Re: <nettime> Protocols and Crises

[Michael Goldhaber <michael@goldhaber.org>]

   I admit to being slightly mystified by what you say, Felix. Let's start
   with protocols. An example used decades ago in discussions of
   artificial intelligence was the protocol for restaurant dining: you go
   in the door, wait to be seated, are shown to table, sit down, examine
   the menu , eventually order, ...etc. (Incidentally, in my book
   "Reinventing Technology", 1986, I suggested that technological
   innovation is like legislation, in effect creating what you call would
   presumably call new protocols, and that therefore innovation should be
   subject to democratic oversight.) Obviously all human cultures have
   numerous protocols, but  local protocols risk losing ground to the
   protocols introduced by  forces of globalization that you speak of,
   apparently, as neo-liberalism.

   So are you ascribing the search for nationalist strongmen as simply an
   attempt to save or revert to older protocols?  In the case, say, of
   Poland, something like that might well make sense. Perhaps also in the
   case of ISIS. I am less sure it makes sense in the US "rust belt" that
   gave rise to Trumpism. The people there want their good jobs back, jobs
   predicated, in reality, on the post-WWII ascendancy of the US that came
   about in large measure from the fact that other industrial countries
   had been battered by the war. Is that wish really about protocols? I
   suppose one could make the case, but the protocols in question would
   have to include women's rights, anti-racism, etc.(I guess that also
   could be argued for the case of Poland and ISIS.)

   Women's rights and anti-racism were perhaps carried along by
   neo-liberalism, but seem to me hardly central to it.( if they are
   central, that would make anti-neo-liberalism much less dismissible, I
   think. )

   Finally, it seems to me that ISIS, Trumpism,  and Brexit at least, owe
   a lot to the protocols of the Internet, including Facebook, Twitter,
   etc. How does the fit into your argument?

   Best,

   Michael

   On Jan 30, 2017, at 4:12 AM, Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com> wrote:

   [This text is an abstract for a larger argument I hope to develop on how
   to frame the political character of the crisis, by understanding the
   appeal of trump and other stongmen, while trying to avoid the trap of
   leftwing nationalism (which I think is largely an illusion). I know it's
   very abstract and I'm not even sure if the argument really works, but
   it's perhaps a start.... Felix]
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