Mass-scale development of digitalisation lead to a situation in which digital devices not only are a constant element of our existence and landscape but transformed us into functional hybrids of bodies welded with small boxes full of microchips. For smartphone production, in addition to aluminium, palladium, copper, or gold, there is a need for minerals of little telling names like cobalt, yttrium, lanthanum, or neodymium, whose extraction requires advanced technologies, which, consequently, carry many long-term ecological, social, and political ramifications.
Modern forms of extractivism involve not only the extraction of the planet, its resources, and the biosphere. They reach far out, beyond the Earth, embrace the cosmos and aim at other planets of the Solar System. For the first time in human history, extractivism reaches into a human as well, to their deepest desires, behaviours, and experiences. Extracting data from human life, and gathering traces of online activity – so-called behavioural surplus – has its analogies with colonial strategies. Data acquired simultaneously to the acceptance of “cookies” or terms of use, is, as a resource, processed, refined, and, eventually, divided into fractions – human desire transforms into attainable profit. This data, regarding current and future behaviours of particular individuals, is appraised and sold on the global market of Internet advertising. Serving surveillance capitalism, extractivism monetises deep knowledge of each entity and element of the ecosystem. Our every step on the Web is carefully monitored and painstakingly analysed. Unconsciously, we produce a brand-new type of knowledge, capitalised by great business, and also used for testing devices of collective control.