There is a concrete and causal relationship between the complexity of the systems we encounter every day; the opacity with which most of those systems are constructed or described; and fundamental, global issues of inequality, violence, populism and fundamentalism.

I’m continually fascinated by the “folk stories” I hear people telling about ad-tech. Stories like, “Instagram listens to your conversations and analyzes them to show you ads,” or “5G gives you COVID.” These ideas are rooted in the opacity of day to day technologies and power structures. They are shared by word-of-mouth, which also takes place online.