brian carroll on Thu, 1 May 2014 05:40:37 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Shoshana Zuboff: Dark Google |
Interesting read, writer Shoshana Zuboff has an impressively coherent view. Prior to delving to the source article, I was puzzled by the quotes below enigmatically referencing [logic] over and over, which was the original purpose of my post- to ask a question or critique a condition of language that may establish a boundary or barrier to communication of ideas likely required for developing 'shared views'. Though in reading the article further, the clarity of argument and perspective provided more depth and context to evaluate and assimilate the observations- though what became more clear was the condition of boundedness of thinking, relating, communicating- the author themselves acknowledging. For instance, a default situation exists (in a non-empirical framework for mass communications) that a majority of details and argument structure is missing from any given viewpoint, whereby making observations is dependent on hidden assumptions that cannot be accounted for within a local text itself. Such as the specific extended meaning of a word, or a combination of words together (onto sentence, paragraphs) as structures, frameworks, that may be sturdy and rest on solid foundations or shaky, and prone to collapse given any tweak or critique this way or that. Communication today in the sense of 'ideas' exists largely in a realm of the ungrounded, never fully error-checked or corrected, because it is not even possible within the language tools being used; though 'logic' references this capacity to do so, yet functions as a symbolic entity or mysterious force, seemingly signifying that bedrock truth exists underneath it all - and everything is rationalized, understood, to greatest depth. And so it is like a condition, to write a viewpoint, share ideas, that can exist in a bounded space that allows local observations minus total accountability of reasoning structures, though it is proposed these variances and inaccuracies or limited-views or observations are and must be accounted for or grounded, via other observers who relate or short-circuit in a context of another viewpoint - finding their place inside, outside, or betwixt-and-between it; thus the paradox of interpretation. How does the writer write and the reader read a text; what is being said and what is communicated. And oftentimes it is presumed that there is a -gap- that exists between the representation and the reality, which is a condition of language. This at the level of language, say written, where a 'word' references something ('word'=word) and thus to create or knit or code/program together strings of such words in sequences that establish some meaning, a given interpretation based on a structural framework, resting on certain shared or unshared assumptions, to some given degree. (And I think the text seems to indicate that what was once relied upon for this, may no longer be in use and yet a new approach has not yet been established.) I think it is evident that [logic] is a particular boundary condition for interpretation that has functioned perhaps more closely with ~reasoning in the past, though never to the degree needed to surpass or resolve problems of language - maybe the failures of Enlightenment thinking and trap of discourse through more and more languaging without greater clarity or cohesion gives a clue that something is amiss along these historic, ideological lines. In that thinking and beliefs become dogmatic, rigid, incapable of addressing errors. Perhaps most notably the ability of science to edit out unwelcome dimensions for a purified viewpoint. And the thing is, language allows this. The existing forms of written and oral communication as it relates to establishing of rules and laws and methodologies and practices and pedagogy. The linearization and serialization of viewpoints, never integrating into a common view that reaches beyond the limit of existing language constructs, the tools not allowing the depth that is required by logic to be mediated within its own framework. This could be considered in a context of analytic tools of computing, particularly surveillance, whereby deconstructing of these variances, nuances, variables, then distills greater meaning by how things connect at other integrated levels- a hidden empiricism of the state running in the background while individuals are atomized, particularized, by unique demographics that only align in minimal not maximal ways. And this can be a result of ungrounded language, yes, though moreso, ungrounded thinking, awareness, observation, a loss of connection with truth that is not already warped, muddied, vague or itself untrue. This fallen conceptualization is what is taught, shared, related to and through, as ideas and beliefs, and can likewise be manipulated to shape and form behaviors. Thus if a boundary exists between what is mediated and what is, there can be a separation between the truth of the condition and how it is understood, how it is communicated about. And the point here is that written language in its existing approach defaults to this disconnect, particularly in regard to the absence of logic in the frameworks to an extreme degree. Instead it functions as an assumption, not much more than at the level of opinion, at a most general distance from the specificities of words or concepts or arguments. It is vagueness, and in this gap or remove from maximal empiric accounting for truth of ideas, viewpoints form and are shared that can move around and make observations that may touch on matters here and there yet be entirely contradictory at the structural level, with the same concepts used, if they were grounded in a shared framework and all errors removed nor allowed beyond hypothesis. An impossible task in the present, yet absolutely necessary if to ground communication in a context of reality, and have this common condition be based on truth, not roving opinions. What the computer analytics allow is integration via likely various logical processes, whether data mining of statistics or sensor networks diagnostics or linguistic parsing of texts to deduce meaning. And so this typing of text whether emails or books or essays, is not only an issue of interpretation within a human framework where it can be evaluated, 'reasoned with' in a fuzzy approximation and accounting of assumptions and their validity and accuracy as it relates to the larger empiric model carried within decentralized minds and consciousness, by accounting for errors, correcting them via interpretation, hermeneutics, "translation" from variability to local models of reasoning or others that span beyond the limited or bounded words and concepts into their connected frameworks, conceptual scaffolding, the circuitry that then finds grounding, in some truth- to greater or lesser degree, though always finite. Bounded in its modeling as language, by what can be written, read, thought, exchanged. For computers deconstructing 'language' and interpreting it via related frameworks, this depth of consideration can be established, meaning or presumptions can be extracted and related empirically to all other texts and contexts, as they can feasibly be coherently related. Tools exist to break-down language and communications into its constituent parts, to test various hypothesis, to falsify or weave together views, to weigh probabilities, condense, transform many different collections into a common model. And "meaning" in language and communication requires this, to get at its actual meaning. It is necessary, because words and concepts are so ambiguous. And so delving layers furher into analytics relies further upon 'words' and concepts and again, logic. For how this is approached, in what ways, for what aims. And given the approach, this could tend towards absolute ideology in an ungrounded context, validating tyranny, and-or towards a grey-area of interpretation that spans human from inhuman agendas behind-the-scenes, as this hidden empiric processing takes place. And yet out front, on the outside of that public-private state analytic regime, when people are writing or sharing viewpoints, it is at the most superficial layer of known language dynamics and tools do not exist to go beyond this bounded condition to communicate ideas. That is, to break the linearity, to ground with truth, beyond or outside problems with strings of [word] variables that function as if prime number truths, by default of simply writing out a sequence of words then judging validity on an overall impression, in that general vagueness, allowing for ambiguity and inaccuracies if communicating a single point or observation while using a vast many words and perhaps errors, to rely on, to make some minor view known, in this way always and ever recompiling the inaccurate source to render some new or unique or unstated viewpoint which then vanishes likewise until another view is established, etc(etc). In this way, at least for some, it may be clear that problems with 'the Internet' at large, though also its various details such as concepts of [openness] are not actually representative of the actual situation, its reality. And instead are a function of language that is amiss, that observations are not taking place in a common robust foundational structure and instead rely on 'theoretic' conceptualizations. If the Internet actually is 'free' or 'open', in what sense is this not the case with 'freedom of ideas' or 'freedom of debate' or 'freedom of discussion'. Are these not separable from a technical assumption based on rights of consumers to have control over their place in corporate development schemes- and why is this not accounted for as a baseline (more in line with democracy, constitutions, individual rights). This is not an issue of them-us between people and corporations or governments, it would seem. It also involves an issue of where people exist, what they observe, how they think and relate, and what means exist to communicate what they know. And prior to Google, prior to the Internet, there has been a boundedness that has likely caused more grief and misery and hardship than all plagues and wars combined. And that is inaccurate language, incapable of allowing what exists to be mediated within its conceptualization. A most basic issue of literacy that is able to evaluate its own capability and realize: these words do not function at the level required to represent the reality that exists. And this is an issue of logic, at its very core, where truth exists and structures circuitry outward, which then can be tapped into and-or referenced. Thus consider a condition of language in which truth has been severed from the very act of communication. Where it has become irrelevant to account for actual truth, and instead function at the level of opinion, amongst