Re: <nettime> Strom vs Morozov: knockdown punch

[Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>]

dear Brian,

many thanks for this review! I admit would never had the time to read through the articles and less than ever spot the tension you highlight, your dedication makes it possible for many of us to follow interesting debates as this one. I guess we are all familiar with Morozov's ideas by now, certainly more than Strom's...

On Thu, 30 Jun 2022, Brian Holmes wrote:

> This is much better than Morozov: it cuts straight to the chase, rather than beating around the theoretical bush. Strom is saying that the new standard model of contemporary capitalism emerges when technoscience is applied to produce and condition the environments in which business operations are carried out and consumer choices are made. This is a classic cybernetic strategy: to become the master of a feedback loop you do not attempt to directly control all the participating nodes. Instead, you create and continuously adjust the framework in which those nodes interact.

reading what you write here really strikes a chord in me, to the point I'll shamelessly put forward a link to my much dumber and less theoretical witnessing here, from the shores of practice: https://medium.com/think-do-tank/lead-or-follow-the-dilemma-of-ict-industry-for-the-coming-decade-4f83ee1851bc

what I propose is to look at this "small simulation" of what is happening already since some years in the free and open source (F/OSS) world, around the landmark acquisition of RedHat by IBM and following the politics of the Linux Foundation in imposing (by means of lobbying) new immature software components like systemd as a "standard".

> So to wrap it up, the "standard model" of contemporary capitalism is definitely not a firm selling advertising widgets. Nor even less is it a mere parasite feeding on *your* boundless creativity. Instead, the standard model now entails an expansive "mode of practice" that actively builds, monitors and adjusts the productive/communicative frameworks in which the individual's tastes and productive potentials will be expressed, actualized and satisfied, ideally with no leftover energies of dissent.

in F/OSS too, this is not done anymore by competition, like 20 years ago at the time Ubuntu desertified the artisanal GNU/Linux distro panorama with its "global philantropy" approach. Today this is done by
 1. taking control of the "standard making literature" and processes
 2. turning competition into an R&D playing field to "test standards" and "fail fast" (cit. startup economy) at the expense of those who play

this is not anymore about an oligopoly of unfair competitors, but a standard establishing presence steering the playing field. the hegemony on point 1. is crucial and it can be compared to other contexts (try s/standard/law/). The standard making entry point is not anymore based on technical expertise, but is fenced by lobbying and a steep price to be paid by active presence through the meanders of democracy (the literature) something that only very big organizations can afford today in terms of labor and seniorship.

> Still, one large and timely question remains unasked: What are the Googles and Amazons and all their political allies going to do in the face of an emergent governing logic that is not cybernetic at all, but instead, aims at ideological and police control of individual bodies characterized by sex, class and race? In short, what is cybernetic capitalism going to do about the new fascism?

they are going to pose as a democratic presence in the rooms of power, while being assured they will be gaining power over guinea pigs who were once competitors and nation states since standards and conditions of infrastructure access are in their full control and laws just follow (with the golden exception of anti-trust laws). For instance see the "kind move" by APPL and GOOG to offer access to the BTLE infrastructure on their phones for the techno-fascist initiatives of "corona-pass" applications. Those were ultimately of no use to defend anyone from the syndemic crisis, while pouring emergency funds in the pockets of the tech industry, and activating a number of state actors for the R&D of technologies that are now "mature enough" (both technically and legally) to be used by their original gatekeepers.

ciao


-- 

  Denis "Jaromil" Roio      https://Dyne.org think &do tank
  Ph.D, CTO & co-founder    software to empower communities
  ✉ Haparandadam 7-A1, 1013AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  𝄞 crypto κρυπτο крипто क्रिप्टो 加密 التشفير הצפנה
  ⚷ 6113D89C A825C5CE DD02C872 73B35DA5 4ACB7D10

#  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: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: