Ted:
Geoff, if you and/or anyone else is committed to nettime as a project,
however you see it, then you might consider starting a new list (or
whatever) dedicated to that project and recruiting people to contribute.
Speaking as someone who was there from the "beginning" (and as one of those
Ted :
> A better line of questions might involve what's changed since he > first
>entered the embassy.
A better line of questions involves what's changed in the last few weeks . . .
!!
What is now in motion is the investigate-the-investigators phase of the "soft
coup" against Trump. At the
Brian:
> However, emergence on its own appears useless as a principle of hope.
Good point. Allow me to amplify . . .
"Emergence"was a DoD project. Or, more properly a DoE one. The US Department
of Energy (spun-off from DoD to "control" nuclear weapons), established the
Mecca of "emergence"
Geert (old friend):
How could this possibly succeed? Yes, there *is* something rotten in Denmark
(and elsewhere) . . . !!
Trying to use technology to "construct" the world as you'd like it to be is
always confronted by the reality that technology is, instead, busy
"constructing" you.
Nettimers:
"Cultural Marxism" is, of course, a canard -- primarily because it never really
had any impact. Adorno did manage to write "The Authoritarian Personality" (a
favorite of Breivik) but he was tossed out of the Rockefeller Radio Research
Project and few (at that level) ever paid much
Geert:
The 1998 Microsoft antitrust case effectively "wedded" the company to the
Pentagon -- it was not run out of DoJ but rather the "intelligence community"
(with me playing a minor role) -- so it is no surprise to find Microsoft
speaking on behalf of that contingent today.
There is a
Charles, Brian :
There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear . . . --
Buffalo Springfield (For What It's Worth,1967)
The inhabit.global website begins with the words, "The End of the World: It's
over. Bow your head and phone scroll through the apocalypse. Watch as
[Raymond Williams, *Television: Technology and cultural form*, Chapter
3, "The Forms of Television," p. 129-132]
C. The Technology as a Cause
Sociological and psychological studies of the effects of television,
which in their limited terms have usually been serious and careful,
were
[Joe Sachs, Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 2002, Introduction, Part II, "The
Mean," pp. xi, xx-xxi, also St. John's Review, "Three Little Words," 1997]
Three words that anyone who has tried to understand the *Nicomachean Ethics*
has had to wrestle with are HABIT, the MEAN, and NOBLE
Geert:
The *medium* (or what we now call psycho-technological environments) that
generated “memes” is, of course, the same one that dominated people’s lives
when they were “discovered” in the 1970s – TELEVISION. Are you sure that’s how
you’d like anyone to behave today?
That medium is no
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
Nettime:
On the eve of my 70th birthday, John Perry Barlow, who was 4 months older and
sometimes described as my "nemesis," passed away. RIP, cyber-comrade. In the
interest of living memories, here's a JPB story (or two).
In mid-1994, the Progress and Freedom
Brian :
> Try the vision thing. Nobody has it, everybody needs it, it's the rarest
thing
> on earth. I don't think that the post-2008 crisis will ever be resolved
> until some socio-political agency comes up with a vision of the future
> that is inspiring, workable and translatable into
Dear Nettimers:
"McLuhanite technological determinism" . . . !!
As maybe the only person from the Wall Street "wing" of the technology
industry (with at least one confirmed *weird* "assignment" from the CIA) to
ever participate in nettime -- starting with that late-night phone-call from
- Forwarded message from newme...@aol.com -
From: newme...@aol.com
Subject: Re: nettime nottime: the end of nettime
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2015 08:21:35 -0400
To: nett...@kein.org
Folks:
The MEDIUM is *still* the MESSAGE . . . !!
Mark Stahlman
Jersey City Heights
In a message
Eric:
But society *cannot* be designed -- not by you or anyone else.