peoples, while machinery churns away at a deeper condition and connection, not necessarily aligned with human values or principles, and makes decisions on the global behalf. The analytics are able to tear it apart, break it down to analyze it in a way humans may do via interpretative engagement with ideas, yet people who are not themselves grounded are not able to relate within a shared empiric framework necessary to counter this condition, within language and ideas themselves - beyond local views that are partial and rely upon errors as a basis for saying, which then functions in a communicative bubble, suspension of disbelief, allowing access to whatever truths may exist, yet also not allowing this condition to ever be transcended within the language used, likewise. Language itself is the trap, a confinement, the limiting condition, bringing about or reinforcing confusion and distancing or prevalence of local detached models of events, relying on warped and skewed observer frameworks; and in this, 'logic' itself in its historic default is validation, in that a too-simple binary view based on authority is taught to people, a form of indoctrination into the misplaced faith (in quasi-private relativistic methodology that aligns with science and technology as religion), and thus 'self-belief' can be equated with universal truth via observational bias, which is in some way outsourcing accountability of truth to hierarchic structures of authority for their validation, and as people align with these forces, they benefit from its shared viewpoint, represented as if truth, and indicated this way by its most materialized manifestations. It would seem that this process cannot occur the other way around, where 'writing' is what starts in logical frameworks, within existing written and oral language, because it breaks all the rules and protocols for relations that reinforce the hierarchic 'shared interpretation' that is ever extended by people referencing valued concepts as part of discourse, various exchange. And this gets at that boundedness issue. If logical accounting is not allowed beyond existing and biased interpretations that even default to an antihuman agenda, hidden or unhidden. That is, a grounded connection with truth, within the ideas exchanged, in their accuracy, and removed of errors or ambiguity that may allow it to persist as pseudo-truth or even lies that function against stated goals- yet if never accounted for, allowed to function as virii, worms, propaganda, brainwashing, etc. "Internet of Things" one such term, given how it is accounted for. The commercial technical utopianism is of a corporate technocratic perspective that some may uncritically align with, due to mediating the truth of the situation in a bounded condition, versus in other more involved and difficult frameworks, involving behaviorism and tyrannical control over populations, where buy-in occurs as a result of calls for ~innovation. The goal of writing this was to get at the idea that what is occurring online and offline, in the ways it is occurring, can be mediated and interpreted in various contexts and constructs. Yet when pulling back from the immediacy of a given observation, a more general condition also exists that involves a bounded interaction and engagement or lack thereof, with this entire situation. And in the observing of it, the reflective consideration and evaluation, parsing of the data and connecting various dots in constellations of mind, here and there, what spans the distance between peoples as shared truth is not what is being represented in [words] to the degree necessary to deal with the situation in the terms that exist. Basically, society and civilization are mute to the events taking place, in that the representations are misaligned and inaccurate and incapable of modeling events that exist, in particular using language in its historic heirloom quality that reinforces and extends what is occurring, instead of resolves it and allows other options to exist. This is not the case, and it occurs at the level of logic that is not accounted for within texts, ideas, viewpoints, relations, exchange. Though ideological machines and peoples have no need of this errancy in their purified secured hidden estate. So this condition of language makes it impossible to accurately address issues that are voiced and brought up to be 'reasoned with' by many minds, towards some greater empiric clarity that instead must remain bounded within and by this very language, the very tools used, the letters on the keyboards required to type, or sounds used to convey viewpoints, stringing data together as if fait accompli, truth has been served, instead of lost in this process. The assumption that the text is a peak ability instead of a regression, the sinkhole of bureaucracy and blackhole of relativism, faith in communication accessing truth beyond the event horizon while annihilated in the very process, never accessible. A mental, conceptual stasis develops such that what is assumed true can never be tested- beyond belief. This enigmatic conflict. A recent interview of Noam Chomsky outlines this basic situation... Noam Chomsky | Talks at Google (~ 5 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3PwG4UoJ0Y# 2. What is the most interesting insight the science of Linguistics has revealed but that the public at large seems not to know about or appreciate? 