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Original to:
https://hackernoon.com/in-france-cyber-criticism-turns-violent-as-activists-burn-a-fablab-to-protest-the-diffusion-of-4ad378251c5b
In France, cyber criticism turns violent as “activists” burn a fablab to
protest the diffusion of digital culture
What will be the consequences of big tech growing moral failures?
The fablab “La Casemate” after it was destroyed by the group of Grenoble
People don’t throw rocks on the Google buses anymore. Those were the
good old times.
On Tuesday, La Casemate, a fablab based in Grenoble was vandalized and
burned because it was described as “a notoriously harmful institution by
its diffusion of digital culture”.
The public policy of supporting the digital transition was also
criticized as “City Managers satisfy money-hungry start-ups and geeky
geeks by opening Fablabs in trendy neighborhoods These seemingly
extremely heterogeneous devices all aim to accelerate the acceptance and
social use of the technologies of our disastrous time”.
It’s not the first time people turn to violent protests against
automation and computers.
From 1979 to 1983, in France, the Committee for Liquidation or
Subversion of Computers (CLODO) was active in the region of Toulouse,
where they posed bombs and burned buildings (CII-Honeybull in 1980,
International Computers Limited in 1980, Sperry-Univac in 1983, etc.) At
the time, they explained to the French Media that they were “workers in
the field of data processing and consequently well placed to know the
current and future dangers of data processing and telecommunications.”
And that in their view, “ The computer is the favorite tool of the
dominant. It is used to exploit, to put on file, to control, and to
repress.”
And there were others. In 1983, in West Germany, a computer center
designing software used in Pershing missiles was destroyed by a group
called Rotte Zellen. In 1984, a Belgium group called the Communist
Combattant Cells (CCC) bombed and destroyed the headquarters of several
companies in Belgium and Germany. In London, a group called the Angry
Brigade tried to do the same. And there were similar actions in Asia, in
South America and of course in the US.
It’s easy to dismiss the actions of these digital “protesters” as mere
luddites fantasies. But their point was not that the computing industry
would take jobs from people.
In August 1983, the CLODO gave a rare interview in English to Processed
World, where they explain : “It’s neither retrograde nor novel. Looking
at the past, we see only slavery and dehumanization, unless we go back
to certain so-called primitive societies. And though we may not all
share the same “social project,’’ we know that it’s stupid to try and
turn back the clock.” It’s rather that these tools are “perverted at
their very origin”, pointing for example “that the most computerized
sector is the army, and that 94% of civilian computer-time is used for
management and accounting”. To be clear, in their 1983 view, “if
microprocessors create unemployment, instead of reducing everyone’s
working-time, it’s because we live in a brutal society, and this is by
no means a reason to destroy microprocessors.”
Since the 1983 movie “Wargames”, people have dissociated
computer-related terrorism and violence. By insisting on hacking and
hackers, it looks like digital politics, protests and violence only take
place in some sort of virtual world, and that they belong to a grey zone
where moral values are distant and fuzzy. Indeed, their vocabulary of
“White Hat”- a good hacker, and “Black Hat”- a bad hacker, seems more
related to the Lords of the Ring than to the Communist Manifesto. And
since the seminal 1984 book of Steven Levy, “Hackers: Heroes of the
Computer Revolution”,the digital world has been fascinated by this new
storytelling, the claim to be able to break the rules of society. Its
leaders always want to present themselves as revolutionaries. They
always begun in a garage. They were always former hackers. They all
wanted to change the world.
But it seems that this storytelling has come to an end.
The text posted by the group of Grenoble on Indymedia
In their text posted on Friday, the group of Grenoble share the same
disappointment as the CLODO. They call the digital promises “a blatant
lie”.
Echoing recent digital critics such as Douglas Rushkoff or even myself,
they ask themselves what’s revolutionary or prophetic in an industry
that relies on old-school capitalism, monopolies, micro-work, state
regulations and money as a cardinal value. And as they reject the hacker
myth, they end up calling a revered place such as the MIT… a “temple of
technocracy”. But people surprised, offended or shocked by this
qualification should remember the way Aaron Swartz has been driven to
suicide after being mistreated by this institution.
Violence is to be condemned. I feel sad for the people of La Casemate.
They are the victims of a discharge of hate and distress. But they are
also the victims of the religion of progress and technology that is
being sold as an inescapable future for everyone.
It’s not the truth, but there is indeed a need for disenchantment in the
digital world.
In the end, the members of the CLODO were never caught. They were cast
aside by the emergence of a new storytelling presenting the digital
transition as a revolution in its own right. But there is no new story
to tell. And as the promises of this so-called revolution now fail to
realize, it was only predictable that people would go back to real
protesting and real violence as a result. It’s no surprise that after 20
years of obscurity, people are beginning to remember about them. As the
negative impact of the digital industry is being felt harder and harder
by citizens, actions will not be limited to nice ex-big tech employees
speaking in elite conferences, or to smart social science researchers
writing outraged papers as they are being financed by technology
companies.
Technology is not neutral, and there is no virtual world.
Update : I should have mentioned “Industrial Society and its Future”,
aka the Unabomber Manifesto, but that would need another post, or even
probably a series of post… just go read it for yourself, if you’ve never
done it before… the Wikipedia article on Ted Kaczynski can be a good
entry to grasp what it’s about.
Update 2 : I had forgotten but this is actually the second time in a
short time that a fablab is burned in France. Last time was last year
when La Cantine burned in Nantes. There was no revendication at the
time, but it was thought to be a criminal act.
Original communique on IndyMedia Grenoble (in French):
https://grenoble.indymedia.org/2017-11-24-Grenoble-technopole-apaisee
Rejoinders:
https://grenoble.indymedia.org/2017-11-24-Misere-technophobe
https://grenoble.indymedia.org/2017-11-25-La-stupidite-de-l-incendie-de-la
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