Indeed, this is why so many people are naive to imagine that there is a
Deep-State (which doesn't exist and about which the Snowden disclosures
tell us nothing) or that there is anyone to whom you could give a Big
[Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan, 1964,
pp. 357-59, final chapter, the last four paragraphs]
Automation: Learning a Living
Such is also the harsh logic of industrial automation. All that we had
previously achieved mechanically by great exertion and coordination
can
Of course, the cultural industry and mass media are not the only
places where the manipulation of the unconscious may actively be
contemplated. The formidable challenge that confronts the cultural
critic is the scenario where the battlefront of ideology has shifted
predominantly
Felix:
Some people are using the concept of ban-opticon to express this.
Correct. The principles involved have been in force for the past 100+
years -- long before *digital* systems. In the original 19th-century
Benthamite Panopticon, the key idea was that the inmates had no idea
if anyone
Felix:
Some people are using the concept of ban-opticon to express this.
Correct. The principles involved have been in force for the past 100+
years -- long before *digital* systems. In the original 19th-century
Benthamite Panopticon, the key idea was that the inmates had no idea
if anyone
Folks:
Keith Hart (who I met on this list) was generous enough to let me
participate in the now-almost 3-week-long Open Anthropology Cooperative
seminar,
which was begun around a discussion of Lee Drummond's essay Lance
Armstrong: The Reality Show (A Cultural Analysis.)
Lee is a
Felix:
What has happened through financialization is not the rise of
machines, or some creation of intelligent forms of agency beyond
human comprehension.
Who said any of this is beyond comprehension? If you choose to not even
try to understand something, for your own reasons of *dogma*
Nettime:
Citizens would grow up accustomed to having a public voice, to
receiving intellectual responses from others, and to articipating in
a global intellectual culture. The cultural conditions of democratic
intellectual life will have been achieved.
Sorry (to Phil Agre) but this is
MP:
What part of the technological environment
prompted you to apologise twice in this email?
The part that replaced the mass with the *individual* . . . !!
While the MEMETIC notions of democracy and revolution were promoted by
mass-media (therefore, to no body), digital technology has
Karen:
Reboot.fm has all the speeches/panels here --
https://soundcloud.com/rebootfm/sets/the-whole-earth-in-the-ether
What Fred was talking about with his *two* countercultures is a matter of
RELIGION -- although he doesn't put it in those terms (probably because
his audience thinks that
John:
Anyway, Mark, get the catalog and listen
to the podcasts that Nina gave the
addresses of... it's well worth your time.
Thanks, I did. Unfortunately, it's all in German (including the
translation of Fred's speech), except for his interview -- which I recommend.
Maybe
Folks:
If this was mentioned on nettime (considering that it was once the primary
topic of this list), I missed it -- did anyone from this collective
attend and do they wish to offer a report?
http://hkw.de/en/programm/2013/the_whole_earth/veranstaltungen_83124/veranst
Keith:
PS Mark S. Things digital do make an
appearance in the book, but not in the
essay.
Thanks for the shout out . . . !! g
There are revolutions and there are renaissances. My guess is that the
latter would be a much more beneficial prospect for Africa.
Revolutions --
Eugen:
It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started, claiming
that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant
to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET . . .
Correct! However, based on my recent conversations with Bob Taylor, you
are leaving out
Felix:
One is against authoritarian regimes . . .
Another one is against the subversion
of the democratic processes . . . And,
one is against the increasing subversion
of civil liberties . . .
Fascinating how you frame all this. Authoritarian! Democratic!
Liberty! Subversion!
Felix:
There are dark days, these days.
We, the humans, are in serious trouble.
What we are up against isn't HUMAN at all; it's a system and that means
MACHINES.
The Google slogan is Don't BE Evil. That is a statement made by the
machines about themselves.
As anyone with a
Brian:
You claim that fundamental issues are
avoided, but most of the people who have written
back in this thread say the current unemployment
problem is not produced by any technological destiny.
It is produced by the way technology is developed
in an abusive capitalist society.
