The fate of freedom of thought, indeed the fate of human freedom altogether, everything that we have fought for for a thousand years, will depend upon the neuroanatomy of that network. Ours are the last generation of human brains that will be formed without contact with the net. From here on out, every human brain, by two generations from now every single human brain, will be formed from early life in direct connection to the network. Humanity will become a superorganism in which each of us is but a neuron in the brain. And we are describing now, now, all of us, now, this generation, unique in the history of the human race, in this generation we will decide how that network is organized. Unfortunately we are beginning badly.

Here’s the problem: We grew up to be consumers of media, that’s what they taught us, we’re consumers of media. Now media is consuming us. The things we read watch us read them. The things we listen to listen to us listen to them. We are tracked, we are monitored, we are predicted by the media we use.