Wow, so many (lengthy) replies. Did not expects this amount of references. Will get the books, read and hopefully gain some new knowledge on the way.
Thanks everyone! Med venlig hilsen/Kind regards Kasper Skov Christensen Phone: 42 41 93 98 Ph.d. Student #digitaldesign @ Aarhus University Denmark Design and Tech Consultant, Techno DJ and producer, Hacker > On 26 Nov 2017, at 19:22, t byfield <tbyfi...@panix.com> wrote: > > All these suggestions so far seem good, but they mainly focus on 'tech' > corporations, as if to suggest that some diffuse idea of technology is > categorically different from everything else that corporations have been > doing for centuries. One big problem with this is the relationship between > these corporations and technology — say, whether it's a product or service, > an instrument, or a mechanism for some sort of arbitrage. If we lump all > those things together under a category like 'tech,' it's no wonder that the > result seems mysterious. So it's also worth thinking of 'technology' as yet > another potent widget. There have been and are other potent widgets: uppers > (sugar, caffeine, tobacco, coca) and downers (alcohol), opiates, weapons, > ~crops (cotton, indigo), and fuels (fossil fuels and even wood), 'media' > (film, journalism), and of course human beings (slavery and other forms of > peonage). Obviously, there are brilliant histories of how these other > ~widgets have served, if you like, as arbitrary platforms or media or > whatever for exploiting and distorting societies at every level. Thinking > about technology in this light is helpful for developing a more articulate, > less mystified model of what 'tech' corporations are, how they work, and > their changing place in wider human ecologies. One benefit of this is that it > helps us to recognize the corporation *as such* as a technology, which opens > up another kind of critical literature — about their history and evolution. I > only have a passing knowledge of that field, but I think the 1970s and early > 1980s were a good time for work was both critical and accessible, like > Richard Barnet and Ronald Müller's _Global Reach: The Power of Multinational > Corporations_. If we want to understand current tech corporations, it's > helpful to understand how their expertise in manipulating jurisdictional and > regional disparities regarding data is rooted in older techniques — for > example, technology transfer arrangements in which a multinational would sell > its manufacturing assets to its foreign subsidiaries in order to exploit > multiple national tax regimes — by writing off the initial capital > investment, depreciating it, 'selling' it at a notional loss, writing it off > as a capital investment, ad nauseam — and profiting every step of the way. In > that sense, as they used to say, data really is the new oil — not as the > supposed 'smart' fuel or engine of 'new economies,' but as yet another > arbitrary dumb commodity that can be used to exploit relational differences. > That's borne out by, for example, the high-level chicanery of techniques like > the 'double Irish' exemption, in which a few pages of legal documents > translate into billions of profit by companies like Google. This approach to > thinking about corporations is also validated by a few crucial current > developments, mainly the rising power of 'offshore' jurisdictions and > multilateral trade treaties. These two phenomena aren't at all concerned with > the visible specific concerns of particular corporations — for example, > whether they're 'tech.' Instead, these developments are concerned with > corporations as such — their supposed rights, powers, and obligations > relative to states and societies. Regulating data *on the basis of its > specificity* is important, as Wolfie Christl and Sarah Spiekermann argue, but > we shouldn't confuse it with regulating corporations as such. The wild claim > that 'technology' has changed everything so we need radically totalizing new > laissez-faire regional and global regimes, masks how little has changed; and > it distracts us from the need to revitalize global regulatory regimes focused > on the mundane procedures and structures that, ultimately, define what > corporations are are do, whatever their business happens to be. > > To be clear, I'm not saying technology is the 'same' as tobacco or whatever — > it isn't. But a good rule is to assume that everything is always different > and, on that basis, to try to understand the effects of those differences in > various contexts. Which is why it's important to demystify 'tech,' rather > than treating it as a diffuse power that enshrouds a handful of corporations. > > Cheers, > Ted > > On 25 Nov 2017, at 15:04, Vesna Manojlovic wrote: > >> Hi Kasper, >> >> 0. "I Hate the Internet" = a novel by Jarett Kobe > <...> >
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