Felix:
Thanks -- I was hoping (okay, anticipating) that you would reply! g
1) Castels: Manuel Castells immediately springs to mind -- of course
he does and I've read your excellent review/analysis of his work. How
has he been received among his peers? I've talked with a few of them
and they
Jon:
As i said it appears to me that people have been struggling
with this since the 90s and i see no sign of it stopping.
Thanks! You are certainly correct that the various professions have
circled their own wagons and not stepped up to the challenge of understanding
the effects of
Brian:
Let's get to work on this.
Great idea!
But, before you roll up your sleeves, if you want to have any useful ideas
on the structure of labor (and leisure and consumption) then you must
begin with a CRASH effort to understand the impact of *digital* technology on
the economy.
Flick:
I hate to sound like a cold warrior myself . . .
Thanks for this illuminating RANT -- yes, you *do* seem to be trapped in
the COLD WAR (so, can I help you to escape) . . . ?? g
My first trip to China was in 1997 and I have gone back many times since.
No minders and no limit on
Ryan:
I'm wondering if you can elaborate on something
here, as I find what you're saying to be important,
of course. in applying language, like McLuhan's
environment to technologies or media, how do you
disentangle our understanding of them from the
environment itself?
Carefully?
Folks:
One of the least understood *distinctions* drawn by Marshall McLuhan was
the one he made between HOT and COOL media.
In simplest terms, this refers to the broad differences between behaviors
and attitudes in an environment saturated with radio (HOT) and with one
saturated by
John:
At this point I am quite pessimistic that the evolutionary drive
to guarantee propagation of the species, a drive inseparable from
life itself, and which includes the need for consuming any and all
energy necessary for survival-to-reproduce, can be short-circuited
by any altruistic
Patrice:
Made me think of this very issue, where 'Hubos'
(Human robots) would presumably make 'automated
grading' even more efficient, and acceptable.
Yes but this is based on another MISTAKE -- that robots are at all
anything like *humans* (typical mistake #3).
The meme that lingers
Alex:
So the electoral quake was all a fake.
Really? What is being reported over here (barely) is that this was a
maneuver to avoid another election -- with the presumption that as frustration
rises *more* people would vote for Grillo et al.
Yes, there are more twists-and-turns to come
Folks:
Once again this article shows a profound failure to deal with the effects
of technology -- pointing, among other places, to the underlying flaws in
the MIT history of technology effort.
With the advent of MASS media, industrial economics shifted from
*production* to
Duda:
Fascinating (one more time around the block with IW) while *completely*
missing any discussion of the social impact of TECHNOLOGY . . . !!
Not a single mention of the INTERNET (so, your title is misleadingly
wishful) or even of the change from an industrial organization to a
Brian:
But when you follow the technology, Mark, it leads to the
questions of social reproduction and of government.
Exactly! It's really a pleasure to discuss this with someone who does
their homework! g
According to Perez, it's only after the successful resolution
of the
John:
The submersion (perversion!) of much general systems
thinking into the cybernetic/military-industrial was an
unfortunate result of crossovers between all these people
(and others) at the time.
As I emphasized to Brian, when you look at any of this with perversion
and
Brian:
And the question is: Does this represent the
longed-for foundation of a new expansionist wave?
Or (more likely in my view) just the agitated death
throes of neoliberal informationalism?
There you go again! g You really can't put an ideology on these
developments, since they are
Ed/Brian/Keith:
Thank you for this wonderful essay . . .
Hurray for the nettime lovefest! Ed loves Keith. Keith loves Brian.
Brian loves (depends if you mean in public or in private) . . . ?? g
Here's the discussion about Keith's *manifesto* on Facebook --
_Mark Stahlman_
Brian:
Now, both Sugihara and Arrighi are clearly idealizing the
Industrious Revolution, and I am not so sure (at all) that you
would find these good things happening in the factories and
supply-chains of Sony or the Toyota Motor Company!
