Morlock,
while I don't believe that there was a single mind or small group of
multiple minds that planned the app based information society I do
believe that the US military does exceptionally well in the discovery
(invention?) and subsequent kick-start of "potential". Furthermore, I do
believe that looking only at the survivors of a very, very lucky chain
of coincidences (Google, Facebook) does skew the interpretation. There
have been search engines and social media platforms before (what
happened to AltaVista, Friendster?) and I don't think the DOD has been
involved in all of them. Stating that the NSA did create Google, in a
grand 20 year scheme (with all their decision makers as marionettes)
does hint at looking at the whole with a way too focused lens. It's
probably more of a loose dance of seeding ideas, technology, money, the
close observation, and the intervention when it seems to be needed
(surely the military has been surprised by their own success more than
once, I don't buy that they invented the FB news feed).
Big picture thinking does happen though and while I can't suggest any
90th pure hardware or software technology references I would like to
offer the technology of management theory. This I do believe is what
actually keeps on informing the decision makers in military-industrial
complex in their touchy-feely and continuously adapted approach to deal
with information technology.
In the late 80th/early 90th the military started to think about new
management principles and guidelines to steer their actions. The world
"suddenly" became volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity)
and in combination with the finding of the last decades' system theory
(e.g. Russel Ackoff work in the 70th) they learned to focus on "choice"
as the primary factor for future control. Thus in contrast to previous
management theories is the change of play from molding minds to
modulating contexts in which minds can perform their life (have they
read Deleuze's societies of control, most likely, in the constant search
for competitive advantage management theory is very open to new
influences). It is very likely that these theories not only changed
their internal management practices but as the world is effectively
their workplace will have informed their interventions, policy lobbying,
and investments in the silicon valley ecosystem.
Needless, to say that VUCA started to appear in everyday business
management literature and theory in the mid/late 90th and is heavily
featured in the 00th future studies. And design thinking with it's
shallow iteration through a rather fixed problem spaces is the prodigy
child.
There are plenty of sources about this change in management culture but
this dissertation written in 1991 in the US war college on management is
a very fruitful source:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a235762.pdf Some juice quotes
can be found on page 34 (PDF 42):
"No one can accurately predict what tomorrow will bring. We do know that
volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity will define our
future work environment."
"Edgar H. Schein tells us that it is possible that 'the only thing of
real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture'"
\\vincent
On 19/12/2017 06:01, Morlock Elloi wrote:
Let's make (a plausible) assumption that "getting subscribers" and
"app downloads" has been the sole goal, measure of success and
fund-ability of info startups, since ever. Those making the obvious
remarks (lack of business model, stupid concept, negative cash flow,
etc.) were not in, missing the alleged point: creation of tap
infrastructure for data collection/surveillance was the un-advertized
end game.
This assumption then leads to conclusion that VCs pouring money into
these data taps knew from the start what the end game was. This, in
turn, implies some serious centralized long-term (15-20 year) planning.
Is there any evidence of such planning?
There are speculations, but the ones easy to find are fairly recent
(like 2007:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10456534
, 2015:
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
).
Are there any earlier signs of this? Papers, conference reports, side
remarks, from say 1990s, indicating that it was taking shape?
On 12/18/17, 13:23, Felix Stalder wrote:
I think we can say that the possibility of this transformation was built
on from the beginning and is potential -- realized when successful -- is
a precondition for venture capital to invest. So, when you want a date,
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> 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:
--
DE: +49 (0)160 9549 5269
UK: +44 (0)75 0655 0520
http://vincentvanuffelen.com
http://lacunalab.org
http://transmit-interfere.com
http://deepmediaresearch.org
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> 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: