produces a series of bracelets and smart watches that work with the most diverse mobile
platforms ”. In 2021, Alphabet completed the acquisition of Fitbit for around $2.1 billion. Available at:
https://canaltech.com.br/empresa/fitbit/. Accessed on: 29 Nov. 2022.
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associations with the product over time” (EYAL, 2014, p. 37).
Although the exploitation of emotions for the sale of goods and their habituation can
be described as positive by the market, it is important to state that such transversion stirs and
deepens the estrangement that we characterized in subtopic 2.1.1 of chapter 2. For example,
for Marcondes Filho (19 8 5, p. 100-101), the fact that “[...] apathy represents a need for
variation is only logical because the category 'apathy' contains within itself a criticism, that is,
the orientation towards to its opposite: variation”. Therefore, we join the author when he asks:
“what is the material basis for the state of consciousness that defines the given reality as
weight and as torture and thus develops the need for 'another world'” (MARCONDES FILHO
, 1985 , p. 101), whose ephemeral contact is only allowed by the scratches provided by digital
goods?
In any case, in the hook model, the dominance of motivation by the commodity would
generally start with external triggers, until the recurrence of the signaling of the need (pain or
irritation), together with the triggering of a respective use value and its instrumental
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satisfaction , produced (behaviorally and neurochemically ) the shortening of the
behaviorist stimulus-response circuit, sedimenting the internal trigger and the habit (EYAL,
2014). So, “[...] after a technology creates an association in the minds of users that the product
is the chosen solution, they return on their own, no longer needing external commands”
(EYAL, 2014, p. 28) . And finally, in this behavioral inversion (from autonomy to
heteronomy), now “[...] a habit is when not performing an action causes a little pain” (EYAL,
2014, p. 19).

b) Action

With the trigger—the link between a stimulus, a need, and the promises of a
commodity—the next step in the hook model is to link the user to actions on the commodity
that provide the desired relief. These actions, or the “[...] behavior done in anticipation of a
reward” (EYAL, 2014, p. 10), should be easier to perform than to think about them, so that the
behavioral and neurochemical effects already discussed actually occur and the habit is
strengthened.
Although the instrumentalized motivation instigates the “itching” action, it has to be

213
As described in subtopic 4.2 of the Introduction, in topic 1.5 of chapter 1 and as we continue to demonstrate in
chapter 3.
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available at the moment of the trigger, and the user must be able to execute it, under the risk
of the stimulus losing strength or the individual finding another commodity or motivator on
their own. which he can act (FOGG, 1998; EYAL, 2014). For this reason, the hook model
advocates a user interface design that minimizes the user's effort in order to guarantee the
adoption of the action. As we have already introduced and will see later, other designers have
developed this aspect of the model, such as Steve Krug (2006) in his book Don't Make Me
Think! , Nodder (2013) with his Evil by Design and Don Norman (2008) with the reference
work Emotional Design . For all of them, “[...] making a certain action easier to perform
stimulates each successive phase” (EYAL, 2014, p. 52), so that the behavior becomes a
dominant habit. As defined by Google (now Alphabet), it is about telling “stories that attract
people, capture their attention and change their perception or lead them to act” (GOOGLE,
2018, p. 12).
In his book, Eyal (2014) gives a series of examples in which the simplicity of the
interface and its architecture of choices became, in his assessment, a competitive differential
for user habituation. The integration of Facebook profile registration with other applications
prevents the user from giving up signing up for them (because of the effort of filling out a
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new form) just by choosing to link his profile from that network to the new product .
Twitter pioneered the share post button, preventing the user from having to copy the URL of
the content and paste it somewhere else. Google, in Eyal's narrative, outperformed its
competitors in the 1990s also because it offered a clean look centered solely on the user's
search needs. In the same way today, on most smartphones , just shake it to enable the
camera, making this action (and getting used to it) something natural and commonplace.
Finally, in order for us to get used to depending on these goods, these designers
encourage and impose the use of shortcuts, heuristics and mental models in their interfaces
and choice architectures based on the biases discussed in the first subtopics of this chapter. As
Leontiev (1978) had already described, habits are motor operations fixed by experience and,
therefore, Eyal (2014) teaches that, once the causal relationships arranged in the interfaces are
understood, they are retained in our memories, connecting us more directly to the action
projected by the hook model.

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And, in this very simple act, other activities and results were placed, without the user- prosumer being
necessarily aware of them. Specifically, this binding activates APIs from which, potentially and under certain
commercial conditions, the data produced by the user within a digital commodity is Accessed by the other and
vice versa.
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c) variable rewards

For the habituation to take hold, the user needs to receive the promised gratuity
together with the action proposed by the merchandise. This is one of the few moments where
neoliberal cognitivism assumes itself as a participant in Skinner's behaviorism. Making a
series of relationships between that researcher's experiments with the conditioning of pigeons,
current neuroscientific research and the habituation of the consumption of digital goods, Eyal
(2014, p. 73) argues that “[...] the variability increases the activity in the nucleus accumbens
and increases levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, leading to our hungry pursuit of
reward.”
There are still other neurotransmitters that can be ensnared in the hook model. As
social psychologist Katy Cook (2020, p. 207) explains, on the one hand, “[...] dopamine
works as an indicator of reward and pleasure” that, “[...] although it can make us more
productive , organized and motivated”, is also “[...] the most addictive molecule in our
system”, and can trigger the pain of hunger for rewards artificially created by the hook model.
On the other hand, “endorphins help us overcome perceptions of pain or danger”; serotonin
“gives us feelings of recognition, contentment and confidence, particularly within a group”,
while “cortisol is released in response to stress” (COOK, 2020, p. 208).
Then, as Eyal admits and advises, most of the time, the rewards (the promised utilities
and gratifications) should be limited to scratching those itches, or avoiding the pain that the
digital commodity system itself highlights and triggers for users . come to depend on him. At
the same time, as in the tale of the archer, when habituation takes effect, Eyal (2014, p. 39)
makes use of the repeated narrative of big techs , this time given in his book by Evan
Williams (one of the founders of Twitter), for whom the Internet is “a giant machine designed
to give people what they want”.
Seeing positivities and commercial opportunities in the estrangement previously
criticized by Marcondes Filho (19 8 5), for Eyal (2014, p. 75), “[...] our brains are adapted to
seek rewards that make us feel accepted, attractive, important and included”, so that “[...] with
each post, tweet or pin , users anticipate social validation”, which makes “users come back
wanting more”. As an example, the author gives the effects of profiling – already described by
Bruno in subtopic 3.1.5 of this chapter – used by Facebook for the distribution of variable
rewards. According to the model, through exposure among people of the same profile,
observing “[...] someone being rewarded for a certain behavior is more likely to change their
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own beliefs and subsequent actions” (EYAL, 2014, p. 75).
Today we know that Facebook (now Meta) has other empirical evidence of the
effectiveness of these stimuli which, however, the company made an effort to hide. Among
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many examples , the company found that maximizing these kinds of rewards was
contributing to political polarization. However, although some big tech officials proposed
corrections to this effect, “most proposals did not move forward and the task force was
dissolved” because the changes had “anti-growth” consequences for the company (HAO,
2021).
Just as triggers can be external and internal, so can rewards. This is the case, according
to Eyal (2014, p. 83) of “self-rewards”, fueled by intrinsic motivations, such as the sense of
competence suggested by the theory of self-determination (STEPHEN, 2005). For the author,
the number of unread messages, which are usually triggered by the red dots on application
icons, becomes for the user “a kind of goal to be met”, or “a set of obligations”, as criticized
by Lupton (2013, p. 10). Citing other behaviorist experiments where human behavior is
reduced to animal behavior, he concludes that, in fact, “[...] what drives us to act is not the
sensation we receive from the reward itself, but the need to relieve the pain. desire for that
reward” (EYAL, 2014, p. 72).
For all these reasons, for the hook model, the rewards must be variable. As Eyal (2014,
p. 76) teaches “[...] without variability, we are like children: as soon as we discover what will
happen next, we are less enthusiastic about the experience. [...] To hold our attention, products
must have a continuing degree of novelty”. As a result, for media researcher Wendy Chun (
2016, p. 21), “[...] the habit is becoming an addiction: to have is to lose”. Or, as summarized
by Marcondes Filho (2015, p. 55), “[...] infantile desires, vital needs for warmth, protection,
affection, recognition, harmony, happiness, sensuality [...] are explored and satisfied
apparently by the capital through goods and services, as well as through the industry of
consciousness”.
Another example of rewards in this model is the suggestion (which may be more or
less true) of the user's sense of autonomy in the face of digital merchandise. As Eyal (2014, p.
92) explains, “people should want to use the service, not feel that they need it”. This is

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HORWITZ, Jeff; SEETHARAMAN, Deepa. Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less
Divisive. Wall Street Journal , 5/26/2020. Available at:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-115905074
99. Accessed on: 30 Jan. 2021. HORWITZ, Jeff. Facebook Files. Wall Street Journal , 9/13/2021. Available at:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039. Accessed on: 03 Mar. 2022.
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important because, within the limits of the commodity form, this perception (which will be
expressed in system feedbacks ) is part of the fundamentals of any human-computer
interaction, as discussed in the next topic. That is, in the hook model it is not possible to know
when we are manipulating the tool in response to our volition or if it is the tool that imposes
its architecture of choices by presenting it ( vorstellen ) as user autonomy.
Finally, a critical result of this cycle, according to which the hook model is also
commercially positive, is that when we consolidate a new habit mediated by a digital
commodity, we also produce the justifications for this adherence. Eyal (2014) calls this
rationalization which, in terms of Kahneman's neoliberal cognitivism, would be as if System
2 rationally signifies the lived experience of System 1, “even when these reasons may have
been planned by others” (EYAL, 2014, p. 103).

d) Investment

The investment stage is quite interesting because, when we pay attention to its
subtleties, we can decode it in terms of subtopic 2.2.3 of chapter 2, in which we deal with the
user's implicit work. This is because this is the phase “where the user does a little work” by
putting “something of value in the system”, such as “time, data, effort, social capital or
money” (EYAL, 2014, p. 11) – precisely what, at that point, we called dilution of work due to
the diversification and intensification of consumption practices .
In this game of dilutions, diversifications and intensifications of activities, digital
commodity systems involve a cycle in which the magnitude of the use value available for the
satisfaction of needs (including psychological rewards) depends primarily on the magnitude of
the user's work - the magnitude that , in its many applications (like, share, produce, activate
sensors, etc.) can be aggregated, measured and valued by the amount of time spent (COMOR,
2011; PENTLAND, 2012; DANTAS, 2012; 2014; 2018; GROSSER, 2014; FUCHS, 2015).
As the study by digital media researchers Carolin Gerlitz and Anne Helmond concludes on
how plugins absorb and share users' work,

like economy has thus created an infrastructure that seems to facilitate a more social
experience on the web , but participates in the creation of an alternative fabric on the
backend , in which social interaction is instantly metered and multiplied and that
connects analytics insights with profiles of individual users and the social graph. It
only allows for particular forms of social engagement and creates specific
relationships between the social, the traceable and the marketable, filtering them for

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 positive and scalable effects. (GERLITZ; HELMOND, 2013, p. 1362)

To consider these statements, let's see the very example of the character created by
Eyal (2014, p. 30) – Yin, a young woman in her “[...] early twenties, [who] lives in Palo Alto,
California, and attends Stanford University”, which is “[...] compulsively addicted to
Instagram” (a company created by former students of BJ Fogg). The external triggers created
by this commodity (“using Instagram when you fear a special moment will be lost forever”)
and the playful and practical way of reacting to it (“capturing images of things around you”,
styling them through filters) (EYAL, 2004, p. 38) dominate Yin's motivation . In turn, when
sharing these special moments on the app, she receives certain rewards (likes, comments, new
followers, etc.) that are related to the need for social recognition – which in the hook model is
transposed into an internal trigger . The pleasure provided by this new trigger, when it
becomes a habit , can quickly be transformed into pain when its absence is signified by the
commodity as scarcity (the absence of Instagram notifications, especially if Yin compares
with other profiles as more interactions than your).
However, as Eyal warns, this is an uncertain process. In the investment stage,
engagement is motivated by “long-term rewards, not immediate gratification” (EYAL, 2014,
p. 104). For this, the hook model prescribes the application of three assumptions of neoliberal
216
cognitivism : “the more effort we put into something, the greater the probability of valuing
it; we are more likely to be consistent with our past behaviors; and, finally, we change our
preferences to avoid cognitive dissonance” (EYAL, 2014, p. 103).
As a result of imposing “a design pattern to create unsolicited engagement” (EYAL,
2014, p. 104), the character Yin became addicted to Instagram. Held back by the architecture
of reducing need systems to the behaviorist pain-action-pleasure circuit, Yin now needs to
“invest” in the Instagram commodity to satisfy a need that did not exist in this way until these
217
“habit-forming technologies” (EYAL, 2014 , p. 99) reached it. Or better : to avoid the
“pains” and obtain the “pleasures” of a life in “harmony” with capitalist accumulation
(BOLTANSKI; CHIAPELLO, 2009) through a digital commodity, Yin has his activity
(engagement) converted by SDK , API, cookies , scripts , plugins, pixels , sensors, etc. into a
workforce that produces what – at all these times – was the main motivation for the existence
218
of most of these goods : digital data capable of profiling individuals and populations in

216
Assumptions whose bases we have already questioned in topic 1.8 of chapter 1.
217
Pursuant to topics 1 and 2 and subtopic 2.3.4 of chapter 2.
218
Review note 117.
213
countless patterns. Simultaneously and in an unknown variety, these data retroact on these
standardized individuals and populations in an attempt to modulate their notions of reality and
their behavior.
These habituation attempts can have psychosocial consequences not only for
characters in corporate bestseller stories . For example, as we mentioned in the first part of
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this debate , the review by Firth et al. (2019) reported the almost instinctive habit of putting
your hand in your pocket to pick up your smartphone and check notifications and news,
without the need for external triggers. In this case, the “information rewards” that forge this
habit can “further perpetuate these compulsive behaviors” by being strengthened by the
“striatal-corticodopaminergic system due to its readily available nature” (FIRTH et al., 2019,
p. 4 ).
This discussion can help us to recognize in the hook model the phenomenon of the
commodity fetish and its estrangement. This is because, under fetishism, it is the consumption
of commodities – and not the work of producing them – that humanizes us and shapes our
personalities; and, insofar as this is a contradictory existence, certain habituations can, for
example, cause psychic suffering.
Studies on the uses and gratifications of Facebook reviewed by the psychiatrist
Ashwini Nadkarni and the psychologist Stefan Hofmann suggest that the rewards of social
recognition, by dominating the motivations of its users, can lead them to build their identities
on this social network based on the likes and friendships he wins or fails to win
(NADKARNI; HOFMANN, 2012). Thus, in order to be accepted by their peers, rather than
their self-expression, the individual may feel compelled “to externalize merchandise-selfies,
personalities foreign to their own being, or in an intensity beyond an authentic interest”
(GONÇALVES; FURTADO , 2021a, p. 96).
As other possible consequences, Cook's review (2020, p. 202), states that “thousands
of researchers replicated” studies that suggest that spending time online made the user
“lonely, depressed and antisocial”; that the “change from intrinsic goals to more extrinsic
goals reflected the increase in anxiety and depression among young adults” (COOK, 2020, p.
202); that, in the US, greater engagement in social media may be associated with increased
depression and suicide in that segment; and that the pace of this increase “was greater after
2006/07, the same two years in which Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the iPhone were made

219
Subtopic 1.5.3, item “a”, chapter 1.
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available to the public” (COOK, 2020, p. 202) 220.
Finally, the question here is not whether neoliberal psychotechnologies objectively
work in a way that confirms the ontological reductionism that imposes on us a paternalism in
which “[...] it is normal to deceive people if it is for their best interests or if they have given
consent implicit” (NODDER, 2013b, sp). As summarized by Bentes (2022, p. 53), for this
science, “[...] the psychological subject is not an object prior to psychological knowledge, but
it is produced concomitantly, in the very act of knowing it”.
Ontonegative psychological theories and the alleged algorithmic precision of their
application may not even be the main answer to the objective effectiveness of consumption
habits. As indicated here, in the second chapter and in the following subtopic (including by
those involved themselves), these psychotechnologies must be placed under the larger context
of competition and marketing. In fact, marketing scientists and psychologists like Eyal,
Nodder and Kahneman would integrate a diverse intellectual workforce called sales force
marketing – different professionals focused on selling and customer loyalty through
monitoring and fulfilling orders, prospecting, offers, gathering information, mobilizing
wholesalers and retailers, among other responsibilities (KOTLER; ARMSTRONG, 1995).
This strength, in turn, is one of the elements of other major competitive factors that also
involve regulatory frameworks that favor monopolies. Thus, neoliberal cognitivism and its
psychotechnologies are parts of this intricate set of political-economic factors where each
minimum percentage of competitive advantage can amount, in aggregate, to billions of dollars
and strategic market positioning (RIKAP, 2021).

3.2.4 Attention economy and the colonization of free time

This combination of psychology, marketing and mathematics triggers more pores and
causal chains that we need to consider in closing this topic. As Bentes (2022) demonstrated in
his “genealogy of technologies of influence”, if in the 20th century advertising agencies were
the main model and production center of psychotechnologies, “today this position is occupied
by advertising platforms, responsible for changes both in the dynamics of advertising and the
production of psychological knowledge, as well as in the very logic of capitalism” (BENTES,

220
The researcher concludes by warning that, “[...] although these correlations may not tell the whole story and
should not be confused with causality, experts express concern that, taken together, the effects of the internet and
social media on our well-being being more dangerous than technology companies would like us to believe”
(COOK, 2020, p. 202).
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2022, p. 65). Let's understand how this information fits into the big picture of automagic
machines.
As we introduced sub-topic 2.3.1 of chapter 2, among other factors, the trend drop in
the rate of profitability and the consequent radicalization of capitalist competition participate
in the diversification of forms of creation and appropriation of value (real or fictitious). In
particular, this competition increases the dependence of commercial capitalists on advertising
platforms – to a certain extent, the infrastructures and techniques of the latter increasingly
pace the demand engineering required by the former (WU, 2017; DANTAS, 2019). This is
mainly because, as we discussed in Chapter 2, these platforms “present themselves as much
more efficient advertising media, as they claim to have the ability not only to know their users
like no one else, but also to deliver to them advertising related to the goods they really want.
would like” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 90). Thus, for example, the time in which
221
the added value created “in the production of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 smartphone is
frozen in this product would be shortened, as this type of active search for its buyer would be
more assertive, agile and also cheaper” (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a, p. 90).
At this point, it becomes essential to attract and retain the activity of users of digital
goods (and their attention) where advertising can be marketed. To a large extent, it is in this
context that the complex of neoliberal cognitivism discussed here develops, as well as the
service it provides to this platform capitalism (subtopic 2.3.5, chapter 2), which includes the
dilution of work through diversification and intensification of consumption practices
(subtopic 2.2.3, chapter 2).
A good part of this context makes up the so-called Attention Economy . Although this
is a more diversified topic than our focus 222, it interests us primarily because the statements of
the attention economy seek to re-present ( vorstellen ) a series of mystifications, real
abstractions and ideals that we discussed in previous chapters.
These assertions begin with the famous statement by psychologist and economist
Herbert Simon (1971, p. 40) that “[...] an era rich in information causes scarcity of what it
consumes. And what it consumes is obvious, is the attention of its receivers”. Within the
theoretical arc that goes from neoclassical economics to information theories, Simon and his
supporters participate in the positivist extrapolations and reifications presented in chapter 1.