Does either Sugihara or Arrighi ever mention
Folks:
I presume that some on this list read the material from STRATFOR, an
Austin TX based private intelligence network (mostly derived from foreign
journalist inputs, according to the Wikileaks internal emails released
last year) run by George Friedman.
George sees everything through
Vuk:
Sounds fascinating -- hope you have a great time and looking forward to the
fruits of your ART!
By Technology Cycle do you mean Freeman/Perez's (Schumpeter/Kondratiev)
Techno-economic Paradigms or McLuhan's book -- radio -- television --
Internet or something else or you don't know
Folks:
This is a post I made on the _Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs
History Society_ (http://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/) blog --
Hello:
Vice regulation is, of course, an *economic* topic which is at the heart
of capitalism -- as it has been at least since early 18th century
Brian:
Your ruminations about the problems with the book are very important.
Most of human history has been conducted through discussions and conflicts
that cannot be put into books.
A culture that is locked into books is a very ODD one indeed. This is
the topic of McLuhan's !962
Folks:
I'm curious about why there is so little discussion, let alone *righteous*
anger, about television on this list?
Could it be that many of those who post actually want their thoughts and
actions to be noticed -- by television?
Activist often connotes those who participate in
Carl:
This is exactly the kind of sleazy, power-worshipping bullshit
(h/t the late Hunter S. Thompson) that plays well at the Aspen
Institute, a hangout of Li and other pet philosphers of global
capitalism.
No doubt. However, there are TWO glaring problems with your analysis --
1)
Folks:
Indeed. So, what is the question?
Li: What is the end of political governance?
That sounds pretty abstract. Means and ends? What is really being
discussed here?
Throughout the interview, the constant underpinning is industrialization
and :economic development.
So, is the
Keith:
In your chapter on money, you say --
In the second half of the twentieth century, humanity
formed a world society – a single interactive social
network – for the first time.
Really? Does China want to a part of this world society? Or Brazil?
Or Russia or India or Mexico or
Jon:
Thanks for trying to wrestle with all this. While the analysis being
discussed has been available for 50+ years, it has only rarely been considered
as applicable to current events. The developments of the past 10+ years
and, in particular, the current economic crisis compels us to
Nettime:
Michael Wolff, who I met 15 years ago when negotiating to buy a business
from him, is a very smart guy -- particularly about advertising.
Listen to what he says. There is no there there. We are now in a DIGITAL
economy and Facebook was sold (by its own management) as if we were
Jon:
AS i wrote earlier, i'm doubtful about this - especially
given the marketing succes of Apple, and the way that
people seem to throw away old phones and tablets in
a rush to get the newest Apple thing, which often does
not seem to be a necessary improvement.
As the folks at Apple
Keith:
How could any economy be one thing, especially the digital economy?
Fine question!
Because technology defines the *environment* in which we live -- so
regardless of what we bring to the situation, the *ground* of our
experience is the SAME!
ECONOMY means (etymologically) how we
Marc:
We now, in the West, are a society of individuals
in search of society.
Very well said! And, therein lies the problem *and* the solution.
As in an every man/woman for themselves situation, there is no chance for
*coherence* and coming up with a common STRATEGY is totally out of
Jon:
The *effect* of digital media is to directly undermine conspicuous
consumption which REQUIRED mass-media to prop it up. It's OVER!!
Interesting point, but any evidence for it?
Sure -- the inability of any of the developed economies to grow.
For some unexplained reason -- which is
JH:
At any rate, much of the concept of capital investment
and such abstractions lose any reason to exist without
a passively operating consuming class which dominates
the developed world.
Excellent observation but . . . that is EXACTLY what has *already*
happened!
The *effect* of
Self-conscious-artists-everywhere:
By now, Lascaux has grown principally into a
massive conservation/preservation industry mobilizing
vast resources and hundreds of experts, many more
than those actually concerned with its artistic content.
