Re: Fwd: Re: Shoshana Zuboff > The Secrets of Surveillance
On 15/Mar/16 09:07, Felix Stalder wrote: The fact that nobody knows how to put all of these things together into a coherent whole, a new techno-economic paradigm, means that these technologies and their associated potential are still open to interpretation and configurations based on particular social experiences . You know, Felix, as one anecdotal example, here on the ground, doing curriculum dev and renewal at The Ecosa Institute (http://ecosa.org) -- a Paolo Soleri-inspired spin-off founded by a British architect, Tony Brown -- I run into quite some naivete and lack of a sense of urgency. Even in the face of the absurd socio-political developments that are happening all around (all the more noticeable here in a bright RED state, Arizona, the source of Barry Goldwater). People supposedly trying to do interesting sustainable-oriented things seem to be slacking around all the time -- listless "trustafarian" students at the local 'alternative' college (http://prescott.edu) just wanting their identity to be cushioned from any shocks. I get little sense of urgency or intensity directed at the problems. There is the passle of grey-headed ecosophs who enjoy their back-country walks (I certainly fall partly under that rubric), but many are too romantically involved with this to, for example, even ponder what's going on in cities, that's why they live out here to begin with. Considering the most holistic systems view, it is impossible to not come to the conclusion that there are too many humans on the planet. I was recently at a packed talk (200 people or so) by the writer Terry Tempest-Williams, revered by many alternative folks (at least out here in the US West), but when she began relating a story of flying to Jackson Hole, and driving around Yellowstone (any drive can't be less than 300km!) in her rental Prius and ending up at a friends 'cabin' drinking French wine on the terrace talking about how great and precious life was ... she lost me ... And monkey-wrenching to deter development in the US West will get you taken out by a drone or F-16 anyway, these days. There are no quadrants in the so-called wilderness of North Amurika that cannot be rapidly gotten to by a well-trained and equipped desert military presence. Not only that, practically every single person I know of, working in the non-profit 'eco' sector lives something of an upper-middle-class life, driving those damn Prius' again, installing PV panels on the roof of a typically large house (with hot-tub), etc etc etc... It seems impossible to overcome -- although guidelines like: Odum, H.T. & Odum, E.C., 2001. A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies, Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. point a certain direction for understanding and living ... (I do have a pdf copy if anyone is interested, contact me off-list)... Perhaps it is a failure of general education system-wide, and that too few people have the intellectual tools to be able to suss out sustainable *wide-scale* solutions. Personally, I wonder if the angstlich search for identity in US college-age kids is a convenient ruse (often) to avoid simply do-ing something, engaging in practices that are life-changing in the surrounding 'real' world. Granted in a country the size of the US there are always multiple exceptions to such pessimistic observations, and in the end, change comes at the microscopic level of daily lived experience, but somehow, the (psychic, psycho-spiritual, and real!) energy to have this occur society-wide just doesn't seem available. Maybe it will take a round of massive violence -- perhaps precipitated by a contested Repub Convention when Trump calls out his 'brown shirts' who are already armed, and the US 'left' will respond in like manner, violence in the streets -- for a trajectory change, or not. But as you see, I'm not optimistic. JH -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD grounded on a granite batholith twitter: @neoscenes http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ ++ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Fwd: Re: Shoshana Zuboff > The Secrets of Surveillance
The question is, does it matter at all? The degree of mind-engagement is irrelevant if not properly coupled with feet-engagement. In other words, whatever you do with your fingers touching plastic surfaces and your eyes scanning electronic screens, your brain constructing fantastic models of could-be worlds, regurgitating those worlds with other plastic-touchers, may be a totally irrelevant honey-trap, if it does not result in your feet taking you somewhere and eventually confronting men with guns. And it does not appear to result in that at all. While it may be hard to accept, no one in position of control gives a flying fuck about these ideas - that's why you can do these idea exercises ad nauseam and publish all you want. The feet coupling is lost. The only way to regain such coupling may be a forced abstaining from plastic-touching. At the same time, there is a whole generation of people experimenting with new social values and forms of being together, centering arounf networked collaboration and complex systems thinking, all-based on digital technology but extending from experimentation # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Fwd: Re: Shoshana Zuboff > The Secrets of Surveillance
On 2016-03-15 07:42, Brian Holmes wrote: > In the US, the classic sequence of a long downswing is unfolding: > inventions pile up while the economy stagnates, so the inventions > are not brought to market. They pile up: electric cars, vastly more > efficient batteries, driverless cars, digital manufacturing, smart > grids, solar power, Internet of things, to list just a few. Some > of this research is crucially sponsored by the federal governments > (batteries and digital manufacturing are the US ones I happen to > know about). At the same time, there is a whole generation of people experimenting with new social values and forms of being together, centering arounf networked collaboration and complex systems thinking, all-based on digital technology but extending from experimentation with currencies, to self-made cars to urban food production, community-based financing, neighbourhood power stations etc etc. I think this offers a real chance to break with consumerist/precarized notions of individuality and open the doors towards some different configuration of subjectivity. The fact that nobody knows how to put all of these things together into a coherent whole, a new techno-economic paradigm, means that these technologies and their associated potential are still open to interpretation and configurations based on particular social experiences . The cynical impulse here is to say: Ah, all of this will simply drive the next wave of innovation in capitalism! But I'm not so sure this is a done deal. For two reasons, first, the classic strategy of how capitalism has historically dealt with its own crises -- expand and displace -- is not going to work so easily in a fully integrated, globalized world, not the least because if the very tangible ecological limits. And, second. a growing range of goods and services shedding the commodity forms. It's not just software and data, but, on sunny and windy days, energy prices are turning negative, and you cannot have a commodity without an exchange value! > and I think the most widespread consensus in all three blocs points > (like it or not, I don't) to a kind of eco-securitarian use of Big > Data to manage complex populations at the limits of territorial > sustainability. Quite possibly that's a strategy to manage the transition, but I cannot image this to lead to any stable situation. It's hard to conceive of eco-islands in a world of catastrophic climate change and millions of displaced people are not easily stopped by a wall, as Europe is finding out now. Of course, the fact that a strategy is unworkable does not mean it's not going to be pursued. Felix # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