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According to the Zoom website, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 was the best-selling cell phone in Brazil until July
2020. Available at: https://mobizoo.com.br/opiniao/celulares-mais-vendidos/. Accessed on: 10 Nov. 2020.
222
For example, the hypothesis of audience work (DANTAS, 2014) and content and social influence work
(BENTES, 2022).
216
This is because, here, the attention223 it becomes a thing . Thus signified, it can be quantified
on the scales of abundance and scarcity of the commodity form and the real abstraction of
value. Under these social forms, attention is realized as a competitively producible and
competitive asset. In this presentation ( vorstellen ), it is the object (media content) that
consumes its social producer (the one who pays attention) who, in this way, is also reified as a
resource – in terms of subtopic 2.1.2 of chapter 2.
Behind this fetish and through the modulations that we saw in this topic, the
abundance of information that competes for the attention of billions of people would be, to a
large extent, the process of dispute, by different capitals, for the primacy of their habituation
224
to the realization of specific goals – what to buy, what to believe, who to vote for or how to
work, where and for how long and value, just as Skinner and Bernays aimed.
The materiality of the attention economy is difficult to measure, at least for this
research. However, we at least know that, potentially, it involves a market with 4.9 billion
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users of digital devices connectable to the Internet (62.5% of the world's population); that
the use of these goods consumes an average of 6 hours a day of their activities (therefore, of
226
their attention) ; that global retail e-commerce sales totaled approximately $5.2 trillion 227in
228
2021 (11.8% of total retail in 2020 ); that in 2021 the billing of data brokerage companies
229
was estimated at US$ 257.16 billion ; and that in 2021 only six of the largest companies in
230
this economy together invoiced around US$ 1.41 trillion in a world market with little or no
regulation ( WESTRUP, 2020; SRNICEK, 2017).
As can be seen, this is a decisive gear for capitalist accumulation and, as it is
competitive and unregulated, it dramatically needs to make use of the psychotechnologies

223
Pursuant to item “c” of subtopic 1.5.3 of chapter 1.
224
Certainly, on the other hand, it could be argued that the abundance of information is also related to the fact
that, now, we can all express ourselves and know the expressions of others. Based on our previous discussions,
however, we know that this is a half-truth. Half, because, in their entirety, these expressions are involved and
shaped by the commodity-form, where the other half of the fact are the determinations of exchange value.
225
STATISTA (2022). Number of internet users worldwide from 2005 to 2021 . Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-internet-users-worldwide/. Accessed on: 03 Dec. 2022.
226
DATAREPORTAL (2022). DIGITAL 2022: OCTOBER GLOBAL STATSHOT REPORT. Available at:
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-october-global-statshot. Accessed on: 03 Dec. 2022.
227
STATISTA (2022). Global retail e-commerce sales 2014-2026. Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-e-commerce-sales/. Accessed on: 03 Dec. 2022.
228
USA, Census Bureau, 2020. Monthly Retail Trade. Available at: https://www.census.gov/retail/index.
html#ecommerce . Accessed on: 05 Dec. 2022.
229
Maximize Market Research (2022). Data Broker Market: Global Industry Forecast (2022-2029) . Available at:
https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-data-broker-market/55670/. Accessed on 03
Dec. 2022.
230
Sum of global sales of Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Jingdong and Alibaba. Source: FORTUNE (2022).
GLOBAL 500 . Available at: https://fortune.com/global500/2021/. Accessed on: 03 Dec. 2022.
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discussed here. As an effect, this competitive drama becomes “a race to the bottom”, in which
our attention is caught “with apparently free things to later resell” (WU, 2017, p. 11-12);
where “[...] attention will almost invariably gravitate to the more extravagant, sinister and
outrageous alternative”, so that these stimuli may involve “[...] what cognitive scientists call
our 'automatic' attention as opposed to to our 'controlled' attention” (WU, 2017, p. 11-12).
discussed in subtopic 1.5 . involved, as well as its consequences. For example, the
review of studies on false information by cognitive psychologist Ullrich Ecker and colleagues
points out that “social media platforms such as YouTube, [...] are geared towards maximizing
engagement, even if that means promoting misinformation” (ECKER et al., 2022). In this
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sense, research carried out by the Mozilla Foundation (2022) demonstrated that YouTube's
recommendation algorithms could lead users to consume increasing amounts of
misinformation, probably because the platform prioritizes viewing time to the detriment of
user satisfaction. Something similar could happen on the Google search engine, where
“personalization is, to some extent, giving people the results they want” while “it's also
delivering results [...] that Google Search thinks it can. be good for advertisers” (NOBLE,
2018, p. 64).
In this sense, research by linguist Richard Robin (2007) on the increase in information
transmission rates in non-Western countries is also suggestive. The author argues that, due to
globalization, in the countries of the former Soviet Union “[...] the utterance measured in
syllables per second has almost doubled since the fall of communism, from three to six
syllables per second” (ROBIN, 2007, p. 110). According to physicist and design researcher
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (2019), these accelerations and economic determinations of algorithms
even contribute to the “faster exhaustion of limited attention resources” on Twitter where,
with the competition for novelty, “[. ..] increasing turnover rates and individual topics receive
shorter intervals of collective attention” (LORENZ-SPREEN, 2019, p. 1).
Still within these consequences, according to geographer and datafication researcher
Leanne Roderick (2014), one of the most important and little understood sectors of attention
merchants are data brokers – companies that collect, process and resell data. In his research,
Roderick (2014, p. 7) states that “[...] the role played by consumer data in stimulating and
expanding consumption” would contribute to the indebtedness of a mass of citizens due to
their difficulty in making considerations long-term effect on their spending habits – a goal

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Available from: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/youtube/user-controls/ . Accessed on: 06 Mar. 2023.
218
stated by Eyal and his peers. For Williams (2018, p. 6), “[...] it is precisely in this area –
maintaining or losing control – where the personal and political challenges of the abundance
of information, and lack of attention, arise”.
So far, the attention economy of the 21st century is an updated way of engaging
individuals and populations in capitalist commercial and ideological needs (WU, 2017).
However, as, in its context of structural crisis, capitalism requires more radical amounts of
this engagement, the attention economy also represents what Crary (2001, p. 32) calls the
“relentless colonization of 'free' time”.
According to the author, this colonization began dispersed and partial since the end of
the 19th century. However, with the psychotechnologies of the 21st century, “[...] the loosely
connected machinic network for electronic work, communication and consumption not only
demolished what little remained of the distinction between leisure and work, but emerged, in
large arenas of social life. Western to determine how temporality is inhabited” (CRARY,
2001, p. 32). To a large extent, as Crary (2001) pointed out, as we portrayed in our first spin
on this subject (subtopic 1.5.3 of chapter 1), this effect occurs because the entertainment
industries seek to explore and simulate the intricacies and drifts of our consciousness to
occupy and directing our attention (and our inattention) – again, as designed by Eyal and his
peers.
Finally, going even further, in his critique of the mass media of the 20th century,
Marcondes Filho (1985) points out in these structures certain characteristics of the fetish of
merchandise and estrangement that remain current and renewed in automagic machines and
their economy of attention. Almost decoding the hook of our digital needs programmed into
the algorithms and UX and UI design of merchandise like Instagram and TikTok, according to
the author,

The appearance that seduces is like a mirror in which desire looks and recognizes
itself as an objective. [...] In front of men [sic], countless series of images are
imposed, which seek to resemble mirrors, which seek empathy, which aspire to
observe their intimate selves, bring secrets to the surface and spread them around. In
these images, aspects of men's lasting dissatisfaction [sic], in their essence, are
continually revealed to them. Appearance acts as if it announces satisfaction; she
divines people's desires through their eyes and brings them to light on the surface of
the merchandise. [...] How does one behave and, above all, how does one transform
who is constantly served with a series of images of desires that were previously
detected? How does someone transform who, permanently, gets what he wants but
receives it only as an appearance? [...] The consumer is served without resistance,
either for what is more exciting, what is more sensational or for what is easier, more
comfortable. Covetousness is served as attentively as laziness. (MARCONDES

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 FILHO, 1985, p. 184)

3.3 Subjective Dimensions of Human-Computer Interaction

In continuing the descriptions of psychotechnological attempts at the human use of

human beings and the transformation of the extended mind into automagic machines, we will
look at some of the contexts, foundations and structures of human-computer interaction (HCI)
in which neoliberal cognitivism and its hook model support each other, infiltrate and act.
According to IHC researcher Simone Barbosa and colleagues (2021), human-computer
interaction “[...] is a discipline interested in the design, implementation and evaluation of
interactive computational systems for human use, together with the phenomena related to this
use” (BARBOSA et al., 2021, p. 50). For Hartson and Pyla (2018), “[...] this term is mostly
used now in reference to the academic side, including research and development, while 'UX'
is the most popular term for HCI practice in the field” (p. .4).

3.3.1 The role of psychology in HCI

To a large extent “[...] due to the technological advances that were being produced,
mainly in the use of instruments in the field of aviation, the need arose to improve the ability
and performance of human beings in complex activities such as flying an airplane” (
NEUFELD; BRUST; STEIN, 2011, p. 104). Thus, “[...] the first theoretical approaches used
to investigate phenomena of human-computer interaction were born in psychology”
(BARBOSA et al., 2021, p. 50). Fascinated by computational advances and identifying
similarities between these technologies and the human mind, experimental and cognitive
psychologists postulated from the 1950s onwards a series of laws and models of mental
processes that would occur in interactions with machines that increasingly demanded
feedback between them and their users (NEUFELD; BRUST; STEIN, 2011).
Still according to Barbosa et al. (2021, p. 45), among the proposed models for
“modeling and predicting human performance”, the most used in HCI would be the
Hick-Hyman law (for choice reaction time) and Fitts law (for choice reaction time). the
information processing capacity of the human motor system). In the first case, inspired by the
belief in the universality of human behavior, it is argued that the average choice-making time
is approximately 150 microseconds. Under the same assumptions, in the second case, it is
220
argued that the average time it takes a person to point at a target object is approximately 100
microseconds. This type of theory has since become a reference for the user interface design
of most of the digital goods we consume today (BARBOSA et al., 2021).
232
Although our review has not broadly sought this discussion , it is known that the
study of the relationship between certain stimuli and their choice and operation reactions is
crucial for the development of industry from the 19th century to the present day (MARX,
2013; TAYLOR , 2004; STERNBERG, 1969; ALVES, 2008; FÍGARO, 2008). This makes it
plausible to question whether the attention, decision and operation times measured so
precisely by these psychologists and their funders are in fact a given universal human
characteristic , or whether they result from the demands of socially and competitively
necessary work time in industry ( MARX, 2013) and later deployed in other sociometabolic
spheres. Or, reversing the reading of the phenomenon, by concurrently obtaining an average
time for certain operations as a function of cognitive and physiological limits, the behavioral
sciences would be challenged to create models, laws, decision architectures, interfaces and
their stimuli capable of , once again, realize this universality – which, in this case, assumes
both the form of abstract work ( potentia ) and these times of attention and reaction that make
it concrete ( actu ). Therefore, contrary to being naturally universal, such characteristics
would be posited by the development of productive forces and replaced with the help of
psychologists and their psychotechnologies.
In any case, from the 1980s onwards, cognitive psychology studies would pace the
development of the area with the human information processor model and cognitive
engineering (BARBOSA et al., 2021). In this context, approaches such as human-centered
design emerge, which would be an approach “to the development of interactive systems that
aims to make systems usable and useful, focusing on users, their needs and requirements, and
applying human factors/ergonomics and knowledge and usability techniques” (ISO 9241).
Years later, Leontiev's activity theory, the concept of situated action and ethnomethodology
practices were considered, followed by the idea of distributed cognition. More recently,
semiotic engineering has emerged, with its metacommunication between designers and users
(DE SOUZA, 2005 ) and affective computing, subcategorized between affective language,
anthropomorphism and conversational interactions (PICARD, 1997; SANTOS; CORTIZ,
2023).

232
We discuss certain aspects both in item “c” of subtopic 1.5.3 of chapter 1, and in subtopic 2.3.4 of chapter 2,
especially in note 149.
221
 In the first decades of the 21st century, the concept of social computing also appears ,
233
which seems to act as a kind of back end of the hook model. According to IBM designer
and researcher Thomas Erickson (2011), social computing emerged “[...] when digital systems
began to process user-generated content and use it for their own purposes – which often
involved the production of new functionalities and value for its users” (ERICKSON, 2011, p.
59). Such an approach would have emerged, “[...] deep down, driven by the capacity of digital
systems to process the products of social interaction that they support”, as in the case of
Google's Page Rank, or “[...] by persuading users to enter information in a way that the digital
system can use”, as in the case of social networks (ERICKSON, 2011, p. 64).
In this sense, the role of the user continued to be instrumentalized, for example,
through the structure for predicting their behavior called GOMS (acronym in English for
Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection Rules). Since then, GOMS approaches have become
a reference in the design of interfaces “[...] to model user behavior, all based on the same
basic assumptions of the human information processing model” (SAVANES, 2013, p. 141)
analogous to that of computers and having as assumption (or justification) the rational and
interested individual.

3.3.2 Activity, interface and awareness

The subjective dimensions of HCI are much broader and deeper than the interface
building theories and methodologies briefly described in the previous subtopic. As Vygotsky
argued, as discussed in subtopic 1.5.2 of chapter 1, “[...] the psychological properties of the
external phenomenon act in the instrumental act, the stimulus is transformed into a technical
instrument thanks to its use as a means of influence in the psyche and behavior. Therefore,
every instrument is necessarily a stimulus” (VIGOTSKI, 2004, p. 98). In the case of digital
234
extended mind products, the user interface is the first and main moment of sensorial,
cognitive and emotional contact with the instrument as a psychic stimulus. It is from this

233
According to the website alura.com, back-end “comes from the idea of what is behind an application [...] and
works in most cases by bridging the data that comes from the browser towards the database and vice versa,
always applying the due business rules, validations and guarantees in an environment restricted to the end user”.
Available at: https://www.alura.com.br/artigos/o-que-e-front-end-e-back-end. Accessed on: 18 Dec. 2022.
234
This sensory contact can be visual, auditory or tactile-synergistic among other forms. However, in general, in
this thesis, we will use the term user interface more in its most usual form, the graphical user interface (GUI), or
graphical user interface, which involves icons, animations and other visual indicators.
222
 235
control, now carried out in digital interfaces, that the social being (the user and/or his
subordinate) can project “[...] his representation of causality in an object, transforming it into
a tool of action” (SZYDŁOWSKI, 2018, np).
In the user interface, however, something radicalizes in the instrument-stimulus
function matured since the first industrial revolutions. According to the sociologist of digital
culture Derrick de Kerckhove (1997), after electronics and the digital, “[...] there is no gap in
the effect of one event on the other. The electrical extension of the nervous system creates a
unified field of organically interrelated structures which we name the present Information
Age” (DE KERCKHOVE, 1997, p. 269). As one of the consequences of this structural
unification, Hadler (2018) points out that “[...] the deepest technologies are those that
disappear and integrate perfectly into everyday life, so that they are no longer distinguishable
from it”.
Even so, for Szydłowski (2018), the interface remains “[...] something that enables
interaction between a subject with an intention [...] and a responsive tool. It is something that
combines the sensible, in the sense of being accessible to experience, and the ideal, in the
sense of the imaginable”. For the historian of interface culture Steven Johnson (2001), digital
interfaces act “[...] as a kind of translator, mediating between the two parties, making one
sensitive to the other. In other words, the relationship governed by the interface is a semantic
relationship, characterized by meaning and expression, not by physical force” (JOHNSON,
2001, p. 24). Certainly, as we saw in Vygotsky (2004), every instrument is semantic, but “[...]
the capabilities of the interface generally exceed those of a simple tool [...] and, although they
may not be able to open up a whole new world for a user, these capabilities convey complex
ideas of the culture and society that produced and uses them” (SZYDŁOWSKI, 2018). In this
sense, “[...] being the visible, audible or textured outer form of cultural artifacts, [the
interface] emerges as what we might call 'the skin of culture'” (DE KERCKHOVE, 1997, p.
212) .
However, there are still other implications of digital interfaces – and of the machinery
and relations of production and meaning behind them – in which their role as the skin of
culture (and of social reproduction) presents singularities and continuities in relation to the
235
As we will see, the contradictions involved in HCI can escape us when the literature in the field emphasizes
the user (individual)-computer relationship. Even without forgetting this aspect, in some moments of the text, we
resort to the interaction between social beings – often divided by manual and intellectual work, between workers
and capitalists or other oppositions – through computers (or extended mind) (DE SOUZA, 2005; VIEIRA
PINTO, 2005a). That is, we want to emphasize the social and contradictory character of this interaction that can
be encrypted by neoliberal individualism, by anthropomorphisms and other fetishes.
223
forms already realized. Based on the reflections that we started in subtopic 4.2 of the
Introduction, we are interested in asking what it means for consciousness in particular and for
human-social reality in general, the activity on physical objects through the manipulation of
symbols, as well as the very elevation of symbols to the object category . Does the fact that
these symbols are more or less representational of the activity, means and products of the
extended mind enrich or fetishize our humanization?
payroll product , run by an accounting firm for a contracting firm. Spreadsheet
software is a new tool for a pre-existing activity – accounting. If, in the past, the body acted
diversely and directly on the instruments (paper, pencil, eraser, etc.) and the object being
produced (payroll), on computers and their interfaces, it will act on universally useful tools (
keyboard 236, mouse , monitor, etc.) and a non-fully physical object (a spreadsheet).
On the paper sheet, on the one hand, the relationship between brain and hands was
237
constant, albeit subconscious , and the sensitive-tactile focus on the teleological dimension
of the activity, requiring certain structures and performances in the brain. With the digital
extended mind, on the other hand, the body's function is generally reduced to activating those
universal tools that trigger the desired informational processing (equations, formulas,
visualizations, etc.). The activity as a whole becomes predominantly mental, abstract,
mediated by the manipulation of existing symbols on the screen and which represent the
possible, intended or realized effects on its equally symbolic object (the digital payroll). It is
true that in accounting without computers, the product and the work already had most of these
characteristics and already occurred decisively with the use of the extended mind (pen, paper,
calculator, etc.). The activity remains manual and mental. But, notably, these two dimensions
undergo radical changes in HCI.
With this, we want to draw attention to the increasing simplification and
standardization of manual operations for carrying out activities that are very different from
each other. Programming or consuming a menstrual control app, doing a school project,
238
calculating the bar bill or the path of a missile, playing Fortnite or writing a poem now
basically requires the same movements and interface tools ( mouse , keyboard etc. ). However,

236
For more context, see notes 10 and 18.
237
In terms of Leontiev's theory of activity, which we will discuss below.
238
Fortnite is a set of video games set in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world. Although it's free, a number
of virtual objects can be purchased in-app. In 2021, Fortnite generated revenue of US$5.8 billion for its
manufacturer, Epic Games, and had approximately 400 million registered players, with more than 60% between
the ages of 18 and 24. Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/fortnite-statistics/. Accessed on: 07 Dec.
2022.
224
the main parts of the activity take place in the mind and on the screen (or rather, the extended
mind).
In these senses, “[...] the operational iconicity of the interface – ex. its ability to
instantly manipulate its object by manipulating its visible representation – it is a recursive
hermeneutic operation that redefines our relationship with the world” (HADLER, 2018). And
as the historian and media theorist Jan Distelmeyer (2018) points out, in addition to symbols
that can represent actionable objects (an envelope to send emails or a trash can to delete
them), in the case of spreadsheets, some of their interface images do not were “[...] made
neither to entertain nor to inform, [...] they are images that do not represent an object, but are
part of an operation” and, therefore, he calls them operative images (DISTELMEYER, 2018 ).
In some of these cases, these operative images represent numbers and symbolic operations
(formulas, calculations, links , etc.) – that is, concepts operationally turned into objects .
What kinds of conceptual and neurochemical structures change with these increasingly
dominant interfaces in human activities? What kind of influence might this have on our
ontology? How do we mean all this? What is left out of these meanings and what are the
intentions and consequences behind the interfaces while modeling, limiting and inducing
these meanings?239
In the case of the Instagram video editor used by the character Yin, the object is both a
physical body recorded by the smartphone camera and, perhaps mainly, the digital image that
inherits from this referent, but is now independent of it. It is interesting to note that these are
both hermeneutical (interpretive) operations, as Hadler argues, and productive. The computer,
its interfaces and operations, form the unified field of structures (DE KERCKHOVE, 1997)
for the activities of interpretation/significance of a phenomenon or object and the use of these
as a new “raw material” for the production of a new object or phenomenon ( posts , likes ,
data). That is, as proposed by PSSH: hermeneutics/meaning as a moment of reality production
– all at the same time and in microseconds.
And yet, when Hadler (2018) refers to the integration and invisibilization of new
technologies, among many considerable possibilities there, it is the process in which the
operation becomes automatic enough to the point that it and its purposes become relatively
unconscious (LEONTIEV, 2004). The problem there – the problem of strange work and that

