Not a citizenry (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism)

Uncertainty is not chaos but rather the necessary habitat of the present tense. We choose the fallibility of shared promises and problem solving over the certain tyranny imposed by a dominant power or plan because this is the price we pay for freedom to will, which founds our right to the future tense. In the absence of this freedom, the future collapses into an infinite present of mere behavior, in which there can be no subjects and no projects: only objects.

[…] Google’s ideal society is a population of distant users, not a citizenry. It idealizes people who are informed, but only in the ways that the corporation chooses. It means for us to be docile, harmonious, and, above all, grateful.”

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. 2019. Wikipedia link. The two passages quoted are from different sections of the book, but their placement together helps with context.