Lascaux was NOT meant to be art!
These are
Dmytri:
Eliminating privilege is a political struggle, not a technical one.
Ahah -- therein lies the conundrum. Are you sure that you can defend
this, apparently controversial, priority scheme?
Where does one's politics come from? In particular, what might *cause*
an anti-privilege
Brian:
If my dear friend Mark Stahlman were right, that is, if life in
democratic societies were always and ever simply the rule of
the powerful minority over the powerless majority, then another
consequence must necessarily ensue.
Thanks
Armin:
I find that phrase 'let's be honest' highly problematic
and just like 'complex' it serves a certain purpose of
cutting discussions short.
Not my intent at all. In fact, if you look at my let's be honest
comment in context (i.e. the paragraph you took it from), you will see that
Ed:
what I see in the words and actions of a Connard
is desperation and an identity crisis.
Yes, I think you are right . . . well beyond Connard, the ruling class
is in seriously bad shape!
The *problem* with neo-liberalism is that GIMME MORE is not a class
cohesive or even
Brian:
Imagine a world from which art has been surgically removed.
Replace it with entertainment and compete 'till you're blue.
As you know, artists have always depended on patrons -- as reflected in
the $120M bid for Munch's SCREAM yesterday (and the way that Munch became a
cultural
Hello:
What is the digital exactly?
At last, someone is asking the right question . . . !!
The digital means the one dividing into two.
Actually, that would be BINARY -- named after binary arithmetic, with
only two values. The widely used term bit is actually a contraction
of binary
Allan:
The TOTALITARIANISM of capitalism is simply that *everything* has a
PRICE.
Therefore, many people are naturally obsessed with *prices* and, often
enough, those who tend to spend their lives focused on justice also fall
into conversation about how Facebook can justify its own price
Keith:
Thanks for your thoughtful and generous reply.
My fascination with the Germans is certainly driven in part by my inability
to read the language (plus some potential ancestral linkage) and, alas, my
French isn't proficient enough to read Dumont in the original but I'll
gladly look
Brian:
Mark, this one is truly fascinating. Send updates as you go.
Thanks. Here's some more . . .
The key question, I believe, is what happened to VIRTUE in these
socio-economic transitions.
As you know, the *four* cardinal virtues and, thus, the foundation of
Western culture --
Mr. Ghost-of-Wells:
As your email address indicates, you are apparently a fan of H.G. Wells.
Of course, the Morlocks and Eloi (plural, one l) are the dramatis
persona in Well's 1895 Time Machine.
By the year 802,701 AD, _humanity_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_race) has evolved
Folks:
In preparation for some work on the impact of digital technology on
political-economy, I have been re-reading Mandeville, Smith, Maltham,
RIccardo
and others (including various commentators like Marx) to try to sort out
what *assumptions* were made about humans in the beginning of
JH:
Best to walk away, scatter, make a new life elsewhere,
and let the police fall flat on their faces as they push
their phalanx around the urban centers, alone.
Of course! This is what is already happening. All but for the few who
haven't made it to the 21st century yet.
C'mon
Jodi:
This post from Mark Stahlman is the most naive, misinformed,
self-deceived, and deceptive piece of writing I've ever seen on this list.
Thanks (but you must be new to the list g)!
Have you ever actually tried to *do* in anything in Washington? I have --
many times.
The US
Joshua:
I was wondering if there is also a transcription of the QA -- since,
as is often the case, that's where the rhetorical nuance of the
presentation tends to be expressed.
I believe it was there that Doctorow emphasized the *analogies* of the WAR
ON DRUGS as well as the one-time
Sascha:
Exactly! You can't OCCUPY the *moral* high-ground when your own personal
morals are dubious to idiotic to plain-and-simple selfish.
Furthermore, the CAUSES of income-and-rights inequality are not being
examined in any depth, so the INTELLIGENCE high-ground isn't being *occupied*
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