239
Although we are throughout the thesis seeking to understand this type of transformation and the totality of
which it is made, these are questions whose more grounded and in-depth answers can only be initiated in future
interdisciplinary research.
225
of the user, more precisely – is precisely the fact that the activity, its instruments and
interfaces can be designed and controlled as psychotechnologies so that not all the machinery
and not all the relevant purposes of the activity become conscious to its producer. And this can
be true both for the overwork of the accountant and the prosumer .
Finally, with industrial robotics and deep learning 240, human activities on the means of
production become increasingly mediated, replaced or, mainly, expanded by intelligent
machinery. In this way, such activities tend to differentiate and become autonomous from the
possibilities that depend to a greater degree on the participation of the body and the
incorporated mind (MATURANA; VARELA, 2001) – as in the case of AI that produce
informational means and results that are still little or no understandable by human
241
consciousness . Operations are progressively directed towards the most rational and
quickest possible effect on the object being produced (from rocket to medicine).
Contradictorily, the operations are dehumanized in the natural, biological, anthropomorphic
sense, but they are humanized in the sense of expanding human wealth (objective and
conceptual), by carrying out activities, purposes and needs that are absolutely different and
more complex (HELLER, 1976) than those that preceded this type of machinery 242. Teleology
and the must-be behind this process is increasingly free towards the ever-widening limits of
physical and chemical capacities understandable by science and available in nature, bringing
us closer to the “free movement in matter” enunciated by Lukács ( 2013).
All of this, in specific but growing and decisive cases, perhaps updates the very
categories of praxis, consciousness and teleology, which deserves further study, mainly by the
PSSH. Mental activity ceases to be just the abstract, conceptual dimension of praxiological
activity (which involves the body) to absorb, in many of these cases, all activity and its
purposes .

a) Activity models in HCI

The realization of most of the visions briefly presented so far depends on both the
models of activities and the teleological (mental) models present in the products of the
extended mind that propose to manifest, mediate and satisfy digital needs (DE SOUZA, 2005;

240
Review note 51.
241
Review note 7.
242
Without forgetting to consider the possibility of her fetishism discussed in subtopic 2.1.5 of chapter 2.
226
KAPTELININ, 2005 ; NORMAN, 2008; EYAL, 2014). One of the most widespread theories
about these models is that of theorist and designer Don Norman (2008).
Although in his reference work on the subject (NORMAN, 2008) the author presents
his mental/conceptual model (chapter 1) before dealing with his theories of activity (chapter
2, mainly), we believe that this exposition may be inverted. In our hypothesis, the activity
according to Norman (2008) seems to have Kantian inspiration, to be conceived a priori , as a
result of the conceptual structures (its “mental model”) derived from the ideal abstractions
discussed in chapter 1. As a possible effect of this exposition by Norman , teleological
structures may appear preceding and justifying behavior during the activity. Thus, seeking to
243
circumvent this possible intellectual optical illusion (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a) , we will
make the exhibition inverted in relation to Norman, starting with the activity.
According to Kaptelinin and Soegaard (2005), “[...] an early attempt to propose an
activity-centric alternative to the dominant application-centric and document-centric
approaches was made by Don Norman and his colleagues at Apple Computer” (KAP
TELININ; SOEGAARD, 2005, p. 3 98). The starting point of Norman's theory (2008) is that,
in general, “[...] day-to-day activities should [...] be done quickly and often simultaneously
with the others” ( NORMAN, 2008, p. 181), so that there will not always be mental and time
resources to make the best decisions. Based on previous discussions, we can say that such an
alternative is born discreetly omitting (or disregarding) the fact that it arises from and
reproduces the extrapolation of industrial operation to other socio-metabolic activities, as well
as the acceleration and intensification of consumption.
Under this assumption, Norman (2008) is part of the theoretical-methodological
complex of neoliberal cognitivism. After dispensing with the causalities of the phenomenon
of rapid and simultaneous activities of everyday life, the author will also present ( vorstellen )
its consequences as given , and not as posited , as well as relating this supposed naturalness
with Kahneman's systems 1 and 2. Thus, in a busy life, “[...] daily activities are structured in
such a way as to reduce conscious mental activity, which means that they should minimize
planning [...] and mental calculation” (NORMAN , 2008. p. 181-182, emphasis added).
To the extent that this structure of activities has unimportant causalities for Norman, it
seems to appear to the user as “something alien, objective, pre-existing” (MARX, 1978),

243
And also without forgetting, on the one hand, the determination of activity in objective reality on the psychic
reflex (VIGOTSKI, 2004; LEONTIEV, 2004 – item “a” of subtopic 1.5.2 of chapter 1) and, on the other hand,
the “reality ” coagulated in consciousness (LUKÁCS, 2013 – subtopic 1.5.4 of chapter 1).
227
endowed with autonomy, as in a spell. And, according to Norman (2008), digital goods have
the power to transform everyday tasks into “[...] superficial (do not require planning for the
future with broad forecast and support)” and “[...] narrow (having few choices at any point
and therefore requiring little planning)” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 182).
In line with neoliberal cognitivism and the fetishization of the extended mind, Norman
(2018) presents ( vorstellen ) consequences as if they were causes. That is: 1) it attributes
(even if by default) naturalness to the acceleration of digital needs (SEVIGNANI, 2019) and
the consequent epistemic distraction (WARD et al., 2017) that this causes; 2) which allows
them to also normalize the answers offered by UX and UI design (and by its political
economy) to this challenge, as if they were consequential and pragmatic choices of users'
cognition and social structure. Among these responses, as we will continue to argue, we have
the superficialization and minimization of activities that “require planning for the future with
broad forecast and support” (NORMAN, 2008) – such as prosumption and the transfer of
personal data – through the imposition of mental models , heuristics, constraints, affordances
and decision architectures, which we will continue to see in this chapter.
Once again, in our critique, we are not denying that the complexity of
sociometabolism and its respective use values produce purposes, activities and operations that
are equally multiple and complex, whose internalization and cooperation in the mind are
carried out through hierarchies and automations that reduce the immediate awareness of its
accomplishment. We know that this process is not, per se, deleterious, until the object as use
value is transposed into second-order mediation through the instrumentalization of these
characteristics. That is, the reason purpose of the production of the object is to contradictorily
accumulate its utility function, as a psychotechnological artifact and also as a body of value.
Still according to Norman (2008), these psychotechnologies are built from certain
dimensions, so that “[...] if the structure is shallow, the amplitude is not important. If the
structure is narrow, the depth is not important. In either case, the mental effort required to
perform the task is minimized” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 182). In the first case (shallow
structure), we take the example of choosing a meal at Ifood, where “there are many options,
but each one is simple; there are few decisions to make after the single top-level choice”
(NORMAN, 2008, p. 178) – in this case, first choosing what type of food or restaurant, then
the dish and then completing the purchase.
However, depending on the dish being purchased on this platform, the choices can
become narrow , that is, in sequential and/or conditional order, but still with few alternatives.
228
Thus, the activity of purchasing a pizza can become a narrow sequence of decision-making
operations involving (after choosing the flavor) size, type of dough and edge, whether
disposable cutlery is needed, etc. On the other hand, the narrow activity can go deep , for
example, in the configuration of search filters for a property for a conventional rental (Zap
Imóveis) or by season (Airbnb) – for example, how many rooms, that accepts animals, that it
has smoke detector, garage or subway nearby etc. 244. That is, there are many sequential and/or
conditional decisions with few alternatives in each of them.
The decision tree through which choices and activities are grammatized and
hierarchized, can also be broad if each decision and its action triggers more sequential
alternatives that are not necessarily or hardly predictable (NORMAN, 2018). Starting from
the example given in the book by Norman (2018) – chess and its countless moves –, we can
think of the famous dispute between the chess player (then world champion) Garry Kasparov
and the IBM supercomputer, Deep Blue, between the years 1996 and 1997. In this match,
Deep Blue was trained to consider up to 250 million moves (or operation alternatives) per
second, against up to 15 moves per second by Kasparov 245.
One can see how multiple contradictions and determinations can come to be expressed
246
in the social forms of HCI. By following our immanent critique of the theories of Norman
and other neoliberal cognitivists, we can observe that the social totality is, in its essence, wide
, deep and full of potentially unresolved internal contradictions. In general, social relations
involve many and interdetermined causalities and their possible consequences, even when, at
247
certain times, they are measured by shallow or narrow operations – a pix on Nubank ,a
vote on an electronic ballot box, a match on Tinder. As we have already discussed, the human
use of human beings stems, to a large extent, from the reduction of reality and its possibilities
to being used, so that it can only carry out its sociometabolism from within and in the form of
second-order mediations. In these terms, for being used, broad and deep mediations appear (

244
In a simulated query of the Airbnb application, 9 groups of choices were found in the search filter that unfold
into submenus, making up dozens of possible alternatives in total.
245
FRIEDEL, 1997. Garry Kasparov vs. Deep Blue . Available from:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111111055944/http://www.chessbase.com/columns/column.asp?pid=146.
Accessed on: 12 Dec. 2022.
246
The method of immanent criticism in Marx “consists basically of analyzing social practices showing that they
are based on normative assumptions that present 'unresolved internal contradictions', which it is up to the theorist
to explain and indicate ways to overcome them” (SELL, 2017, p. 112). Sohn-Rethel (1978) also explains this
method (which we have adopted throughout the thesis) in his first citation in subtopic 8.5 of chapter 1.
247
Nubank is the largest digital bank in Brazil, according to Valor Econômico newspaper. Available at:
https://valor.globo.com/financas/noticia/2022/10/21/quem-tem-mais-clientes-bancos-digitais-ou-tradicionais-nub
ank-j-ultrapassou-santander.ghtml . Accessed on: 02 Feb. 2022.
229
vorstellen ) – whether involuntarily and violently, or modulated and gratifyingly – as shallow
and/or narrow.
In any case, based on these and other assumptions (which we will continue to
observe), Norman (2008, p. 82) develops his theory of activity as an “approximate model, not
a complete psychological theory” which he calls the seven stages of action . According to the
author, “[...] human action has two aspects: execution and evaluation. Execution involves
doing something. The evaluation is the comparison of what happened in the world with what
we wanted to happen (our goal)” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 78). In a cyclical way, individuals
would formalize: (1) their goals and (2) intentions, (3) specify the actions to deal with them,
(4) execute them, (5) obtain an updated perception of the state of the world, (6 ) would
interpret it and (7) evaluated the results according to the goals and intentions (NORMAN,
2008) 248.
In response to this activity structure, Norman (2008) proposes four “[...] principles of
good design ”: (1) visibility – where “the user can define the state of the artifact and the
alternatives for action”; (2) conceptual model – “a coherent and consistent system of images
[...] with consistency in the presentation of operations and results”; (3) mapping – “the
relationships between actions and results, between controls and their effects, between the state
of the system and what is visible”; and (4) feedback – the “full and continuous return of
information about the result of actions” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 88).
On the other hand, according to Kaptelinin (1996), “[...] an important trend in the
debate has been the growing dissatisfaction with the dominant cognitive approach” given the
“[...] general consensus that current attempts to apply the cognitive psychology to HCI are not
very successful” (KAPTELININ, 1996, p. 53). For this author, the traditional cognitive point
of view would reiterate the assumptions of the mind as a computer, where the HCI would be
composed “[...] by two information processing units, the human being and the computer, so
that the output from one unit enters the input of the other and vice versa” (KAPTELININ,
1996, p. 54).
Even so, for Kaptelinin (1996), there would be little consensus at the time on the most
promising theoretical alternatives. Regarding this issue, according to designers , computer
248
It is relevant to note that this is a structure that, in a way, aligns with the PSSH approaches, which combine the
analysis of work done by Lukács (2013), of motivation according to Aguiar and Ozella (2006), the activity
theory by Leontiev (2204) and the considerations on valuation made by Lessa (2012) based on Lukács (2013) –
which we seek to state simply in topic 1 of the Introduction. In this way, as we have discussed throughout the
thesis, the problems and hypostasies that we point out in the theories of Norman and other neoliberal cognitivists
more express the transversion of this process than its mere empirical “discovery”.
230
scientists and founders of the Interaction Design Foundation, Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis
Dam (2012), the development of HCI “[...] incorporated a diverse scientific base, notably
social psychology and organizational theory, Activity Theory, distributed cognition and
sociology, and an ethnographic approach to human activity” (SOEGAARD; DAM, 2012).
Considering that this diverse scientific base deserves to continue being studied by
PSSH in later works (especially affective computing), in this work we chose to take a closer
look at how Activity Theory (AT) has been used specifically in understanding and using the
products of the extended mind . Although it emerged in the Soviet context, impregnated with
the contradictions that we indicated in item 1 of the Introduction, AT was later deployed by
many authors in different countries, so that it also continues to diversify.
According to one of its main current exponents, HCI researcher Victor Kaptelinin
(1996), AT “[...] suggests a structure for human-computer interaction that is radically different
from the information processing loop” (KAPTELININ , 1996 , p. 6). In fact, “[...] according
to Michael Cole, 'standard US cognitive psychology is a reduced subset of a cultural-historical
249
activity approach – without realizing it'” (COLE, 1992, apud , KAPTELININ , 1996 , p.
57).
For AT, “[...] the activity is understood as a 'life unit' of a material subject existing in
the objective world” (KAPTELININ; SOEGAARD, 2005, p. 376). And still,

There are two key aspects that differentiate the activity from other types of
interaction: (a) the subjects of the activities have needs, which must be met through
an interaction with the world, and (b) the activities and their subjects are mutually
determined. ; or, more generally, activities are generative forces that transform
subjects and objects . (KAPTELININ; SOEGAARD, 2005, p. 376, emphasis added)

Instead of fragmenting the elements and de-emphasizing their existence in the

relationship , AT proposes an integral and dialectical vision of the generating forces of
activity mediated by the digital, which can thus recover its concrete amplitude, insofar as,
here, “[... ] the computer is just another tool that mediates the interaction of human beings
with their environment” (KAPTELININ, 1996, p. 56).
Also according to Kaptelinin and Soegaard (2005), the use of this approach for the

249
The designation “cultural-historical” refers to the theoretical repertoire that emerged from research led mainly
by Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev in the USSR in search of a Marxist psychology. The term is still used
internationally, with many nuances and transformations. Upon its arrival in Brazil, via PUC-SP at the hands of
professor Silvia Lane and students, this repertoire was also designated as socio-historical, a term adopted in this
thesis. For more information on the history of these variations, see Furtado et al. (2022).
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“analysis of the effects of certain technologies on human cognition” would imply, among
other factors, (1) the “identification of the variety of activities, as well as their respective
objects within which technologies are being employed”; (2) “the role and place of
technologies in the hierarchical structure of each of these activities” ( KAPTELININ;
SOEGAARD , 2005, emphasis added); and (3) how they are redesigned in digital mediation.
Still, (4) in cases where the activity carried out with digital instruments performs operations in
the physical world (the case of Uber), it is also important to observe “how the activities are
being remodeled using technologies as means of mediation and how the transformations of
the components activity are related to the corresponding changes of the internal components
(externalization and internalization)” ( KAPTELININ; SOEGAARD , 2005).
This approach helps us to continue deciphering and disenchanting Nir Eyal's hook
model. For example, here the inclusion of gratifications and variable rewards in the
performance of certain activities different from these stimuli becomes more clear and strange;
and how, in this insertion, the stimuli (and their commercial and modulating motivations) can
come to dominate the activity. In the case of Instagram, what is the real relevance of digital
merchandise in satisfying the initial need (exchange and sociability) and the inserted need
(hedonism and social capital) and how does this occur from the app? And, in the case of
app-based couriers, how can the gamified grammar that produces income and digital data
radicalize the exploitation and estrangement of work?
It is from these discussions that, then, we can enter the mental models of HCI.

b) Mental models in HCI

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Computer scientist Clarisse de Souza (2005) draws attention to the
metacommunication between the HCI designer , who “must speak through the system”, and
the user, so that both share the same conceptual model of the tool and tasks. According to De
Souza (2005), this metacommunication would depend on semiotic engineering. That is, a type
of environmental, systematic and structured management of signs (“consistent semantic
rules”) that transmit general information about the usefulness and characteristics of the
product, its place in the world, as well as the promise to situate the user in the world through

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It is noteworthy that PUC-Rio professor Clarisse de Souza is an internationally renowned author in HCI
studies, being, for example, the first Brazilian woman honored in the international project Notable Women in
Computing at Duke University, which values participation female in computer science .
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this product and this metacommunication.
For this metacommunication to occur, it is necessary to project what Norman (2008)
calls mental (or conceptual) models . In the case of the HCI, it is an articulated set of
principles, concepts, general rules, heuristics, etc. that, in a way, must exist in the
programming and interface of computers and in the user's consciousness – in this case, mainly
through their learning during use and their linkage with previous mental models. In this way,
supported by clues and other sensitive elements (images, sounds, etc.), the user can relate
commands, gestures and other propositions of the interface with his needs and activities, as
well as deduce the consequences of their use (FOGG, 1998; DE SOUZA, 2005; KRUG 2006;
NORMAN, 2008).
Still according to Norman (2008), “[...] the conceptual model points out that good
design is also an act of communication between the designer and the user, except that all
communication needs to take place through the appearance of the device itself, which he must
explain himself” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 10). In this sense, a mental model in HCI needs to
become intuitive and tacit between both. However, in automagic machines, it can be
structured without the active participation and aware of the user. Its construction can take
place both from the ontological assumptions (predictably irrational), methodological
(libertarian paternalism and decision architecture) and objectives (modulation) already
discussed, and from more “concrete” elements present in the programming and design of
UX/UI (restrictions, affordances , gamification, etc.). In these cases, this metacommunication
is asymmetrical because, in general, this interaction is based on principles of truth
(JOHNSON-LAIRD; BYRNE, 2002) which, ultimately, represent only what becomes
possible through the hands, beliefs and needs of the participants. developers who, in general,
share the aforementioned reductionist approaches of neoliberal cognitivism.
Anyway, Norman (2008) presents certain characteristics of a good mental model. First,
the author emphasizes the importance of system feedback for user actions because, “[...] if
you are actually carrying out the task and there is a problem, [feedbacks ] allow you to find
out what it’s ​happening” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 112). Restrictions, on the other hand, are “[...]
the safest way to make something easy to use, with few errors, is to make it impossible to do
it in another way – to limit the choices” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 11). For example, certain steps
on a form cannot be performed if some field has been forgotten or filled out incorrectly.

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 In the case of affordances 251, “[...] a good designer always ensures that the appropriate
actions are noticeable and the inappropriate ones, invisible” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 11). In this
way, they can realize the way in which libertarian paternalism and decision architecture
become subtly unavoidable, while ensuring the artifact's ability to deliver the promised use
value. Finally, mental models should stimulate the power of observation , or the habituation
that “[...] technological resources transmit their own cues that influence the formation of
users' perceptions and the processing of content” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 6).
Mental models are an important aspect of this thesis because they can describe,
inscribe and conceal some of the psychotechnological processes that we have described in this
chapter. They describe why, obviously, the phenomena and sociometabolic structures are
broad and deep enough for us not to be able to reproduce them faithfully and integrally in our
consciousness. This makes us need those models that, by generalization, observation and
experience, help us to anticipate certain consequences of social activities. Generally, it is in
the mental models that the heuristics and other mental shortcuts reside and are elaborated,
referred to both by the cognitive sciences and by the cognitive fluidity of paleoanthropology
already discussed in chapter 1 (item “c”, subtopic 1.5.2). They inscribe because, subsumed as
second-order mediation, mental models can undergo modulation efforts. One can, in the terms
presented here by our various authors, adopt certain principles of causal truth between needs,
commodities and activities that could not be realized in other ways. With that, finally, the
modulating mental models, by hiding these causal chains and their contradictions, can
reintroduce to us ( vorstellen ) the human-social world and its extended mind under the fetish
of the commodity.
For all this, in our hypothesis, the competitive struggle for the modulation of the
subjective dimension of reality, which is also structured around mental models and HCI as
psychotechnology, has an importance and complexity that has been crossing the entire thesis
and which does not end here. , which makes us continue to unfold its aspects in the following
pages.

