the rise of data and the death of politics

[bcbm]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation

[BIXX]

Both politics and "algorithmic regulation" are really undesirable in my opinion.

[BIXX]

Though I haven't finished the article it seems there is no point at which we see how algorithmic regulation is actually anymore different from politics.

[bcbm]

i didn't find the 'political' aspect of this particularly compelling; i think the move to a more technocratic state has been occurring for awhile and the further expansion of biopower through analytic regulation isn't particularly shocking if you have been paying attention. the descriptions of the 'internet of things' in this article were more interesting to me and terrifying. i have been encountering this concept a lot recently but this was one of the better outlines i have seen.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think there might be a backlash against it. Either that or people will just love how convenient everything is and will accept it. I can see both possibilities happening, actually...one of the things I've noticed in recent years is just how unhappy a very significant part of the population is with just society in general. The political institutions play a big role in the unhappiness but it goes beyond that, I think, and it just hasn't found expression in any sort of organized fashion yet.

But it might never find expression. On the other hand, most people actually don't find the notion of ultra-technocracy in gov't to be particularly appealing & (if they're interested in politics at all) they're passionate about political issues as they relate to real human beings, not just rote algorithms and formulas to be punched into a machine somewhere...

[Loony Le Fist]

Algorithmic regulation? More like full algorithmic control. This is scary, but it was in the cards. Fascism can't happen in the US. It already has. Right under your noses. From the article:



Jim Farely, Senior Ford Executive
...we know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone.


Yes folks, we have all your data, we are a profit driven corporation, but we promise not to make profit off of federal, state and municipal governments by selling this information to them, so they can make arrests and issue citations. Sure.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Rafiq]

This doesn't represent any serious, historical future. What this represents is the sheer nativity and arrogance of the ruling classes - in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, the rich have forgotten to be afraid of the poor - the ruling classes have forgotten to be afraid of the ragged, angry plebs. They may have perfected the process of suppressing politicization of angry sentiments, but it will not last - their demise is vested in the core of their rule.

[BIXX]

Os Cangaceiros, I suspect that displeasure you are referencing has something to do with the way our civilization has developed, further and further from the freedom that we had before civilization domesticated us.

[bcbm]

I think there might be a backlash against it. Either that or people will just love how convenient everything is and will accept it.

other pretty obscene uses of technology in recent history have been a source of outrage and concern for a news cycle or two and then accepted as just the way things are.


This doesn't represent any serious, historical future. What this represents is the sheer nativity and arrogance of the ruling classes - in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, the rich have forgotten to be afraid of the poor - the ruling classes have forgotten to be afraid of the ragged, angry plebs. They may have perfected the process of suppressing politicization of angry sentiments, but it will not last - their demise is vested in the core of their rule.

i dont think they have much reason to be especially afraid of us.

[Rafiq]

The point is that the looming potential is always there. The contradiction of social interests will always be here to shake the foundations of technocracy .

[bcbm]

The point is that the looming potential is always there. The contradiction of social interests will always be here to shake the foundations of technocracy .

is it though? i think one of the perceived benefits of technocracy is the psychological control it offers and the ability to nip social problems in the bud.

[Magón]

Sounds like a job for: http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2014/08/new-luddites-why-former-digital-prophets-are-turning-against-tech

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I sort of agree with rafiq in the sense that ambitious plans like these sold to us by asshole startup drones are almost always destined to fall on their face. But the real problem is that even when this tech utopia fails to materialize and all these stupid firms waiting to bank in on it finally collapse, all the data they had gathered will still exist. The existence of this data isn't the illusion, the dream of using it to solve our problems is.

The security services, the government planning departments, etc, are the real beneficiaries of the data being mined. They have their own problems they want to solve, and they don't have to worry about turning a profit with it, or at least not in the sense these firms do.

anywho, some reading material if anyone is intersted: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tiqqun-the-cybernetic-hypothesis

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tiqqun-the-cybernetic-hypothesis

I thought I understood this. Then I dropped acid and thought about it, and really understood it. :laugh:

Moving on . . .

I think it's important to bear in mind that "technology" presents itself as alien to human activity - as a relationship between (increasingly complex) things - but is, right at the root of the word, concerning techniques. So, when we talk about massive data collection, machines for social control, etc. we have to keep in mind their relation to the production of these machines and their components (who solders the circuit boards under what conditions?), the organization which uses the data (the organization of massive police forces and spy agencies), and so on.

I think this gets lost in a lot of talk about "technology" - because we can look at any given object, say, a cellular telephone with GPS, and say, "Well, this isn't inherently capitalist or inherently anything - it's some plastic and metal and could be used for a variety of ends!" On the surface it's very true - a single cellphone isn't a form of social organization. That, however, misses the point, since it's dealing with Platonic forms and not reality - "a single cellphone" doesn't exist, but the mass production and use of cellphones with a host of attached forms of social organization does.

So this all is insidious not so much because maybe police will be able to press a button and stop a car - social revolution will never be a question of deploying gadgets as long as knives can slit throats and gasoline can set fires - but because revolution is a question of organization. All of these things serve to develop the organization of repressive forces, while hampering the organization of revolutionaries.

[ckaihatsu]

In his essay, O'Reilly draws broader philosophical lessons from such technologies, arguing that they work because they rely on "a deep understanding of the desired outcome" (spam is bad!) and periodically check if the algorithms are actually working as expected (are too many legitimate emails ending up marked as spam?).

O'Reilly presents such technologies as novel and unique – we are living through a digital revolution after all – but the principle behind "algorithmic regulation" [...]


When the tools at-hand are something as innocuous as an email inbox then the technological "monster" is easily laughed-off -- one can always check one's Spam folder, just to make sure, and the upside convenience of an automatic 'email call screener' outweighs any occasional errors that the algorithm might make.

But when the consequences are more impactful, like driving tickets and worse, *then* everyone goes into full-freak-out mode about 'Big Brother' because of the sense of loss of control over the process that one is being subjected to.

As political people *we*, if anyone, should know that any given data, by itself, is hardly monolithic -- it could be fingerprints, it could be IP addresses, whatever. What's invariably more to the point is how any given data is *interpreted*, as for already-existing political agendas.

And, even *that* aside, *any* empirical data-event takes place in a much-broader event *context*, anyway, all the way up to the world's overall existing class divide, whether one wants to acknowledge it or not.


philosophical abstractions

http://s6.postimg.org/cw2jljmgh/120404_philosophical_abstractions_RENDER_sc_12_1.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/i7hg698j1/full/)


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://s6.postimg.org/5blfrdn1t/2006400620046342459_Kej_CCu_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/vjwkgr759/full/)

[Skyhilist]

Fascism can't happen in the US. It already has. Right under your noses.

I'd be careful with the way you're using the word fascism. I think that this is pretty scary as well, but fascism has a very narrow definition and isn't just anything authoritarian that seems scary.