3.3.3 Restrictions and affordances

On the one hand, as we have already commented, “[...] the term affordance refers to

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In addition to this discussion and the definition of the term in note 29, given its subtleties and relevance, we
will further discuss affordances in the following subtopic.
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the perceived and real properties of an object, mainly the fundamental ones that determine
how the object could be used” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 34 ). In turn, for the engineering
psychologist Richard W. Pew (1985, apud NORMAN, 2008, p. 227), “ design is the
successive application of restrictions until only one incomparable product remains”.
Thus, restrictions and affordances are fundamental resources for a good HCI,
including aspects such as security, robustness and quality of the offered use value. While
software and interface structures that configure (by limitation and enabling) a digital product,
they are indispensable from the gameplay of a game , the organization and integrity of
personal files, to the correct functioning of medical devices and security systems or
infrastructure. After all, if limitations and possibilities are misconfigured, so that a user does
what he shouldn't and can't do what he needs to, a lot can be put at risk.
However, according to psychologists Baerentsen and Trettvik (2002), from the lens of
AT it is possible to understand affordances as forces acting in cultural and emerging contexts
in the concrete interaction between the social being and his environment. More specifically,
through constraints and affordances , “[...] application developers [act] as authors of cultural
texts that define problems, offer interpretations and propose solutions” (MILLER;
MATVIYENKO, 2014, p. 94). As Norman himself recognizes (2008, p. 297), design “takes
on political importance”, with its philosophies reflecting political systems. Thus, in the
capitalist “consumer economy”, design brings greater “[...] emphasis on external
characteristics that are considered attractive to the buyer” (NORMAN, 2008, p. 297). And, in
these terms, he concludes: “[...] we are surrounded by objects of desire, not objects of use”
(NORMAN, 2008, p. 297).
All of this makes it possible that, under the commodity form and/or as a second-order
mediation, restrictions and affordances become central social forms for the realization of the
ontonegativity of neoliberal cognitivism, of the human use of human beings in the form of
user work. , and from modulation to a pseudoconcrete life. This is because, in general,
nothing is possible or real outside of constraints and affordances . In these cases, they can
express and provide structures for libertarian paternalism, decision architecture and the hook
model, sometimes increasing transaction costs for certain alternatives, sometimes simplifying
and gratifying others according to often commercial interests, causing pain and suffering
themselves. the pleasure on which their arguments are based. In the words of Norman (2008,
p. 277), the role of the designer is “[...] to use constraints so that the user feels as if there is
only one possible thing to do – the right thing, of course”.
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 Here, we are proposing an expanded and more adequate view of the role and social
form of constraints and affordances , which thus involve more than, for example,
252
programming structures, decision trees, or dark patterns . Thus, the different controls over
organic and paid reach and the impossibility of inserting external links in some social
253
networks; certain mandatory cookies ; recommendation algorithms; the zero rating ; and
many other analogous practices could also be considered restrictions and affordances that can
often respond to political-economic interests of developers and not necessarily those of
individuals and societies.
In this sense, as Sundar (2008) argues, digital goods providers use affordances not
only to organize and stabilize their product, but can even shape its nature and, with that,
determine “the receivers’ states of mind when using it”. it” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 3). The mere
presence of affordances can “[...] trigger heuristics that probably predispose users to
experience the content in a certain way” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 20). The author concludes that
the operating principle underlying restrictions and affordances , in addition to “[...] increasing
the reach and scope of communication” (SUNDAR, 2008, p. 4), it is to act as a principle of
truth that can increase the perception of credibility of the content, the merchandise and the
offerer.
There are still many other complications around affordances . This concept “[...] was
made to cut the subjective-objective dichotomy of traditional psychology and philosophy, but
its interpretation in HCI often maintained this dichotomy” (BAERENTSEN; TRETTVIK,

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Unlike liberal and moralistic approaches, in this thesis we will not emphasize the concept of dark patterns .
This is because it simplifies and confuses the debate about deception, coercion and agency in the use of digital
goods and services. Of course, designers and contractors can embed malicious resources in their software that
deceive, defraud or make it difficult for their users to escape, eventually failing to comply with government
regulations or self-regulations and market “good practices” – e.g. buttons and misleading texts (which may be
aimed at scams) . and virus insertion) etc. However, as we have described, the practice of making “[...] easier to
do something that is not in the best interest of those who choose” (JOHNSON, 2022, p. 14) is a much more
generalized, commonplace and widely used competitive need . documented – in cases such as Youtube, Amazon
and Uber (DAY; STEMLER, 2020) – than the grossest cases qualified as dark patterns . This classification
induces the belief that manipulation that is not aggressive may not be manipulation. In light of all our discussion,
the concept of dark patterns is weak, ambiguous, and ineffective.
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Zero rating is a commercial practice that violates network neutrality (equality in circulation and access to
digital data), in which a company covers the costs of accessing its merchandise-service with internet operators
(GENNA, 2020). For example, in Brazil, in some data plans of some operators, access to Meta's goods-services
is not charged directly to the customer, but paid by the multinational. Despite the claim of democratization of
internet access, its recent ban in the European Union has not generated restrictive effects. For example,
according to the Center for Internet and Society, Deutsche Telekom increased the monthly data volume of some
affected customers from 24GB to 40GB for the same price. Among possible distortions resulting from the zero
rating , according to the Mozilla Foundation, in 2017, 55% of Brazilians said that the internet was Facebook.
Source: 2017 Internet Health Report. Available at: https://internethealthreport.org/v01/ . Accessed on: 14 Dec.
2022.
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2002). That is, instead of promoting user agency over the product (and by extension over its
developer's determinations) through better integration of subjective and objective aspects of
an activity, in certain cases the opposite may occur. Furthermore, in his review of the
literature on the subject, Kaptelinin (2014) concludes that, currently, there is “[...] a significant
degree of uncertainty about the meaning and role of the concept of affordance” (
KAPTELININ, 2014, p. 82). For him, “[...] while a general understanding of affordances as
'possibilities of action offered by the environment' is universally accepted, specific
interpretations of this general idea are different in different research contexts”
(KAPTELININ, 2014, p. 82) .
This is also the assessment of sociologist Jenny Davis (2020, p. 81), for whom
affordances are much more relational and conditional than universal, so that, instead of asking
“what do these objects offer?”, it is much more It is more appropriate to ask “how do these
objects offer?”. For the author, insofar as “[...] the policy of technology stems from the
integration of objects with human social and structural arrangements” (DAVIS, 2020, p. 31 ),
" affordance conditions vary according to perception, skill and cultural and institutional
legitimacy" of individuals and societies (DAVIS, 2020, p. 28-29).
affordance mechanisms indicate that technologies request, require, encourage,
discourage, refuse and allow particular lines of action and social dynamics” (p. 28). Thus,
“[...] technologies bid on users in the form of requests and demands” (p. 78) and, in response
to user action attempts, affordances can accommodate, hinder or block them. them. In this
sense, “[...] when technologies discourage , they erect barriers to a course of action” (DAVIS,
2020, p. 71, emphasis added) – movements already discussed in subtopic 1.4 of this chapter.
This is why, for example, purchase, adhesion or consent actions appear in the foreground, in
contrast to information on their conditions and consequences. This is also why, in Google
Chrome, third-party cookies (from companies, governments, etc.) are enabled by default, but
disabling them requires some additional user skill, as well as a number of other features that
expose your data ( or rather, that makes it prosumer ) for the offering company and its trading
partners.
Affordances can also refuse certain user intentions by making them unexecutable, such
as copying a text, downloading a scientific article without buying it, proceeding with an
action omitting information required by the system, or when a use value is not assigned
because the user has blocked cookies and other information collection software – as in the
case of the Brave browser discussed in item “d” of subtopic 2.2.3 of chapter 2.
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 Furthermore, “[...] allowing is distinct from other affordance mechanisms due to its
neutral intensity and multidirectional application. A user can take a course of action, but there
is no pressure to do so and there are no significant obstacles in the way” (DAVIS, 2020, p.
78). This is a sensitive point, because “[...] building algorithms that allow directing any action
and with any agenda is a political decision because it renounces an alternative option that
refuses racism and expressions of hate”, for example (DAVIS, 2020, p. 79). In this case, when
we observe content viralization algorithms and problems with their moderation in social
networks, often what is explicitly allowed can also be implicitly encouraged – and
competitively necessary.
As one can observe, “[...] as resources push and pull with varying degrees of
insistence, these resources guide what people do, how they interact, and how macro-level
patterns are formed, changed, and reified” (DAVIS, 2020, p. 81). Davis gives the example of
dating apps, where we learn to qualify people through swiping them to the rejection or interest
side, “[...] placing emphasis on quickly identifiable markers such as physical attractiveness
and income ” (DAVIS, 2020, p. 82). The oversupply and ease of selection of potential partners
in this way “[...] can affect romance and intimacy on a cultural-structural level, normalizing
serial dating” (DAVIS, 2020, p. 82) , the disposability, the loss of uniqueness of this type of
human-social encounter, in addition to the very authenticity of the personalities
(GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2021a).
This is another very important point. To the extent that activity determines the
formation of consciousness (MARX; ENGELS, 2007), the way in which this activity imposes
itself through automagic machines and their affordances causes certain social relations to be
involved ( prosumption , asymmetries , invasion of privacy , restructuring of sociability, etc.)
may seem natural and consequential. If restrictions and affordances determine what is
possible and real in digitally interfaced sociability, it is this reality that will tend to be
internalized/signified, especially if this object-activity-consciousness link is repeated to the
point of becoming a cognitive habit and a pattern cultural.

3.3.4 User Interface Design

As can be seen, the HCI reality that escapes us in the form of automagic machines is
quite intricate, so that the analytical separation of its elements becomes a challenge. For
example, according to Hartson and Pyla (2018), “[...] in the general public, [...] the terms UI,
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HCI and UX are used interchangeably”, even though UX design includes “ [ . ..] interaction
design and much more (eg conceptual design , ecology, 254etc.), but not user interface software
” (HARTSON; PYLA, 2018, p. 3). For the information scientist John Carroll (2013), the
concept of usability, which is the basis of HCI studies, “[...] has been rearticulated and
reconstructed almost continuously, becoming increasingly rich and intriguingly problematic.
”. Currently, usability “[...] often includes qualities such as fun, well-being, collective
effectiveness, aesthetic tension, enhanced creativity, flow, support for human development,
among others” (CARROLL, 2013).
In fact, although there are similarities, exchanges and hierarchies between these areas,
from other combinations (PSSH, TA and EPTIC) it is possible to flow from their more
theoretical general forms (IHC), passing through their particular applications (UI), until you
reach a more concrete general form (UX). Thus, although UI and UX in particular are
sometimes confused, here we will make brief more specific problematizations of the user
interface, without losing sight of its subordination to the design of the user experience –
which, in turn, is determined by marketing, as we concluded in the previous topic. We then
round off this entire discussion with the most comprehensive and detailed critique of UX
design .
The discussions made so far in this chapter, especially in the previous subtopic, enable
us to understand the work of designing the products of the extended mind as something that is
not neutral, not merely technical and much less rationally done for the good of all. As
researcher Joseph Giacomin (2014, p. 1) teaches, “[...] design can mean the modeling power
described in philosophical analysis by terms such as 'thought processing' and 'instrumental
realism'”. Or, as UX/UI consultant Jared Spool (2013) summarizes, “ design is the rendering
255
of intent”.
That realism comes through in many ways within UI design . According to Barbosa et
al. (2021), “[...] the interface of an interactive system comprises the entire portion of the
system with which the user maintains physical (motor or perceptive) or conceptual contact
during the interaction [...]” (BARBOSA et al ., 2021, p. 28). This is how the computer can
“[...] fulfill its promise of being a general-purpose machine and establish the connections we
call networks [...] without, of course, showing what is really going on' inside' the machine”

254
design landscape , ecology is the entire set of surrounding parts of the world, including networks, other users,
devices, and information structures with which a user, product, or system interacts” (HARTSON; PYLA, 2018, p
. 51).
255
Broadly speaking, rendering is the process by which the final product of digital processing is obtained.
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(DISTELMEYER, 2018). Thus, precisely because the interface is “[...] the only means of
contact between the user and the system, the vast majority of users believe that the system is
the interface with which they come into contact [...]” (BARBOSA et al., 2021, p. 28). As we
have argued, this reality that escapes us, whether deliberately and/or as a result of other
previous structural insufficiencies (such as formal and media education), is one of the vectors
of fetishism that transforms the extended mind into an automagic machine.
Long before HCI was a central issue for the production of consciousness and
sociometabolism, Leontiev (2004) had already posed the relationship between sensitive
content and the subjective dimension of reality in a way that, with care, can be useful 256. For
him,

[...] it is the sensible content (sensations, images of perception, representations) that

creates the basis and conditions of all consciousness. In a sense, it is a material
fabric of consciousness that creates the richness and colors of the conscious
reflection of the world . On the other hand, this content is immediate in
consciousness; it is that which directly creates "the transformation of energy from
outer stimulus into fact of consciousness." (LEONTIEV, 2004, p. 105)

Combining this statement (and its nuances) with previous discussions – mainly
between Davis (2020), Barbosa et al. (2021) and Distelmeyer (2018) – , we have that, in the
digitized sociometabolic monopolization, which dilutes new forms of work in the
diversification and intensification of consumption practices, the user interface is, increasingly,
the sensitive content from the which we coagulate the conscious “reality” argued by Lukács
(2013) in subtopic 5.4 of chapter 1. Perhaps for this reason, according to Ward (2022), “[...] if
you can manipulate someone's habits, your conscience will invent a whole story that explains
the behavior change you tricked them into, like it was their idea all along. It makes what they
call ' behavioral design ' so easy” (WARD, 2022, p. 94). Therefore, in light of the competitive
struggle discussed in subtopic 2.3.5 of chapter 2, UI and UX design necessarily needs to be
“[...] narrative, captivating, immediate, expressive, immersive, adaptable and dynamic”
(ZUBOFF, 2021, p. 530).
According to designer Felipe Vilches Ivelić (2019), for the sensitive content contained

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This is a delicate quotation, which provokes certain criticisms of this author (TOASSA, 2016; 2020) and
which needs to be put in context. Here, our interest is to emphasize the role of sensitive content, especially when
it is ostensive and planned, in creating the bases of consciousness. However, as we have discussed mainly in this
chapter, this creation is not merely and exclusively reflexive. The human-social reality is both objective and
subjective, with its last dimension being relatively autonomous in relation to the first. Sensitive content may
immediately appear to consciousness, but it will find in it a coagulated reality (LUKÁCS, 2013) sedimented,
alive, personal, emotional and often strange.
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in the user interface to assume this fantastic form, its developers need to adopt what he calls
“magic techniques applied to design ”. According to Ivelić (2019), in conventional
illusionism, in order for the appearance or disappearance of an object to appear cognitively
realistic, the illusionist usually: 1) stages informing the action he is performing; 2) it
temporarily disorients the public “[...] to make it difficult to establish causal connections”
(IVELIĆ, 2019, p. 217); 3) combines tension and secondary attention as if they were the main
one; and 4) uses sensory capture: striking stimuli that can momentarily divert attention.
Ivelić's (2019) hypothesis is that, in a way, UI and UX designers do the same thing
with the digital goods we consume on a daily basis. Starting precisely from the procedures
taught by Norman (2008) in this regard: good design “[...] informing the action can fulfill the
purpose of hiding actions or elements in contexts in which they may distract, confuse or
disapprove” (IVELIĆ, 2019 , p. 220, emphasis added). As designer Lialina (2018) adds, “[...]
the 'user illusion' was a main principle of interface designers since XEROX PARC, since the
early days of the profession. They were fully conscious about creating illusions, paper,
folders, windows.”
From all the accumulated discussion, we know that it is imperative for developers
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that certain actions or productive elements (LEVY, 2009; IBM, 201 4 ; LEITH , 2021;
ERICKSON, 20 1 1) foreign to the wealth of social needs (HELLER, 1976) are inserted and
connected opaquely in a partially informed system (DISTELMEYER, 2018) . But _ these can
only fulfill their usefulness if they are, from this integration: 1) made available and required
(NORMAN, 2008); 2) allowed and encouraged (DAVIS, 2020; EYAL, 2014; KRUG, 2006;
NODDER, 2013a) through the imposition of choice architectures (THALER; SUNSTEIN;
BALZ, 2013) and the constant supply of variable neuropsychological rewards
(HERCULANO-HOUZEL , 2012; FIRTH et al., 2019; CARR, 2020), made available
algorithmically ( DOMINGOS, 2017; WARD, 2022) in the user interface; and 3) if they are
voluntarily performed by this user (GONÇALVES; FURTADO, 2020b). All this,
simultaneously, in fractions of seconds and, eventually, from a “magic word”, like “Ok
Google”. As Ivelić (2019) concludes, “[...] in this way, by being inscribed in the logic of its
original system, the resource will be naturally integrated into the user experience, going
unnoticed” (p. 220).
It is exactly this magical junction (the fetish of the digital commodity) that

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Reinforcing that we are always using the term “developers” according to note 40.
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(re)produces the process that we refer to in subtopics 2.2.3 and 2.3.4 of chapter 2, where
digital data that discuss characteristics and profileable potential of individuals only can arise
when they are put into activities where they are provoked – check-ins and photos of dishes in
restaurants, biodata during races, visceral posts about politics on social networks, etc.

3.3.5 User experience

In the terms of our argument, the triggering of the merging gears between consumption
activities and implicit work depends on certain spells and illusions that, many times, are
difficult to distinguish from the users' more legitimate motivations, utilities and valuations
(getting around, self-care yourself, be valued, etc.). While a marketing demand (VARIAN,
1999; WU, 2017; NADLER; MCGUIGAN, 2018), this enchantment in turn depends not only
on the carefully designed interface, but also and mainly “[...] the perceptions and responses of
a person that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service” (ISO
2009) – the user experience .
But what are human-social experiences about, especially when they are not reduced to
their neurocognitive and behavioral aspects? For Leontiev (1980), they:

[...] are the phenomena that arise on the surface of the system of consciousness and
constitute the form in which consciousness is immediately apparent to the subject.
For this reason, the experiences of interest or boredom, attraction or pangs of
conscience, do not by themselves reveal their nature to the subject. Although they
appear to be internal forces stimulating his activity , their real functions are only to
guide the subject towards their true sources, to indicate the personal meaning of
events occurring in his life, to compel him to stop for a moment, for so to speak, the
flow of his activity and examine the core values that formed in his mind [...].
(LEONTIEV, 1980, emphasis added).

Something interesting from this definition (and from its combination with topic 1 of
chapter 2) is that capitalist alienated work, its estrangement and the commodity fetish tend to
obstruct and separate the subject from the possibility and ability to reveal to himself even both
the social meaning behind the activities and other events in which he is placed, and the
phenomenology of experiences of interest, boredom, etc. that they provoke. When we take
this reflection to automagic machines, in which the intangible complexity of the products of
the extended mind is potentiated by occults and enchantments, the social being is left only
with those experiences that they provoke (or that they are projected to provoke). So these
experiences managed may become the main extract available (and/or suggested, in terms of
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neoliberal cognitivism) for the production of personal meaning that motivates or results from
activity with these machines.
The neuropsychological and social effects resulting from the likes that follow an
exposure of intimate life (or the emulation of it) and the virulence of political debates on
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Facebook; the ludic and gamified realization of a job in Ludos Pro and learning in Clarity
259
; or the constant state of alertness and responsiveness to WhatsApp notifications are
transformed into internal forces that stimulate and signify these activities and consumption –
the hooking and modulation discussed in the first topics of this chapter. Even more serious is
when experience, by becoming even more psychotechnologically provocative, thus becomes
objectified in the form of a double commodity. That is, it becomes something that can be
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consumed by an end consumer (through a Free Fire game during a subway trip) and,
consequently, producible and marketable among designers and capitalist investors.
Thus, “[...] with the emergence of new media and its popularization throughout the
1990s, forms of consumption also diversified, increasingly migrating from manufactured
products to services, information and experience” (BENTES , 2022, p. 220). In fact, for
Fontenelle (2017, p. 131), this moment “[...] refers to the stage of capitalism in which the
'lived experience' becomes a commodity [..., which means capturing forms of unexplored or
still little commercially explored life, and, from there, rewrite it according to the 'culture' of a
given brand...” (FONTENELLE, 2017, p. 86). We have already discussed this theme based on
Marcondes Filho (19 8 5), but now, “[...] when the product is the experience itself , psychic
rewards are even more central and, not by chance, they are a central step in hook model [...]”
(BENTES, 2022, p. 220, emphasis added). Thus, “[...] the challenge of designing interactive
products [...] is to bring the resulting experience to light – to design the experience before the
product” (HASSENZAHL, 2013). Enabled and constrained by the commodity-form and its
fetish , the experience here is reduced to “[...] the question of what it is like to act through a

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Ludos Pro is an edtech , that is, “[...] a gamified corporate learning platform. We use game techniques
combined with traditional teaching formats to encourage involvement, increase engagement and the adoption of
learning initiatives through a playful and motivating environment”. Available at:
https://www.ludospro.com.br/quem-somos. Accessed on: 20 Dec. 2022.
259
Clarity is also an edtech dedicated to school and corporate distance learning. Available at:
https://www.clarity.com.br/. Accessed on: 20 Dec. 2022.
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“ Free Fire Battlegrounds , Garena 's Battle Royale , is the most played mobile game in Brazil according to a
survey carried out in June by Panorama Mobile Time / Opinion Box. The online shooter surpassed even Candy
Crush Saga , a puzzle game that has more than 500 million downloads on Android and iPhone ( iOS ) phones ”.
Available at:
https://www.techtudo.com.br/listas/2019/06/free-fire-eo-game-mobile-mais-jogado-do-brasil-veja-top-5-dos-celu
lares.ghtml . Accessed on: 20 Dec. 2022.
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product , at the moment it is used – the moment-to-moment experience” (HASSENZAHL,
2013, emphasis added) 261.
For UX designers to overcome this challenge, they will take the opposite path to
Vygotsky and Leontiev's cultural-historical psychology. Hassenzahl (2013), for example,
updates and recombines marketing methodologies from Cialdini (1984) and Eyal (2014) in his
model why, what and how . In the why, an attempt is made to “[...] clarify the needs and
emotions involved in an activity, the meaning, the experience”; to then determine “[...] the
functionality that is capable of providing the experience (what) and an appropriate way to put
the functionality into action (the how)” (HASSENZAHL, 2013). According to the author,
“[...] this leads to products that are sensitive to the particularities of human experience” and
“capable of telling pleasant stories through their use or consumption” (HASSENZAHL,
2013).
Hassenzahl's (2013) approach has more interesting subtleties. For him, on the one
hand, “[...] most commercially available interactive devices are too practical or too open”,
which “results in very obvious and uninspiring stories: how exciting is keeping a calendar on
your cell phone?” (HASSENZAHL, 2013). This openness, or experiential autonomy of the
subjects (and all the banality that their operations may have in the face of their original
motivations) “[...] leaves it up to the user to create meaningful and inspiring usage scenarios”.
That is, the activity, its motivations and the meanings of these experiences would be, in these
terms, opportunities still little explored by capitalist agents and their designers . And if we
asked these designers what are the reasons why the use of a calendar needs to be exciting,
Hassenzahl (2013, emphasis added) could answer us that experience design simply “[...]
means technology that suggests meaningful, engaging experiences , valuable and aesthetically
pleasing in themselves ”.
In the light of all our discussion, the main need for the insertion of hedonistic, ludic
and self-indulgence biases, among others, in certain operations internal to sociometabolic
activities (“of the stomach or of the imagination”) mediated by products of the extended mind
– so that its existence is filled with “meaning” and excitement – it is the competitive struggle
for sales and data between capitals in its context of structural crisis. Which even implies the
corrosion of the self-determination of the liberal subject (CARR, 2020; ZUBOFF, 2021;

261
We have already started this discussion in subtopic 2.2 of this chapter, where we argue that the hedonism bias
is introduced in the relationship between need, emotion and activity, shuffling its dynamics, and here we will
develop and conclude it.
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DOCTOROW, 2022; ECKER et al., 2022) . Certainly, as neoliberal cognitivists always and
ambiguously argue, these nudges are often motivations for the adoption of healthy habits and
262
a more practical, autonomous and fun life . However, after about 30 years of the
dissemination of these psychotechnologies, if we look only at the US context – which
involves a drop in life expectancy, the prevalence of pathologies related to unhealthy habits
and the explosion of legal or illegal drug abuse ( STOICEA, 2019 ) – perhaps we should place
these promises under suspicion.
In our literature review, few authors were as sincere about their goals and methods as
UX designer Chris Nodder (2013a). Despite its “cool” and pragmatic language, its reflections
open access to very sophisticated and valuable information. The author begins by admitting
that “[...] evil design is the one that creates purposely designed interfaces that make users
emotionally involved in doing something that benefits the designer more than they do”
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 4). Let's see how this works.
One of Nodder's (2013a) first tips refers to the exploration of cognitive dissonances .
In cases where consumption involves the “[...] struggle to justify the high purchase price and
their desire for an item in comparison with their subsequent feelings about the value of the
item” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 6), the The author recommends that companies do not let their
consumers resolve this dissonance alone. For this, the suggested trick is the social proof bias ,
when “[...] a large part of our behavior is determined by our impressions of what is the correct
thing to do [...] based on what we observe 263others doing [...]” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 5). Thus,
websites should help consumers “[...] by providing reasons and evidence that reinforce their
satisfaction with the product (positive reviews; images of famous people using the product;
and promises of benefits that are difficult to quantify, such as social approval provoked by the
product). use of the product)” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 6).
Nodder (2013a) also recommends that digital goods bear self-declared and
non-verifiable quality certificates as a way of overcoming hesitation and dissonance, a

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Once again, it is important to try to separate ideological extrapolations and marketing actions that derive from
certain scientific evidence of the uses and effectiveness of resources such as nudge in situations aimed at user
autonomy. For example, Pennycook et al. (2020, p. 777) conducted experiments along with Twitter, in which
“[...] participants were subtly prepared to rate the accuracy of a single non-COVID news headline. This minimal,
content-neutral intervention nearly tripled participants' level of discernment between sharing true and false
headlines" related to COVID. The fact that neoliberal cognitivists occasionally use examples like these to
promote commercial psychotechnologies only supports our arguments. Remembering that disinformation and
profitability in social networks are directly related, according to cognitivists themselves (LEWANDOWSKY et
al., 2017; PENNYCOOK et al., 2021; ECKER et al., 2022).
263
Term used 26 times by the author in his book.
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technique he calls endorsement . As he teaches (and reflects throughout our discussion),
“fortunately, it's all about perception rather than reality” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 16). Based on
this premise, Nodder (2013a ) also cites studies by the reference design office Nielsen Norman
Group on eye tracking, which “[...] show that people examine web pages and phone screens
in various patterns, one of them being the shape of the letter F” (PERNICE, 2017) – that is, a
closer reading of the first lines of the layout and decreasing attention as one gets to the
contents below them. As these researches warn, when we scan the interface in F, we miss the
parts of the content that fall outside this field. Thus, “[...] the ignored phrases and words are
usually as important – or even more important – as the words read. But users won't notice
this, as by definition they don't know what they don't see" (PERNICE, 2017, np).
For Nodder (2013a), this is an advantage and an unmissable commercial opportunity.
According to him, users' attention tends to focus from the top left corner to the bottom right
corner, while the opposite areas are known as fallow areas ( resting). However, “[...] you can
distract users from this typical flow by placing desirable objects (large, shiny buttons, for
example) elsewhere on the page” (NODDERa, 2013, p. 24).
Another trick by Nodder (2013a) – which expresses the power of choice architecture
and restrictions and affordances – is the game between “lines of desire” and “paths of least
resistance”. In this case, the sequence of actions that the designer and his contractor need the
user to perform is designed with the triggers and rewards that Eyal (2014) referred to in the
previous topic. In fact, we could say that it is the sequence (the desire lines) of invested
capital that are presented ( vorstellen ) as if they were (or in combination with) the user's
needs. In this line, all actions must be as simplified and playful as possible, that is, paths of
least resistance.
The opposite is also important in these lines and paths. As recommended by Nodder
(2013a, p. 25), the designer should move “any mandatory disclosures away from the path of
least resistance”. But that doesn't stop the avoidance of such disclosures being teased when
they are displayed “[...] at the moment when people are trying to perform a different task [...],
so they just get any interrupting dialogue out of the way ”. A significant example is perhaps
the authorization of cookies that became mandatory after the application of the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) in
Brazil. Although we have not researched this case specifically, if we consider our review of
users of digital goods not reading terms of use (see note 134), we can assume that most people
tend to agree to cookies only as a way to remove this important notice of the way of its uses
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and gratifications. In this unconsidered act (possibly designed to be so), the user allowed his
consumption activities to become an implicit work of producing behavioral data and even
providing potentially sensitive personal data 264.
In reinforcement of these attempts at behavioral control, Nodder (2013a) offers further
tips for the rules potentially involving the simple false switch discussed in Chapter 2 to
become “difficult to find or understand” and to be moved away from the “path of least
resistance”. (NODDER, 2013a, p. 30):

● Draw and test wish lines on your web pages and promotional emails . Make sure
users' eyes are drawn to the items you want them to see and away from the items
you'd rather they didn't see .
● Move any mandatory disclosures away from the path of least resistance.
● Use low contrast text in “dead” areas (top right, bottom left) to hide information.
Alternatively, make it look like an ad so people skip it without reading it.
● Label buttons with dynamic calls-to-action to encourage users to move forward
without reading too much from the screen .
● Make big, colorful buttons to draw attention to moving forward instead of
reading the current page.
● Hide content by placing it below action buttons on the page. When users find the
action button, they're ready to move on. (NODDER, 2013a, p. 44, emphasis
added)

Nodder (2013a) continues his tips and tricks by repeating the (disputed) assumptions
of the effective use of behavioral biases such as priming . What is revealing upon a more
critical look at these psychotechnologies is that their effect may be less sophisticated and
subtle than their salespeople postulate. As several authors have already argued here, the game
between the competitive profusion of offers and the triggers, restrictions, affordances and
rewards of digital goods can produce epistemic distraction and mental fatigue - self-fulfilling
Norman's prophecy that we cited in item "a" of the subtopic 3.3.2 of this chapter.
Once again, for Nodder (2013a), this production of the user's mental exhaustion is an
opportunity for capitalist accumulation. Following the same epistemic dynamics of other
neoliberal cognitivists, this author will also present ( vorstellen ) consequences as if they were
265
causes, calling this weariness laziness ( sloth ) . In this case, his example is the non-use of
Facebook's privacy protections by the majority of its users. As he argues, “[...] the path of

264
In some cases, instead of hastily consenting, it is possible for the user to click on a configuration button within
this notification to prevent or lessen the appropriation of the produced data. What happens in this event is that the
UX/UI design inverts the relationships. To prevent this appropriation, the user has to make an unpleasant effort
at an inopportune moment (eg, hurried check-in at an airport), while his autonomy would be respected if the
option were the opposite, that is, he actively opted for this alienation of his work as a produce data.
265
Term that the author used 37 times in his book. Similar situation to notes 43 and 181.
247
least resistance through Facebook's privacy options is to never visit the privacy settings page”
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 54) – a path that guarantees and intensifies privacy. user performance as
prosumer . But the magic and alleged naturalness of this type of behavior are revealed by
Nodder (2013a, p. 56) as what he calls “opt-out obfuscation ” – which we have already
addressed in part in subtopic 1.4 of this chapter. Without constraints, the designer
recommends:

● Remove any talk of deletion activities from the actual transactional points. Instead,
create a separate location (a “privacy hub”) where you can hide true activities with
blanket statements.
● If you're caught doing bad things with user data, apologize profusely and add more
checkboxes, explanations, and options to your privacy center so it's even harder to
guess the right settings.
● Obfuscation. Try too hard to really understand the points of the privacy statement,
hiding them in legal and complicated options. As long as you have enough user trust
(or enough usefulness), users will assume you can't be doing anything bad with their
data.
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 56)

Interestingly, at the same time that he reveals the backstage of the techniques of magic
applied to design (IVELIĆ, 2019), throughout his work Nodder (2013a) he also seeks to
distract the designers themselves from the ethical issues involved in their tricks. Among other
maneuvers, it alternates the assault on the user's autonomy with the diagnosis of their fragility,
shifting the responsibility for manipulation to the consumers themselves. Thus, “[...] it is
human nature to want the greatest result with the least amount of work” and “[...] this is why
we are sometimes surprised to discover later that we signed up for more than we expected”
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 64). For him, “[...] normal behavior failed when an experienced
marketer slipped his proposal into the empty areas of the page, far from the desire line”
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 65). And, finally, he concludes: “[...] yes, it is worthwhile for
companies to design with the laziness of their customers in mind. Manipulating desire lines,
recommending patterns, obfuscating important information, and carefully wording negative
options can lead to higher levels of compliance” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 65).
Another trick built into digital goods that works on the same principle is ensuring
conformity (or habituation) through impatience . Giving the example of the company Ticket
Master, Nodder (2013a) teaches:

● Put a time constraint on a task to push people towards less risky options and
accept the default selections.

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 ● Add a task completion aid that doesn't require analytical thinking. It should list
simple rules for people to follow to complete the task.
● Offer to work around the time-constrained task by providing automated output
with default settings. You can even charge more for this “convenience”.
(NODDER, 2013a, p. 101)

Finally, in his main work (NODDER, 2013a) and in another work (NODDER, 2013b),
the designer reviews the issue of ethics. After presenting and discarding some mechanisms
that could delineate the limits in which it would be “normal to deceive people” (NODDER,
2013b), Nodder makes four key considerations that unite some of the discussions of the three
chapters of this thesis. First, according to the author, a good ethical test would be to know
whether the individual would consent to the manipulation if this information were available to
him. The implication “[...] is that individuals did not consent to being deceived. But how does
this help us when we are faced with situations where deception can be seen as positive and
necessary ?” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 255, emphasis added).
In a furtive response, Nodder (2013b) launches his second key consideration, stating
that it is lawful to deceive people “[...] if it is in their best interests or if they have given
implicit consent” ( NODDER , 2013b). But what would be an implied consent to be
deceived?266
Nodder's (2013a) third consideration, equally furtive, has also been cited, this time in
subtopic 2.3 of the Introduction. In it, the author admits that, after all, the limit on what is or is
not dishonest in psychotechnologies is equivalent to a wavy line, which “[...] moves based on
public sentiment, political will, judicial powers and imperatives. personal morals” (NODDER,
2013a, p. 255). Finally, Nodder (2013a) resolves any contradictions that his digital goods may
provoke in his users by simply stating that “[...] in fact, the happier you make them, the more
money they will offer you” (NODDER, 2013a, p. 256).
To deal with this approach and its considerations, let us take as a starting point our
reflection on how the “impossible” social relations of appropriation without work become
possible and concrete (end of subtopic 1.6.3 of chapter 1). From this angle, we can see that
Nodder's approach synthesizes how inputs from the myths of ontonegativity (including
libertarian paternalism), the division between manual and intellectual labor, the humane use of
human beings, the mystification of capital, second-hand mediations order can generate, as an
output , the strange work of prosumption , the fetish of automagic machines, our dependence
266
Specifically, this issue was addressed at the end of subtopic 1.6.3 of chapter 1 (the human use of human beings
– part 1) and in subtopics 1.3 (libertarian paternalism) and in item “d” of subtopic 2.3 of this chapter (user
investment in the hook model).
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on variable rewards and, with all this, the flight forward of late capitalism. And, in these terms
and ultimately, we can also see that what defines the shape of the wavy line referred to by
Nodder is the class struggle.

3.3.6 Gamification

Many other psychotechnological techniques and tricks that seek to modulate the
behavior of individuals and populations can and should be studied in future work, especially
by PSSH. But something that came up several times in the literature review was the
gamification of activities and user experience. Even if not all psychotechnologies use such a
resource, it is worth concluding this topic by observing some of its aspects, which bring
interesting information.
According to Sailer et al. (2017), the main objective of gamification, that is, the “[...]
implementation of game design elements in real-world contexts for non-game purposes, is to
promote human motivation and performance in relation to a certain activity”. To the extent
that it “[...] involves creating a reward structure that encourages desired behaviors” (SAILER
et al., 2017), “[...] gamification can meet human needs and as a result positively influence the
affective state of the user” (MAKKAN; BROSENS; KRUGER, 2020).
Sailer et al. (2017) also explain that gamification has certain constitutive elements. For
example, the perspective of autonomy implies both “(a) the freedom of decision experienced,
which implies being able to choose between several courses of action, and the (b) significance
of the task experienced, which implies that the course of action in question is according to the
user's own goals and attitudes” (SAILER et al., 2017). Still for these authors, the significance
of the task can be emphasized (or emulated) through its entanglement in a story . This is
because stories “[...] can help players experience their own actions as meaningful and
volitionally engaging, regardless of whether or not the choices are actually available”
(SAILER et al., 2017). Another interesting example is the behavioral perspective , where
standards can be promoted “[...] in a meaningful way by deliberately addressing the human
need for competence, autonomy and social relationship” (SAILER et al., 2017).
Zuboff (2021) will also remember the importance that sociability has for gamification,
giving the example of Pókemon Go. According to the author, the game “[...] would be
designed to leverage what the [developer] team came to understand as essential sources of
motivation that induce players to change their behavior: a social game community based on
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action in the real world” (ZUBOFF, 2021, p. 376).
Although, according to the literature review by Sailer et al. (2017), “[...] empirical
research on the effects of specific game design elements on the satisfaction of psychological
needs is still scarce”, many of these studies explain their findings by arguing that, in these
cases, “[... ] the game design elements [...] functioned mainly as extrinsic incentives”. For
example, according to Rajat Paharia 267(2012), “[...] we at Bunchball work with more than 100
companies to implement gamification programs designed to motivate and engage fans,
customers and employees”. Its approach starts from understanding the business objectives of
its clients, which includes “[...] user activities that generate value, directly or indirectly, for
the business” to then develop “[...] a deep understanding of users and what motivates them to
get involved with the business” (PAHARIA, 2012, p. 17). As an example of the presence of
gamification in companies, in 2019 in the US, 59% of workers said they received points for
an app or software at work 268.
In his review, Erickson (2011) brings more examples in which the extrinsic motivation
of an activity through gamification is employed to hide the user's implicit work. ESP Games,
for example, was an online game where a user and an anonymous partner look at the same
image, try to guess the words it unleashes on their opponent, and whoever succeeds first wins
the “match” and accumulates points. According to the author, “[...] a side effect of this is that
players are producing textual labels for the image – a task that, in general, computer programs
cannot perform”. Design engineer Sebastian Deterding (2012) sees positivity in this
phenomenon when he states that, in gamification, “[...] although online participants are
generally not paid, they rarely work for free. Instead, powerful social psychological processes
such as self-efficacy, group identification and social approval provide rewards”
(DETERDING, 2012, p. 15-16).
On the other hand, Deterding (2012) also draws attention to the criticisms that game
designers make about the extrapolations of the principles of their original area. According to
these designers , gamification would take what is less essential in games (points, emblems,
tables, etc.) and would reintroduce them as the core of the experience itself (DETERDING,
2012). In this regard, it is interesting to see how Vieira Pinto (2005a) relates technique and
games, which he summarizes as ludic techniques . According to the author, the continuous

267
Software engineer , one of the forerunners of gamification and owner of a leading company in the field.
268
CLEMENT. J. Most common game-like effects in companies in the US 2019. Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100506/gamification-elements-business/. Accessed on: 20 Dec. 2022.
251
exercise of primary technical activities (work) can give rise to a second type of activity, which
can “[...] materialize in the work of art, in the game or in the pure sporting exercise of
muscular activity. ” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. 298). In these cases, unlike the resolution of
the “direct, irrefutable and imposed contradiction” (VIEIRA PINTO, 2005a, p. 296) by the
primordial situations, the activity here is free. It addresses internal purposes that are not
primarily necessary, although, thus, it also acquires “[...] the value of resolving a
contradiction, which the individuals in which [the activity] arose cannot escape” (VIEIRA
PINTO, 2005a, p. 298).
Leontiev (1999) will contribute to this discussion when, based on Vygotsky's (2004)
category of the instrumental act , he comments on the question of the second stimulus in the
child's development. According to the author, “[...] the relationship of this second stimulus
with the main center of agitation is not quantitatively unimportant, it is not a simple
subdominant agitation [...]” (LEONTIEV, 1999, p. 4). Although this exogenous stimulus
strengthens the primary direction of behavior, “[...] our second stimulus does not sit side by
side with the first; it does not relate to the general behavior of the child as simply coexisting,
but as a means to an end ” (LEONTIEV, 1999, p. 4, emphasis added). And he concludes: “[...]
such regulation could be called 'instrumented regulation', as opposed to direct regulation”
(LEONTIEV, 1999, p. 4).
Finally, it is important to emphasize that gamification can also be inserted in what the
behaviorist literature calls “IMCD: digital behavior change interventions” (MICHIE et al.,
2017). According to this literature, for example in the case of digital health, IMCD “[...] can
bring benefits to individuals and health systems” (GONÇALVES et al., 2022, p. 10).
However, such interventions may “[...] have more benefits if they are able to interact formally
with health service delivery systems and, in particular, with electronic health records”
(MICHIE et al., 2017, p. 14). That is, approaching the second stimulus in child development
(LEONTIEV, 1999), IMCD could be efficient and positive for a client-patient when they are
more designed for and restricted to their personal purposes. Despite this, according to Lupton
(2014) and Abib, Gomes and Galak (2020), in certain cases in digital health, gamification can
hide the social determinants of health, attributing responsibility for problems that also depend
on collective health to the individual.
As we can see, gamification, by transverting the genre of free activities into
instrumented regulation or second-order mediation, would also integrate the complex of

252
neoliberal cognitivism. From the previous discussions 269, we understand that gamification, as
in the scratches of the hook model, refers to a type of arrangement of contexts based on
structures and/or elements of games – adding playful and competitive forms to affordances ,
restrictions and rewards; that these, ultimately, seek to create the perception that the activities
proposed in them tend to satisfy “basic intrinsic psychological needs” (SAILER et al., 2017) –
even with little evidence that this occurs; thus aiming at increasing the motivation of
individuals and populations to engage in activities that are often exogenous to them, in
addition to being hidden and unsolicited, which could not happen otherwise – something
similar to Nodder’s ethical-commercial dilemmas in the previous subtopic .
Finally, and with all this, it is also convenient to ask why and what in these unsolicited
activities (and in their contexts) make them insufficiently motivating to resort to gamification.

3.4 Duty and Becoming – part 2

In closing this chapter and the thesis itself, we will return to discussing certain beliefs,
theories and psychotechnologies that can make cognitive theories and their careful application
by behavioral designers seem like mere artisanal attempts, commodity by commodity, to
modulate reality and the behavior of individuals. and populations. We refer to the increasingly
widespread use of AI for these purposes. Not that the second will replace the first, as both
feed back technically and theoretically and are used simultaneously and in coordination –
many times, as an instrument of the sales force.
It turns out that AI can both overcome the limited effectiveness of theories of
behavioral economics, and also challenge again the social laws of historicity, causality and
contradiction, which we discussed mainly in topic 4 of chapter 1. In that chapter, we turn to
Plato, Parmenides , Galileo, Kant, Hobbes, Wiener, among others, to present the idea that
social laws and human-social development would be reducible to the laws of physics; that
mathematics would be the language and text of these laws, whose translation and edition
would be exclusive possibilities of intellectual work. But, looking more closely, we also saw
that this reality is a product and mediation for the must-be of super-humanization. Now, we
will see how this discussion is verified in the automated techniques of individual and social
modulation.

269
In particular, in topic 2 and subtopic 3.3 of this chapter.
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3.4.1 Social physics

Briefly, at the beginning of this discussion (subtopic 2, chapter 1) we present social

physics 270as the belief in the reduction of the laws of social materiality by the laws of physics.
Scientists such as Comte, Peirce and Plank argued that “[...] macroscopic phenomena
naturally require a statistical physics approach to social behavior” for the attempt to “[...]
understand large-scale regularities as collective effects of the interaction between singular
individuals, considered as relatively simple entities ” (CASTELLANO; FORTUNATO;
LORETO, 2009, p. 592, emphasis added). In his times, however, there were no technologies
that could test this hypothesis, because “[...] this type of social network awareness is an
enormous computational task” (PENTLAND, 2007, p. 9).
However, “[...] recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective
phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social
structures” (CASTELLANO; FORTUNATO; LORETO, 2009, p. 591). This would be made
possible by the growing development of data collection, storage and processing capacity
through “[...] applied mathematics [which] replace all other tools that can be used” to “[...]
know by that people do what they do” (ANDERSON, 2008). For Pentland (2014), this would
be an opportunity for behavioral research and control to overcome the ecological validity
limitations of “other tools” by using the extended mind to turn companies and society into
“living laboratories”.
If sociophysics can be considered an epistemological field that encompasses this set of
beliefs and authors, the so-called computational social science (CSC) seems to be the space
for its theoretical and methodological development – although it is possible to find the two
expressions overlapping. According to the Computational Social Science Manifesto, this
“new field of science” can build “'virtual computational social worlds' with which we can
analyze, experiment, feed and test empirical data on a hitherto unheard of scale” to “[... ]
promote our understanding of the complexities of real socioeconomic systems” (CONTE et
al., 201 2 , p. 333). According to the CSC, it would be possible to “[...] understand and
anticipate behaviors of complex social systems” from “[...] simplified models, in which
mathematical analysis can be performed” (CONTE et al., 201 2 , p. 340). Reproducing

270
Or sociophysics.
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positivist procedures, the CSC starts from the analysis of these models, from the social facts
stylized in them and empirically tested, so that “[...] new intuitions can be obtained and more
complex models can be studied [...] providing results that can be used for decision-making”
(CONTE et al., 201 2 , p. 340).
Certainly, warn sociophysicists, the bid gata harbors certain traps, or subtle
opportunities. Although, in many cases, averages can reveal “[...] how people tend to behave
under specific conditions”, the refined nature of big data offers “ outliers ” that bring
opportunities to identify “sources of change – whether they are business innovations, social
trends, economic crises or political upheavals” (GEORGE; HAAS; PENTLAND, 2014, p.
323).
Although this field claims not only to be characterized “[...] by new data at higher
levels of temporal and spatial scale, but also by new principles and concepts ” ( CONTE et
al., 201 2 , p. 11), this field statement may not be as accurate as your own mathematical
requirements. As we pointed out in Chapter 1, Svensson and Poveda Guillen (2020, p. 13)
draw attention to the fact that this type of realism “[...] has ancient roots, but current
discussions around AI do not seem to be able to handle it. this ideological lineage and present
it as a novelty, which is actually a cultural bias with a long history in Western thought”.
The hypothesis (or desire) for this type of ontological reductionism already existed
since pre-modernity, until in the 17th century, Auguste Comte sought to present “[...] social
phenomena considered within the same spirit as astronomical phenomena, physical, chemical
and physiological, which means subject to invariable natural laws” (COMTE, 1983, p. 214).
According to Gardner (1958, p. 55), Peirce in turn named his system as “existential graphs”,
with “the term 'existential' referring to the power of graphs to represent any existing state of
any aspect of any universe. possible". Thus, as their own theorists clarify, “[...] deep down,
big data is just the last step in humanity’s quest to understand and quantify the world.”
(CUKIER; MAYER-SCHOENBERGER, 2013 , p. 34). Or, in a critical view, “ 'Big Data' has
consequently been declared by some as the 'End of Theory', and this is probably the dawn of
the supreme and final stage of positivism” (MEYER, 2018).
However, for Kosik (2002, p. 97), “[...] the simple change of point of view” that
mathematics and physics provide us, “[...] could reveal certain aspects of reality”, but “[...]
creates a different reality , or, more precisely, exchanges one thing for another”, without
necessarily being aware of the exchange (KOSIK, 2002, p. 97). Just as Vieira Pinto (2005a)
had already criticized the reification of technique, in social physics, it is not just about “[...]
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the mere methodological access to reality; is that in ideological access, reality is modified,
methodology is ontologized ” (KOSIK, 2002, p. 98).
As with previously discussed social control efforts, sociophysics further argues that
through mathematics and big data we can “[...] study our existing social relationships and
using this knowledge to provide specifically designed incentives to individuals, we can finally
solve long-neglected social problems” (MOROZOV, 2018, p. 103). Repeating the discourse of
libertarian paternalism, for Conte et al. (201 2 , p. 342), the role of the CSC “[...] is leadership
in addressing society's Big Problems, avoiding risks and threats to its stability and healthy
development”. And as Pentland (201 2 ) already argued in Chapter 2, these applications of the
extended mind “magically” automate health check-ups without the need to queue at outdated
public services, whereas for Cukier and Mayer-Schoenberger (2014, p. 39), this will “[...]
improve and reduce the cost of health care, especially for the world’s poor”.
We will still continue to verify the foundations of these postulations, which Van Dijck
(2014) calls dataism – the “[...] widespread belief in the objective quantification and potential
tracking of all types of human behavior and sociality through online media technologies ”
(VAN DIJCK, 2014, p. 198). But the fact is that, with this, “[...] data are acquiring an
ontological status in technology, sociology and also in biology” (SVENSSON; GUILLEN,
2020, p. 6) – and, as we will see, also in psychology.

a) Social complexity, emergence and control

Faced with these generalizing beliefs, Professor Roseli Fígaro (2019) asks how it is
possible to understand the social as a pre-established system, with its contradictions acting as
an element of its own feedback. And yet, “[...] how are the power relations? How to deal with
the materiality of the subjects' action, the historicity, chance and even the originality of human
action?” (FIGARO, 2019, p. 234).
Our review found some recurrent concepts between social physics/CSC and behavioral
economics that, as we will continue to argue, unite them in the same complex to answer these
questions. In all these fields, “[...] social efficiency , which is also known as the 'invisible
hand' described by Adam Smith” (PENTLAND, 201 2 , p. 9, emphasis added) is permanently
challenged by “ heterogeneous agents autonomous ” and “multi-agent systems” (CONTE et.
al., 2012, p. 340, emphasis added) in a context of social complexity that can cause certain
emergencies .
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 From the first part of this discussion (chapter 1), we know that the concept of
emergence , or originality, can have very different meanings, both as Lukács' leap in quality
(2013) and Vieira Pinto's heterostasis (2005b), Wiener's (1970) social homeostasis, or even
what is known “[...] in the language of statistical physics as a phase transition ” (CONTE et.
al., 2012, p. 335, emphasis added). It so happens that, according to this last perspective,
emergence “often produces paradoxical phenomena in which individual intentions produce
unexpected aggregate results with potentially disastrous consequences” (p. 335).
In a seminal article for sociophysics – “Statistical physics of social dynamics” – the
scientists Castellano, Fortunato and Loreto (2009) addressed this threat from the following
question: “[...] how interactions between social agents create order to from an initial messy
situation?” (p. 592). Here, the concept of order is defined as “[...] a translation into the
language of physics of what is denoted in the social sciences as consensus, agreement,
uniformity, while disorder means fragmentation or disagreement” (CASTELLANO;
FORTUNATO; LORETO, 2009 , p. 592). And, to the extent that applied physics seeks control
over “phase transitions”, social complexity as an emerging phenomenon must avoid any risk
of entropy by renewing the pre-established order in the form of a “ successful adaptation ”
(CONTE et al. . 2012, p. 335, emphasis added) – instead of occurring “through an abrupt
collective change” (CONTE et al. 2012, p. 333) with potentially irreversible consequences.
On the other hand, with the help of the sociophysical power of the extended mind to avoid
these risks and achieve social efficiency, “[...] people can abandon their own psychological
judgments and rely on computers when making important decisions in life, such as choosing
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activities, careers or even romantic partners” (YOUYOU; KOSINSKI; STILLWELL ,
2015, p. 4)
As it is possible to perceive, the concept of order for sociophysics seems to be
distinguished from (or, in its own terms, to be non-reducible to) the concept of democracy .
We've been through this discussion before. In this chapter, Kniess (2022) pointed out the same
kind of problem in libertarian paternalism. Nodder (2013a; 2013b) exposed his need to
deceive users for their own good. And Zuboff (2021) shed light on the shared political project
between behaviorism and sociophysics, in which giving up freedom is “[...] the price to be
paid for the 'safety' and 'harmony' of a society free of anomalies in nature. which all processes

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Youyou is a psychologist, Kosinski is a computer scientist and psychologist specializing in psychometrics,
and Stillwell is a psychologist and computational social scientist. The latter two created the personality test that
gave rise to the technology used by Cambridge Analytics in the 2016 US elections (ZUBOFF, 2021).
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are optimized for the greater good” (ZUBOFF, 2021, p. 488). According to Morozov (2018, p.
139), “[...] extremely technocratic at its core, this current sustains that democracy may have a
type of its time, but today, with so much data at our disposal, after all we are about to
automate and simplify” our political systems. That is, we are dealing here with upgrades of
the belief that certain essences must be immutable and that order presents itself ( vorstellen )
as universal and natural, even though it has a particular and human-social origin.
All this simplification, in turn, depends on social being being posited – but appearing
given – as “relatively simple entities” – liberal, monad, selfish, adaptive , predictably
irrational individuals, "with an emphasis on communication rather than strategy".
(CASTELLANO, FORTUNATO LORETO, 2009, p. 593); and culture needs to be “[...]
defined as a set of individual attributes subject to social influence” (CONTE et al., 2012, p.
16). Thus, the order between these autonomous entities with unique “beliefs, desires,
intentions, values” (CONTE et al., 2012, p. 333) would need to be inserted from outside the
systems they comprise – as idealized by social cybernetics and by the behaviorism.

b) “Social Pressure for Harmony”

Here, if social complexity is the result of autonomous and selfish entities

communicating without strategy with each other, then the ordering of a “non-authoritarian”
society depends on some kind of libertarian paternalism. Supported by neoliberal cognitivism
and behaviorism, sociophysics argues that it is possible to create order (or “tuning”) by social
pressure exerted through social influence . Second Zuboff (2021, p. 538), this involves “(...)
social comparison, modeling, exposure to stimuli ( priming ) — [which] are called upon to
tune, shepherd and manipulate behavior in favor of surveillance recipes”.
Pentland (2012, p. 6) then proposes that the “social organism” can be modulated by
computational models “[...] that capture the structure of our human social fabric by
incorporating the agent model and the influence between agents” . Thus, through control over
the flow of ideas , it is possible to define (or restrict) new insights and social codes that
individuals explore to engage in search of belonging and satisfaction of productive needs
(SEVIGNANI, 2019). This then generates the social learning of these new ideas – a
mathematical relationship where “the state of an entity impacts other states of entities, and
vice versa” (PENTLAND, 2014, p. 245). Following the influence model, researchers can use
“[...] interactions and influence dynamics using only signals from time series of individual
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observations” (PENTLAND, 201 2 , p. 8).
In summary, through AI, big data and input devices such as smartphones , wearables ,
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IoT , smart cities, etc., it would be possible to tune (PENTLAND, 2013), or linearize
(WIENER, 2017) social behavior through dynamic social models , which could describe,
prescribe and modulate social and individual patterns of behavior based on pressures ( nudges
, restrictions, affordances , rewards) and influence and learning (social comparison, priming ,
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FoMO etc.), ultimately for the good of all (CASTELLANO; FORTUNATO; LORETO,
2009; CONTE et al., 2012; PENTLAND, 2013; 2014; CUKIER;
MAYER-SCHOENBERGER, 2014).

3.4.2 Dataism

As we have already presented before, the substance that would make these models
work is digital data. The deep confidence of its theorists and technicians in this hypothesis
comes from the positivization of these data as direct and faithful mirrors of the objective
reality (which includes the objectification of the phenomena of subjectivity), “[...] offering
opportunities for a 'true' study of the human life” (KITCHIN, 2014, p. 139-140). However,
according to Crawford and Paglen (2019), in dataism, the “theoretical paradigm underlying
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[AI] training sets assumes that concepts – be it 'corn', 'gender', 'emotions' or 'losers' – exist
in first place, and that these concepts are fixed, universal and have some kind of
transcendental basis and internal consistency”. According to sociologist Deborah Lupton
(2014, p. 9), for this field, “[...] data, metrics and algorithms are represented as clean,
contained and without emotion, far from the confused contingencies and uncertainties of the

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According to bigtech Oracle, IoT ( internet of things , or internet of things) is “ the network of physical objects
incorporated into sensors, software and other technologies with the aim of connecting and exchanging data with
other devices and systems over the internet. These devices range from common household objects to
sophisticated industrial tools. With more than 7 billion IoT devices connected today, experts expect that number
to grow to 10 billion by 2020 and 22 billion by 2025.” Available at:
https://www.oracle.com/br/internet-of-things/what-is-iot/. Accessed on: 24 Dec. 2022.
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FoMo ( fear of missing out , or fear of losing) is the discomfort or suffering resulting from a choice (made or
imposed) and feeling that alternative opportunities are missing.
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learning is where the AI “learns” a mathematical function that maps an input data to generate an output based
on that function. For this to occur, there must be a set of training data from which the input and output functions
must pair. For example, in the case of image recognition AI, human work is required (often performed by
crowdworkers from peripheral countries) to classify reference images from pre-created labels by AI developers.
In their research on these image banks, Crawford and Paglen (2019) found in ImageNet (the most used set)
labels for the photograph of a woman smiling in a bikini such as “sloppy, slut”. There were still labels like “bad
person, call girl, drug addict, condemned, crazy, failed, son of a bitch, hypocrite, melancholy and pervert”,
among “many racist insults and misogynistic terms”.
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body and its ills. and the distressing or disquieting emotions associated with them”. And yet,
when the computer scientist and IHC Dag Svanaes (2013) suggested that interface design
could consider the theories of phenomenology, Don Norman simply replied: “[...] we do not
follow Merleau-Ponty: we follow where the data take us” (SVANAES, 2013).
Armed with these certainties, dataists propose that big data would be “[...]
characterized by the ability to process in data many aspects of the world that have never been
quantified before” (CUKIER, MAYER-SCHOENBERGER, 2014, p. 1), the which is realistic
in different senses. For example, in the case of digital health, nothing would accelerate “[...]
more the development of new outcome measures and improvements in existing measures than
the wide dissemination of already available data” (PORTER; TEISBERG, 2006, p. 37 ). For
two of the precursors of algorithmic predictive analysis in psychology, Lambiotte and
Kosinski (2014), one of the main insights of social big data research refers to the supposed
predictability of the psychological traits of individuals imprinted in their digital footprints. For
them, the “[...] ability to automatically assess psychological profiles paves the way for
improved products and services such as personalized search engines, recommendation
systems and targeted online marketing” (LAMBIOTTE; KOSINSKI, 2014, p. 1934) .
In this case, dataists claim that if the vast majority of personal data is already collected
“[...] by private organizations – location patterns, financial transactions, public transport,
telephone and Internet communications and so on” (PENTLAND, 2012, p. 5), this is a great
opportunity to combine the “common good” with capitalist accumulation. Thus, “[...] the
ownership of individuals needs to be balanced by the legitimate need for companies and
governments to use personal data – credit card numbers, home addresses, etc. – to manage its
daily operations” (PENTLAND, 2012, p. 5).
However, a growing body of theory claims that Dataism is a set of “epistemological
and metaphysical assumptions” (CRAWFORD; PAGLEN, 2019) largely commissioned by
Silicon Valley as a scientific veneer for the flow of its goods and containment of regulatory
efforts. (MOROZOV, 2018; ZUBOFF, 2021; CARDOSO, 2021; GONÇALVES, 2020, 2021;
WARD, 2022). These other authors suggest that, in fact, “[...] the data are deeply cultural and
impregnated with social norms and values. Data do not appear naturally as they are collected
and manipulated by people, they are shaped by human decisions, interpretations and filters”
(SVENSSON; GUILLEN , 2020, p. 7).
The very concept of “big data” should be relativized, because “ big data is only big in
relation to the previous amount of data collection and processing” and in comparison to what
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the embodied mind is capable of processing, “[.. .] but it is small compared to the amount of
potentially available data” (SVENSSON; GUILLEN , 2020, p. 8). Furthermore, as in many
cases data is only useful when labeled, “[...] the whole effort to collect images, categorize and
label them is itself a form of politics, full of questions about who decides what the images
mean and what kind of social and political work these representations perform”
(CRAWFORD; PAGLEN, 2019) .

3.4.3 Predictive analytics

Our literature review was not conclusive in terms of understanding the true degree of
awareness that the heterogeneous group of dataists has about the falsifiability of their
assumptions. In any case, the affirmation of this belief participates in the creation of methods
and products known as predictive analysis . As Siegel (2018, p. 13) explained to us in the first
part of this debate, predictive analytics is the technology of predicting behavior “in order to
generate better decisions”. For this increase in decisions, “[...] strategies created in part by
informal human creativity develop predictive models” (SIEGEL, 2018, p. 13) that, when
combined, could compensate for each other's limitations.
However, as Stark (2018, p. 214) points out, when applied to content produced by
users of the extended mind, these models and their combinations are “[...] both a quantitative
aggregation and a scalar translation of individual perceptions of feelings, not a direct
description of these ultimate realities. It so happens that such aggregations are thrown back to
individual users “[...] as a norm against which they must act [...] when correlating their own
feelings” (STARK, 2018, p. 214). This produces what Stark (2018) calls an ideal scalable
subject . For Bruno (2013), this subject is expressed in profiles, which she already introduced
in subtopic 1.3 of this chapter. As she goes deeper here,

[...] the profiles embody multiple micro-regularities within countless heterogeneous

variables and do not appear as regulations either. The norm/deviation division does
not apply to profiles, as they are patterns resulting from non-evaluative
combinatorial and associative rules among many variables, potentially applicable to
all human qualities and behaviors. The profile is neither a measure nor a value, but a
pattern of occurrence of a certain factor (behavior, interest, pathology) in a given set
of variables. (BRUNO, 2013, p. 160)

As recognized by Siegel (2018), forecasts are not and need not be accurate. But they
increase the probability that an action will be successful on a large scale, making the gain
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marginally higher compared to other prediction alternatives. For this reason, concludes Bruno
(2013), the so-called predictive analysis is part of the complex of mediations that have the
“[...] performative capacity to make what was a potentiality pass into reality”, because “[...]
anticipated future expands its margins of effectiveness when it is enunciated” (BRUNO, 2013,
p. 170).
We will return to this point in more depth, but when used to support consequential
decisions, predictive models can trigger “[...] a change in the distribution of the target
variable” (PERDOMO et al., 2020, p. 1) . For example, in automating the decision on
differentiated interest rates for bank loan applicants, raising these rates based on the risks that
the model has assigned to the customer may increase (or realize) the risk itself. It can worsen
the economic conditions of this borrower, by transferring his resources for interest and
penalties to the bank, which, in this way, can become even richer than if it had lent at standard
interest (PERDOMO et al., 2020 ). Computational scientists Juan Perdomo and colleagues'
(2020) experiments in this and other examples suggest a logical contradiction (or desirability)
in automated predictive analytics that they call performative stability . This would be the
optimal result point that is induced by the retraining of a model that will always indicate as
the analysis context the results already modeled by parameters indicated as optimal by the
developer and decision maker.
Thus, while from the interface outwards these psychotechnologies present themselves
( vorstellen ) as automagic machines that know what we think, speak and want – mysteriously
offering us these benefits many times without our asking them –, from the interface inwards,
the movement seems to occur along contrary. Data about users' past events, usually produced
by them, are combined into patterns that aim to be correlated with other output patterns –
competitively necessary engagement and profitability rates, affordances, triggers, use values
(features, services, content, etc. ), investments and automatic and apparently personalized
rewards. In this way, these predictive capabilities would occur not so much (or only) due to
the possibility, for example, of this modeling actually conveniently anticipating my
gastronomic preference, which eventually I myself had not thought about. In fact, this
“predictive” analysis would prescribe a type of reality and user experience that was imposed
on me as a sociometabolic mediation because I was likely to accept it, given that I have
accepted it before. By these means, its developers seek to shape the activity, the subject and
the results, looking for the possibility that this becomes a looping . Again, the archer's tale.
As the dataists told us a moment ago, for this complex of modeling and modulation
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mechanisms to work in these broad terms, it is necessary that “[...] multiple experiments are
conducted continuously or in specific situations, making it possible to optimize system
failures, but also make decisions based on controlled tests instead of relying solely on expert
opinions” (BENTES, 2022, p. 115). But, as Pentland outlined with his idea of living labs ,
unlike lab tests on a handful of college students, these multiple experiments are carried out
with millions of people, in real situations using digital goods – without necessarily even
applying all ethical standards. research nor be subjected to peer review. This allows testing
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and calibrating, in real time and on a large scale , the ideal composition between
“behavioral sciences, behavioral economics, cognitive sciences and neurosciences”,
producing “a new generation of disciplines” based on these knowledge “[... ] to develop
knowledge and techniques applied to computational systems” (BENTES, 2022, p. 135).
According to Morozov (2018, p. 106), this social power of presentation and
modulation of the real allows James Fowler, co-author of the Facebook electoral study
discussed in subtopic 6.1 of chapter 1, to go even further, claiming that “[. ..] we should do
everything we can to measure the effects of social media and learn how to amplify it to create
an epidemic of well-being”.
Finally, once again, we concluded that the organizational power of contexts and
stimuli made with AI that increase the probability of the occurrence of a pre-conceived
phenomenon and necessary for the organizer is not unrealistic. Nor is it unrealistic the
opposite way, that is, that the cybernetic feedback of these impacts in the form of behavioral
data indicate new probabilities – the so-called predictive analysis. Our discussion on free time
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has already pointed out that this ability even humanizes us. As Kosik (2002, p. 57-58)
comments, with the progressive complexity of civilization, the social being “[...] has to submit
to automation new and ever broader spheres of its activity, in order to free up space and time
for authentically human problems. The inability to automate certain actions in life prevents
men from living”.
Thus, predictive analysis does not seem to be, in the marketing expression historically
situated by Wu (2017), a “snake oil”, a false miracle cure with which companies, individuals
and society would be impressed, but whose effect would not exist. The criterion of truth here,
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One of the most common tests is the so-called A/B test. In it, more than one option (eg, colors of an interface)
is made available to thousands or millions of users in the actual use of a digital commodity. Developers then
evaluate those users' interactions to decide which option to introduce permanently (or until another test updates
that decision). Countless amount of tests like this are performed incessantly on most of these goods without the
knowledge of the users (NODDER, 2013a; BUCHER, 2018; ZUBOFF, 2021).
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Item “i” of subtopic 3.5 of chapter 2.
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among others, is its increasing adoption by companies and governments, whether for sales
(SIEGEL, 2018), social control (CONTE, et al., 2020) or epidemiological surveillance
(GADELHA, 2021). Our effort, however, has been to expose the ideological, mystifying and
subsuming character of their presentations.

3.4.4 Techno-solutionism and algorithmic regulation

If sociophysical and dataistic beliefs encourage the overvaluation of predictive

analysis, these and other extrapolations create an academic, technological, commercial and
social perception that collective and individual issues can be resolved outside of sociability, at
least in appearance – the already introduced techno-solutionism . Morozov (2018), who
coined the term, calls this fairy tale belief of user empowerment. As a kind of “ideology” of
digital mediations, automagic machines would dispense with bureaucracy, state corruption
and previous monopolies, which can now be demolished with a click.
From a techno-solutionist point of view, “analogical” sociometabolic mediations seem
laborious and would require compliance with certain conventions or the mastery of certain
skills – asking, looking for, directly addressing people of different classes and identities, etc.
Technosolutionism creates the feeling that it is possible to mediate without people (including
when they are machinified) and without the “relational cost” of dealing with them, which
includes perceptions of human uncertainty and imprecision – what Cesarino (2019, p. . 13)
calls “mediations that produce an experience of non-mediation”. For Turkle (2005, p. 17-18),
because they are reactive and interactive, computers “[...] offer companionship without the
mutuality and complexity of a human relationship. They seduce because they provide a
chance to be in total control, but they can trap people in a passion for control, with the
construction of their own private world.”
It happens that, as we have argued, the commodity fetish, which brings autonomous
life and humanizing power to digital goods, tends to offer us an inverted view of reality. Thus,
if we load this “ software ” backwards, technological solutionism can offer us as an output
what some authors have been calling algorithmic regulation .
In Morozov's provocation (2018, p. 84), in addition to making our lives more efficient
in the face of the acceleration of late capitalism, “[...] this intelligent world also offers us an
exciting political choice. If much of our everyday behavior is already captured, analyzed and
prodded, [...] why rely on laws when you have sensors and feedback mechanisms ? According
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to the author, this new type of governance is algorithmic regulation .
Another “positive” aspect of this type of governance is that “to our
anthropomorphizing instincts”, algorithms “[...] seem nothing more than neutral arbiters. And
they get the humans who use them out of sticky moral and legal dilemmas” (WARD, 2022, p.
168). But, worse than that, through this allegedly precise, rational and impersonal governance,
more than dodging moral dilemmas, it is possible to reproduce prejudices and discrimination
using algorithms as a camouflage and legitimation mechanism (O'NEIL, 2016; BUCHER,
2018; BRUNO, 2019; CRAWFORD; PAGLEN, 2019; CARDOSO, 2021;
RADHAKRISHNAN, 2021) .
Let's look at the case of so-called predictive policing algorithms. According to Ward's
review (2022, p. 195-196), although “[...] drug use is distributed equally across races [sic],
black citizens were twice as likely as whites to be targets” of these algorithms, reinforcing the
biases of police data. Using “[...] historical data to estimate the probability of crime in a given
location”, these regions end up receiving “[...] more police patrols and better surveillance”,
which tends to deter crime there (PERDOMO et al.2020, p.20). But Dataism does not pursue
causes, but correlations. As a result, these regions may also be more stigmatized, potentially
discouraging real estate appreciation and private investment, which may reduce their
development possibilities, creating bases for confirming the predictions. According to O'Neil
(2016), to the extent that the poorest live in these neighborhoods and this is a variable for
discriminatory credit granting, this adds to increased predictive policing, leading to more
incarceration with higher penalties calculated by dosimetry algorithms , which statistically
harms their return to productive life in the future, as well as the employability of their own
family and neighbors, “[...] creating nothing less than a death spiral of modeling” (O'NEIL,
2016, p. 159).
To the extent that the training data reflect certain phenomena that, when their
causalities are elided, are meaningful in themselves, their models crystallize and naturalize
prejudices and asymmetries, so that the algorithms become “opinions embedded in code” (O'
NEIL, 2017). According to Cook (2020, p. 45), among other reasons, this is because “a small
subset of individuals is responsible for programming algorithms that are used around the
world”, as well as “most datasets used to program systems and inform research”. For
example, according to Cook (2020), although 45% of its ImageNet data comes from the USA,
the country represents only 4% of the world's population, while 36% of this population lives
in China and India, but only represents 3% of that database. As Crawford and Paglen (2019)
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conclude, despite the myth of objectivity and scientificity of AI and its data, “[.. . ]
everywhere there is politics, ideology, prejudices and all the subjective things in history.
When we looked at the most widely used training sets, we found that this is the rule rather
than the exception.”
However, as the most attentive reader may be missing, in this algorithmic governance
“[...] there is no 'social physics' for financial companies like Goldman Sachs or HSBC: we
know nothing about the connections between their subsidiaries and shell companies registered
in tax havens” and “[...] no one is conducting random control tests to see what it would be like
if we had fewer lobbyists” (MOROZOV, 2018, p. 113-114). Thus, in a context of climate
crises and capitalist accumulation, there is a strange selectivity in the social efficiency of
automagic machines to protect us from disorder, fragmentation and disagreement, as well as
to lead us towards stability and healthy development.
On the one hand, as Agamben (2013) introduced in the first part of this debate, this
new type of governance is “[...] a historic transformation in the idea of government”, where
causalities are dispensed with and one governs on certain effects, so that “[...] algorithmic
regulation is an enactment of this political program in technological form” (AGAMBEN,
2013). As a result, for Morozov (2018, p. 113-114), “[...] the notion of politics as a
community enterprise metamorphoses into the individualistic and consumer-friendly
spectacle, in which the solutions – which we now call applications – are sought in the market,
not in the public square”. A very concrete example is the current Brazilian Digital Health
Strategy (ESD28), developed by the federal government with the support of the World Health
Organization. While civil society organizations were obstructed from participating in its
design (RACHID et al., 2023), ESD28 emphasizes the “engagement” of patients in this digital
health through “[...] behavioral analysis, systems usability” etc. (BRASIL, 2020, p. 64). That
is, citizens would participate in the development of ESG28 and its products by reading the
patterns of use and rewards that they leave in these technologies. As Zuboff (2021, p. 513)
states “[...] computing replaces the political life of the community as the basis for
governance”.
On the other hand, we must ask ourselves to what extent is it technology that shapes
politics, or if it is the political economy that commissions these automagic machines so that
they produce both certain objectivities and the 'superstructure' adequate to neoliberal
capitalism (CESARINO, 2020). Our review suggests that the causal and consequential
metamorphoses of the crisis of profitability move through transoceanic fiber optic cables,
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databases and algorithms, flowing between and feeding the crisis of liberal democracy,
neoliberal individualism, the sociometabolism of barbarism and work. of the user, filling this
political and civilizational vacuum through algorithmic regulation as a reification of politics
and the extended mind via solutionism (FUCHS, 2013; SANTOS, 2013; SRNICEK, 2017;
MOROZOV, 2018; HARVEY, 2019; DANTAS, 2019; SADOWSKI, 2019 ; ALVES,
GONÇALVES; CASULO, 2021; CESARINO, 2022) .

3.4.5 The realism of the objective function

Among the many materialities of algorithmic psychotechnologies that we researched,

something that drew attention due to its both technical and philosophical character was the
so-called objective function . According to Ward (2022, p. 117), the objective function "is
what the human being wants from a project, be it an autonomous car parked equidistant
between two other cars, no more than six inches from the curb, or a cheeseburger parked
between two rolls, cooked medium rare".
According to data scientist Daniel Kronovet (2017) , machine learning can be
described “[...] as a type of optimization. Optimization problems, as the name implies, are
about finding the best or 'optimal' (hence the name) solution to some kind of problem, usually
mathematical”. As this author exemplifies, “[...] we can think of the parameters of the [AI]
model as a ship at sea. The goal of the algorithm designer is to navigate the space of possible
values as efficiently as possible to guide the model to the optimal location” (KRONOVET,
2017).
What is interesting here is that the functioning of our extended mind by the machine
learning model seems to be different from the deductive praxiological model described by
Lukács (2013) and the PSSH – which involves need, motivation, search for means and
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production (mental and manual), use, valuation and adjustment. In a very simplified way ,
in machine learning: (1) faced with a need and its motivation (eg a given accumulation rate
required by Meta investors in the face of competition with TikTok); (2a) a goal is
mathematically defined and formalized – the objective function – (eg: maximize Instagram
engagement by a given percentage); (2b) as well as inserting the variables and parameters that

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Simplified, but broader and more essential than recognized by technical developers involved in this activity. In
their work, they may be unaware of the qualitative and subjective objectives that will be sought through the
objective function that they will project mathematically.
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condition its scope (eg user base, content production and format, competition, etc.). Although
in many cases the objectives and variables are qualitative and subjective, they need to be
quantified in mathematical equations that are often very complex.
So, (3) the product of this processing is the means , that is, the algorithm capable of
transforming the available inputs into the desired output in the real world (DOMINGOS,
2017) – ex: replacement of social graphs by algorithmic recommendation 278. In some of these
objectives, the optimal parameters can be found precisely, but in many cases their obtaining
depends on a variety of combinable algorithms, and their results can only be approximate
(KRONOVET, 2017) – which, in these terms, makes their acceptance while optimal,
something arbitrary and subjective, although statistically useful. And, as we have already
commented, although these models may arise in internal experiments, in many cases they are
immediately launched in the living laboratory of the internet, where their adjustments take
place in real time during their use – results and means are produced simultaneously, but
having as a pivot fixed the objective function.
According to Ward (2022, p. 118), in many of these situations, all we know is that,
after we specify how the result should be , “ [...] after some trial and error, we got an
apparently reliable answer. at the other end. What happened in between, even to those who
built the system we use, will be largely a mystery.” This gap between how our extended mind
accomplished a logical task and how we can make sense of it – the explainability problem –
has been the subject of much academic, commercial and regulatory debate (BUCHER 2018;
KUNDU, 2021; KAUFMAN, 2021 ), as well as relate to a series of background questions that
we have raised in this thesis.
Still according to Ward (2022), this problem may matter less in small tasks such as
object image recognition. But when human behavior is reified to be used as a dataset for
machine learning, “[...] and predictions about what art we will enjoy, what jobs we will do
well, what crimes we will commit will become its objective function, [and so] understanding
the interstices of the system may be a matter of moral and legal necessity” (WARD, 2022, p.

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A current discussion refers to a possible replacement of algorithms that seek to present content on social
networks to their users based on what their friends or similar profiles also consume – the so-called social graph.
On the other hand, according to some researchers, social networks like Tik Tok and Youtube use a different
strategy, the so-called recommendation media . In it, the greater weight of algorithmic choice comes from the
combination between what (and how) we watched before and our other profiling data. This is a theme with
important and still unclear repercussions – supposed loss of social ties allegedly provided by social graphs –,
which we were unable to delve into. For two distinct views on the subject: The End of Social Media and the Rise
of Recommendation Media, available at: https://every.to/p/the-end-of-social-media ?; and TikTok's Secret Sauce,
available at: https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/tiktoks-secret-sauce.
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119).
Ward (2022) arrives at this issue as the culmination of a series of his considerations on
certain characteristics of the consciousness of social beings and on the psychotechnologies
that try to modulate them. According to the author, in a first circuit (or loop ), our
consciousness developed (in prehistory) also from the recognition of patterns and causal
relationships that, in a way, would persist until today – which we discuss in topic 5 of the
chapter 1. Since the beginning of the 20th century, another circuit has formed around our
consciousness that, in short, is related to the second-order mediations that culminated in
neoliberal cognitivism, which we have already discussed in this chapter. In this case, those
characteristics of ancestor origin are taken as fixed laws that justify the premises of the
predictably irrational social being dependent on behaviorist or sociophysical libertarian
paternalisms. Finally, as Ward (2022) argues, we are now being involved in a third loop,
which he calls The Loop . It would involve and subsume all other circuits and is expressed in
the theme of our last topic, the attempts to modulate reality and human-social activity through
artificial intelligence.
AI does not need to "understand" our subjective behaviors and dynamics, but, "[...] as
a cloud of variables, it offers machine learning an infinite opportunity to find patterns and
predict what we are likely to like, click, buy, we will participate [...]” (WARD, 2022, p. 162).
However, in this new type of reductionism, it is through the parameters of neoliberal
cognitivism that their sociophysical peers know which “objective functions” must be required
of AI, so that it can later do the job, through the perception of patterns on large scales. From
there, according to Ward (2022), AI finds behavioral patterns in a way not much different
from what it uses to find patterns in images.
This is exactly what is already being done (and/or tested) massively with music, films
and books, among others, which have been changing their forms and contents because their
production and availability have been increasingly determined, in terms of our discussion, by
the objective function (NODDER, 2013; BUCHER, 2018; SEAVER, 2018). Interviewing
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Aron Levitz, general manager of Wattpad Studios , Ward (2022) asked him whether this
system might just be showing slight variations of the same content over and over again. In
response, the manager assured him that “[...] this does not replace human judgment, but with
the data that proves it, we will know more reasons why [a story] is taking off” (WARD, 2022,

279
A platform that claims to mediate between screenwriters and literary creators and their potential contractors.
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p. 167) . As Ward concludes (2022, p. 167, emphasis added), it is not that we will always see
the same pattern of things, but that “[...] AI detects patterns in how people react to stories that
are similar to past reactions past stories”. Thus, Kahneman's assumptions, among others,
about what human-social experiences are and how to operate them also become assumptions
for the automation of this process.
But there are still other goals and variables involved in automating Wattpad Studios, as
Levitz completes: “[...] we are reducing risk. We have a lot more confidence in this software
and a lot more confidence in this content before someone makes a $20 million decision to turn
it into a movie” (WARD, 2022, p. 167). It so happens that, to the extent that this type of
investment brings the competitively necessary returns, the other capitalist agents capable of
doing so are making this method generalized in the market, and the race is no longer between
who has or does not have a predictive AI, but which is the best, until it is surpassed by a
competitor (WARD, 2022; BUCHER, 2018; SRNICEK, 2017; ZUBOFF, 2021).
Thus, considering that the objective function determines what is optimal (and will be
pursued) and what is not (and will be discarded, ignored or restricted); that, ultimately, only
what is great is what will probabilistically become real , in the sense that it will give form and
content to promises, triggers, use values, rewards, to restrictions and affordances , to UX and
UI designs , likes etc. that will reach our screens and fingers; that in general these
technologies are capitalist investments in a context of structural crisis, which need to have
returns at competitively radicalized rates and that they would not necessarily be within our
reach otherwise; we can say – ultimately and in a historically concrete sense, therefore
broader than that reduced to formulas and logic apparently exempt from mathematics – that it
is the relationship between profit, risk and time that gives form and meaning to the objective
function . This seems to be the latest generation technology that, under the commodity form,
increasingly organizes, mediates and provides meaning to contemporary sociometabolism to
the extent and in the form that, together and contradictorily, realizes the capitalist flight
forward. The objective function is the formula, and machine learning is its method of
processing and realization that, in this historical time, synthesizes the quid pro quo between
should-be and becoming that we started to discuss in topic 4 of chapter 1.
Although Ward (2022) does not go as far into his conclusions, he continues to pose
disturbing questions. If, in the terms of our argument, the objective function and its machine
learning are being applied in the way he and we describe here, “[...] we will feel new
emotions in response to a new job, or we will feel only the emotions that The Loop detected
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and rewarded years ago?” (2022, p. 164). By using AI to make choices for us, as Youyou,
Kosinski, and Stillwell (2015) suggested in subtopic 4.1, “[...] we will end up rewiring our
brains and our society [...], just as [it] will shape social policy, where we live, the jobs we get”
(WARD, 2022, p. 172). If we connect this discussion with the debates in subtopics 1.4, 1.5
and 2.1 of chapter 2 and topic 2 of this chapter, we can ask ourselves whether potentially
and/or intentionally late capitalism projects a reduction or cessation of new needs (HELLER,
1976), at the same time that it overstimulates us with neuropsychological rewards that will
continue to flow and echo our collective aspirations (MARCONDES FILHO, 1985).
In response to Kronovet's (2017) cybernetic metaphor, Ward (2022) comments that
when AI is specifically called upon to analyze behavior patterns, it “[...] is navigating
something much more complicated than water, in towards something much more complicated
than the nearest destination, and the objective function for you might be very different from
the objective function for me” (WARD, 2022, p. 127). The author also argues that, in a way,
social scientists such as Kahneman, Tversky and Thaler – and we would add Ariely, Skinner
and Wiener among others – for more than a century “[...] have been questioning whether our
species has a 'function goal'” (WARD, 2022, p. 127) from which we could today be modulated
by an automated libertarian paternalism to become more rational.
Finally, the entire discussion of this subtopic reiterates, in more concrete and
methodological terms, the discussion about what should be and what becomes started in
Chapter 1. The should-be of super-humanization and its mediations assume successive social
forms in function of the development of productive forces and production relations, but
always seeking to present itself ( vorstellen ) as the human-social becoming itself, otherwise it
runs the risk of not becoming. By combining the propositions of sociophysicists, neoliberal
cognitivists and their designers and programmers, we can then recognize the historical origins
of their lineages, through Skinner, Wiener, Taylor, Comte, etc. until we reach the emergence
of social relations of appropriation without work and the division between manual and
intellectual work.

3.5 Critical Information Competency

Ward (2022) concludes his questions in search of mitigations for psychotechnological

threats, without losing the advantages that extended mind products can bring to a social being
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richer in needs. Given the similarity of the issues, the paths he points out converge to Kniess'
(2022) criticisms and propositions of libertarian paternalism. Namely, that control over these
tools should be in the hands of ordinary people; they must have governance over what gets
suggested and automated and for what. For Ward (2022, p. 128-129, emphasis added), “[...]
rather than simply giving up on the idea of a popular will, [...] we should instead hope to
establish a sense of legitimacy on how decisions are made, explaining them and the principles
on which they are based”.
He calls this approach weak perfection . Taking court cases as an example, there are
“[...] a number of systems that are slow, inefficient, fragile, difficult to navigate – and force us
to stop and do the more mentally exhausting type of System 2 processing” (WARD , 2022, p.
201). For the author, this is the type of procedure that should prevail in socially more complex
cases of AI application. That is, through some kind of regulation and derivative solutions, the
constraints, affordances and UX and UI designs that present issues with complex
consequences as if they were simple and fun, should not cease to exist but, on the contrary,
should demonstrate them as they are, so that we can make better decisions.
This is a proposition which, from a simple point of view, is quite correct. It happens
that, as in many approaches of a spectrum that we can here call democratic liberalism, it is
unrealizable within late capitalism. As we have already discussed, among many other factors,
the organic composition of capital flattens the production of surplus value in a way that tends
to make the capitalist mode of production no longer viable. What we have been experiencing
in recent decades would be more a set of countertrend movements, much more a destructive
creation (MÉSZÁROS, 1989) than a creative destruction (SCHUMPETER, 1950). In these
terms, the trend that is formed is the already discussed inability of liberal democracy to create
order and consensus around the competitively necessary rates of capitalist accumulation; the
forms for this accumulation are increasingly proving to be inherently undemocratic.
Many times, we intellectuals and scientists, protected by networks of reputation,
funding and political and social power, can (or are tempted to) propose strong answers to
burning problems that do not need to or cannot in fact be feasible. Often these answers are
very formal, hypothetical and depend on variables that are not in the hands of theorists. As
Ward (2022) himself said, they are waits . And hope here can take on a very literal sense of
“keep waiting”. As the philosopher Comte Sponville (2001, p. 22) provokes, “nobody expects
what he knows he is capable of”.
This is not the case only for Ward, but also for Carr, Zuboff, Lewandowsky, Ecker,
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among other authors we discuss here. Certainly, their criticisms can contribute to the
sociopolitical wear and tear of the use of automagic machines by big techs and governments,
which can result in important regulations and containments already underway in the world.
But, in general, these approaches cannot or do not want to attack the determinations and
causalities of the general process; they expect to see them reformed. So, in the face of so
many opposing forces and idealistic responses, what is it possible to do against automagic
machines?
One of the forms of mitigation that we often find in our literature review refers to a
block of concepts that became notable around the idea of digital literacy (LOUREIRO;
ROCHA, 2012, p. 1) and the like, something like “[ ...] ability and discernment to be able to
research and select the most credible information”. Although we have not gone into this topic
in depth, we have seen this concept associated with cognitive-behavioral theories and
self-efficacy theories (NORMAN, 2008; SKINNER, 2006; LEWANDOWSKY; ECKER;
COOK, 2017), sometimes assuming that well-informed individuals make the most informed
decisions. rational. In Westrup (2020), we saw the concept of digital empowerment , which
mentions Freire's pedagogy and emphasizes the democratization of the media, but which does
not make it clear how this vision would be realized.
However, the concept that came closest to the theoretical points of view of our
research was critical information literacy ( BEZERRA; SCHNEIDER; SALDANHA, 2019).
It starts from a critique and a proposal to overcome the concept of information literacy which,
in short, would be a synonym of productivist aptitude, containing an instrumental character
aimed at the acquisition of skills for searching, evaluating and using information in a capitalist
context (BEZERRA; SCHNEIDER; SALDANHA, 2019) - which is similar to meeting the
digital needs of Sevignani (2019).
On the other hand, critical information literacy deals with “[...] socio-cognitive
capacity based on a self-reflexive knowledge about the individual's own informational needs,
aiming to guide him in his attention and informational choices in the midst of informational
chaos” ( SCHNEIDER, 2019, p. 80). This can also be a dialogic framework with Figaro's
ergology (2018, p. 178), for whom communication should be studied in its contradictory
socio-historical aspects “[...] to identify conflicts, the movement of social interactions,
communication relations, culture and languages that in this process affect people and the
whole society”.
Although we were unable to delve deeper into the concept of critical information
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literacy, we understand that it is under construction and still has some gaps. Mainly, it does
not make it clear how such competence will arise – in addition to the indications of
pedagogical application in general and school in particular – and, apparently, focuses the issue
on the cognitive dimension. But we believe that PSSH can contribute to its development. For
this, we take as a starting point another reflection by Leontiev (1980) on the processes of
awareness of the social being.
According to this author, the individual's positioning in social reality would occur,
decisively, through “[...] 'non-original' meanings that he assimilates from outside – the
knowledge, concepts and visions that he receives through relationships, in the various forms
of individual and mass communication” (LEONTIEV, 1980, p. 18-19). As we saw throughout
the thesis, in this way, it is possible “[...] to introduce distorted or fantastic notions or ideas
into their conscience or even impose on them distorted or fantastic ideas” and that, thus, they
“[...] acquire the ability of any stereotype to resist, so that only the great confrontations of life
can break them” (LEONTIEV, 1980, p. 18-19). But, in many of these cases, “[...] the
destruction of stereotypes only causes devastation that can lead to a psychological disaster”,
requiring “[...] a transformation of subjective personal meanings in the individual's
consciousness into other objective meanings that adequately express them” (LEONTIEV,
1980, p. 18-19 ) .
Still according to Leontiev (1980, p. 19, emphasis added), an analysis of this type of
transformation of personal meanings “[...] into adequate (or more adequate) objective
meanings” for the emancipation of individuals and societies “[.. .] shows that this takes place
in the context of the struggle for people's conscience that is waged in society ”. And then, the
author concludes:

[…] the individual does not simply “stop” in front of a display of meanings, where
he has only to make his own choice, that these meanings – notions, concepts, ideas –
do not passively await his choice, but aggressively explode in his relationships with
the people who form the circle of his true relationship. If the individual is forced to
choose under certain circumstances, the choice is not between meanings, but
between the conflicting social positions expressed and understood through those
meanings. (LEONTIEV, 1980, p. 19)

In these terms, based on all of our discussion and ultimately, phenomena such as
modulation and disinformation are intentional impediments to social self-exteriorization and
self-determination (as capitalism itself is). Thus, advancing in the propositions of Schneider
(2019) and Leontiev (1980), critical information literacy should be the collectively organized
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and practical negation (not merely cognitive, abstract, moral) of this negation. The
antagonism between modulation and disinformation on the one hand and critical information
literacy on the other should be (and is) part of the class struggle. In these terms, for example,
the achievement of some kind of critical information literacy education in schools is
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potentially a loss for neoliberal epistemic restructuring , and the opposite is equally true.
Every inch of critical competence in information should be (and can only be) the achievement
of social struggles . In these terms, it can never be an abstract intention, a gift or concession
from States or markets. One does not achieve critical competence in information as a thing;
critical awareness only arises from the practical confrontation with what is criticized – even if
it is objectified, as an agenda to be conquered, such as state regulation, the end of zero rating ,
school education, etc.
Certainly, this is not an objective answer to the question that thematizes this last and
brief topic. But it is a way of avoiding imaginary and/or partial outputs in terms of intensity
and scope – after all, what really changes if Ifood user data is more respected, if the platform
continues to algorithmically over-exploit its workers?

280
Which we discussed in item “e” of subtopic 3.5 of chapter 2.
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CONCLUSION – Automagic machines, the reality that escapes us – final part

All this dense discussion allows us to conclude it starting with a way of exposition
more adequate to historical and dialectical materialism. That is, starting from the phenomenal
forms of concrete reality, in search of its multiple determinations and contradictions, and then
returning to the surface with a vision of the concrete thought.
Thus, our research started from the sensations and questions that all of us have already
asked about digital technologies. How do they manage to know so much about us and offer us
things so pleasant, fast and assertive, as if they were automagic machines? Why are we so
attached to them, creating such a practical and subjective dependency? And why, in this game
of utility and dependence, do they cause us (often simultaneously) gratification, mental
exhaustion and even psychosocial suffering?
These questions take us to where everything happens for the user, the screen of digital
devices. When crossing it, we saw that, on the other side, these enchanted objects are
machines of universal use, connected and integrated with countless other universal machines,
as a single complex, whose inputs, processing and outputs from our use (and work) are
equally incalculable, in addition to being overshadowed, difficult to understand, and that we
only see and appropriate a small part of this social production.
In its most phenomenal layer – the user interface –, so to speak, we clicked on its links
, which took us to a lower layer of it, where we find structures and theories of
human-computer interaction that offer us an ontological, operative and teleological life full of
freedom, power, comfort, creativity and productivity. At the same time, such structures and
theories are also projections both of certain beliefs about who we are and how we act, and the
very attempt to realize them psychotechnologically, through restrictions, affordances , uses
and gratifications.
By clicking on these clues, we access another layer below, where these
psychotechnological attempts can (and seek to) cause modulation effects in the singular and
sociometabolic realities experienced through these interfaces. These modulations inform us
that we live in a world in harmony with capitalist accumulation, naturally accelerated, which
requires many decisions and activities that, therefore, need and can be simplified through
applications, platforms and devices.
By clicking on the simplified decisions and activities link , we go down one more
layer. In it, we saw that, because these machines are extensions of our being that often present
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themselves as services and activities that are sometimes commonplace, sometimes essential,
in addition to being playful and free, this encrypts their reality as merchandise. That is, its
contradictory existence as a utility and a body for a real abstraction; that for this reason it is
impossible to be fully palpable and controllable; which tends to give it apparently automagical
social powers; and whose access to them implies certain compulsory, furtive and asymmetric
exchanges between capital and labor.
Clicking on its commodity form, we arrive at the layer where these contradictory
aspects seek to move within the HCI through the design of its decision architecture, its
interface and its user experience. One more click and we penetrate the realism of this design
which, in turn, expresses other beliefs, in which we are selfish individuals, in search of
homeostasis and hedonism, that we are predictably irrational and cognitively lazy, so that, in
order to act in the best way in In our own interest, we need to be guided by nudges,
deceptions, triggers, heuristics, reinforcers and rewards, and neuropsychic habituations.
However, guided by psychologists and designers themselves, we click on these hooks
and, in a layer below, we realize that, in their commodity form, the automagic machines want
something more than scratching the itches that needs cause us when they are not fully
realized. In return for this relief, they want us to pay attention to their publicity and agree to
do a little work for them . By clicking “I agree” to the terms of use of this false simple
exchange, we are pulled into a deeper layer. Here, hardware and software model and intensify
the forms of consumption of these commodities so that this activity also becomes a social
transfer and complexly combined work in products that have use value for capitalist
accumulation in crisis – digital data.
In this layer, when we look back at all the rewards and decision architectures that got
us there, we realize that we've entered into a strange social relationship. Encrypted in the
terms of use and UI/UX of digital goods, this social relationship actualizes the age-old
division of humanizing labor between those who decide and shape this purpose and those who
carry out the model – or, as neoliberal cognitivism ironizes, the division work between Mr.
Spock and Homer Simpson. With a click on this separation between the head and the social
body, in the next layer, we do not find the common good promised by the developers of
automagic machines and this division of labor.
In its place, we first find and break the encryption of a secret protected by
enchantments, black boxes, deep learning, patents, lobbyists, lawyers, and kitty memes. We
discovered that these machines are not magically autonomous. Everything described in this
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dive, which in general is promised and experienced as intelligent, almost sentient machines,
which by themselves dominate the mathematics of the world and generously return this
knowledge to us in the form of hedonic utilities, are new forms of the old mystification of
capital. One last pull on the last thread of this system and, instead of one more machine, we
find human beings – more specifically, capitalists who monopolize intellectual work and
general intellect.
Puppetting these countless cables, these humans have been monopolizing increasing
portions of sociometabolic mediations – whether from the stomach or the imagination. At the
same speed of this monopolization, social governance ceases to take place primarily in liberal
democracy, starting to occur more and more algorithmically according to the objective
function of these capitalist concentrations. Secondly, and through this algorithmic monopoly,
we find these humans using other humans – us – by shifting the need-activity-meaning social
system, from its position as the purpose of a generic humanization, to the position of a means
for the realization of humanization. appropriation without work.
When we look at some of the outputs of this process, whether through the lens of
neuroscience or the laboratory world, we cannot see a free, conscious and, above all,
self-externalizing engagement in this social relationship. In its place, we saw the possibility
that this activity becomes strange, negative to self-exteriozation.
We zoom in on these outputs and reach an even deeper and more troubled layer of this
machinic totality. Amidst their AI, hardware , antennas, undersea cables and clouds made of
steel and silicon, we have seen that appropriation societies without work have reached a
certain stage in which their historically particular form, value, is in trouble. Among other
causes, the competition between their agents impelled them, even with the help of the
extended mind, to exchange live work for dead (but intelligent) work in the creation of value
– which tends to compromise this very capacity.
In this layer, as a result and means of displacing these contradictions, automagic
machines fulfill two objectives as intricate and obfuscated as those previously decrypted. On
the one hand, it hypertrophies financial capital: (1) by giving it the power to absorb, through
informational income, parts of the value already produced; (2) by accelerating the circulation
time of valued capital; and (3) as this is not enough countertrend, these machines provide the
mathematical ability to create fictitious value which, to some extent, is alleged to be the work
that will tend to be done in the future.

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 On the other hand, when we click on this must-be, we enter through its API, we pass
through its crowdsource and we are inserted in a layer that starts to take us back to the
interface of the automagic machines. Here, for this must-be to end, these machines act as one
of the main mediators for the increase both in the rates of exploitation and precariousness of
work – mainly through its algorithmic subordination – and in the production of more
workforce – through the dilution of work through the diversification and intensification of
consumption practices.
One last click on the exotic social form of prosumption and we return to the user
interface, the skin of late capitalist culture, with its gamification, anthropomorphisms,
affections and scratches. In this detour , we apprehend the new reality that escapes us. We
demonstrate that automagic machines are a fetishized representation of the extended mind, the
subject-object relationship, the human-social reality, the possibilities of humanization and the
general intellect; a social form that conceals its character of second-order mediation; the
phenomenal appearance of this complex of contradictions, their causes and the mediations for
their evasion.
And, mainly within our scope, automagic machines are means of production for the
user's implicit work. This is our central point. Not because this work can be productive or
unproductive for capital; not because this work would be free; and not because that would be
immoral to liberal values and their privacy fetish. We have seen that, in exchange for the work
of producing data, we receive increasingly valuable utilities for a pseudoconcrete society,
which, in the view of its developers, must be recognized as a simple and fair exchange.
Our point is another. Productive or not, delivering food, composing music, dancing to
them, hating opponents, loving kittens, or giving classes guided by algorithms, capitalist
alienated labor – in all the forms it is capable of creating and mystifying – is more than
surveillance. , theft or injustice. By separating collective hands and heads, as well as
producers from their means and products, it fractures and deforms humanization and the way
we mean it.
When user work makes us do what we wouldn't do otherwise and interposes capitalist
needs with intrinsic motivations, we also waste more than time. In concrete reality, the user's
experience is determined by capitalist work, which thus takes over consumption and
sociability in unprecedented ways. As in most of capitalist sociometabolism, regardless of
what is saved and the neuropsychological rewards, there will tend to be only two things left.
On the one hand, the estrangement, the infinite scrolling on the screen that does not satisfy
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our anxiety, let alone our deepest social needs. And, on the other hand, the possibility of
negating this negation, as we can experience and signify automagic machines as an element of
the class struggle.
As we have shown, user work constructs the extended mind's own fetishism and
reproduces it. When we appropriate this psychological tool restrictively in its phenomenology,
in an instrumental and hedonic way – instead of in a conscious, self-determined and profound
way – its socio-historically concrete reality escapes us. As a theatrical representation that is
suggested over this reality, the extended mind tends to be signified in a special,
super-powerful, supra-human, bewitched way – at least from the point of view of the
prosumer , but not necessarily of those who use these techniques of magic applied to design .
Thus, despite participating in the society whose development was accumulated and
transmitted in these tools, the social being does not recognize himself in them. He does not
understand the tool as potentially his mediation, of the social being, but rather as something
outside of himself that can humanize him in a way that he, in this appearance, cannot do.
For all these reasons, this thesis draws attention to the subjective dimensions of user
work and its role in expanded capitalist reproduction. However, decrypting its nature,
generalization, ubiquity, transfiguration and its psychosocial consequences is not a task of a
particular science. We reviewed efforts where many pieces of this puzzle were remarkably
investigated, however, from historical and dialectical materialism, we know that they do not
explain themselves, all are object and mediation, so that there was a great figure – the
automagic machines – yet to be surveyed.
Thus, this effort – which is incomplete, relatively provisional and which can and needs
to be continued – would not be possible if, for example, we tried to observe user work only
through the lens of psychology. However, as we noted in the Introduction, Socio-Historical
Social Psychology strives to place itself among the varied intersections and biunivocities of
human-social reality. In this way, just as the automagic machines are the intricate overlapping
of the multiple layers that we traverse here, their partial decryption was the result of the
combination of critical studies of epistemologies, EPTIC, psychologies, neurosciences and
HCI stitched together by PSSH.
There's still a lot to do together, and we're in a hurry.

280
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