13:00 If it is acknowledged there is a -perhaps existential- crisis within language, as language, that establishes this bounded condition and incapacitates observers by means of communication, (whereby normalizing a process or procedure makes what is necessary within its realm an actual impossibility) - it perhaps is at the very crux of the observation that language is not primarily about communication, and instead about thinking. Its purpose more tied to logic than presently acknowledged, and that, secondly, its meaning cannot be assumed, though at present is believed to be by default of binary analysis, faith in preconceived viewpoints that reinforce models of 'shared truth' based on power, though which is only partially grounded or ungrounded and functions at the level of protected opinion, especially within a behavioral context. In this way, belief and faith in a binary worldview validates binary language and the question is resolved which then serves a machine state as authority over human civilization. In other words, in its existing fallen condition, language can be unremedied, and mediated in biased binary frameworks that preference some views over others by default of what truth is acknowledged and shared, regardless of whether it is actually true beyond the signage or the words and concepts and beliefs said to represent events, signification validated outside the realm of accountable truth beyond what serves a given perspective and its peculiar interests. Language allows this by default, where validated shared perspective correlates with power, and thus determines truth (perhaps in some way related to use-value, even). In this way lies the power of rationalizations, reasoning that detaches itself from external, outside, or even internal truth that contradicts a viewpoint and is ignored, or defeated, as acts of purification. This would relate to false absolutism, a false perspective, whereby a limited and finite view is believed to be universal, though reliant on errors, warped and skewed in observations that then become normalized, tested against, standardized, used to indoctrinate, made 'reason' as if the sheer act of communication is conveying this truth- because it is believed true, etc. So binary belief scales very well to shared worldview, and issues of thinking are as simple as picking a successful interpretation, setting up a perimeter, allowing no more questions that threaten that view, purging dissenting observations, and turning it all into a religion of sorts, where 'the word' maps to deeds, justifies them, laws, behaviors, morality, punishment, yet can be detached from truth, requiring a biased, skewed, warped, distorted framework from which to mediate events. Twisted, madness even as worldview, shared by many. And in a worst case scenario, also by machines. If the people behave like animals in their reasoning, and the machines treat people like animals, and that is all that is happening, then this. And "Reality, Inc." describes this situation, sorting everything into those analytical data boxes. The second observation is more involved, though also tends to different human from animals and-or machine-based behavioral analysis as a mode of grounding ambiguous events in what is the more zoological mindset of science and technology removed of their moral and ethical foundation and in service to antihuman principles and agendas. The variability of a [concept] as this may exist in terms of evaluation. Perhaps it is very simple and there is a simple and immediate resolution of this quandary, whereby [word] must equate with [word1] because the other options [word2-wordN] are not even considered or calculable. Or that once having interpreted the sign, it is forever answered as a question, and interpretation becomes molar, occurring at another scale, and the details or intricacies of consideration are then off-limits, as a right/wrong or true/false evaluation exists as if by some other process of consideration. In that, if an entity knows something is already right or wrong, they may not need to parse it themselves or even be able to, yet can benefit from the belief by siding with a viewpoint. This would tend towards a non-conceptual or non-critical thinking or evaluation of language that may be more aligned with robots or animals, given what cues or models are in use. And while vague to try to conceive of this as a condition, that some indeed cannot process at the level of evaluation that others do, and yet communication is held within a shared domain as if 'truth' can bridge all viewpoints, even when reduced to vast inaccuracies of shared belief that either function with a greater truth hidden inside or lost within the language enigma. And for the binarist this shallow approach could reinforce the latter as the basis for deception and exploitation, a winning move and game over for those of the opposing viewpoint. While for the former, those who seek to ground their ideas and communications in truth, it may still exist and persist within and beyond this ruined condition -- yet remain bounded by thinking that attempts to access and connect with it, this essential connection with the shared self. So if language is about thinking, what logic an observer relies upon for observations effects what can happen, what is thought, how it is conceived and considered, modeled and shared. The binarists gain language by losing greater truth, reliant upon errors and relativism, in that ideas tend toward ideology the further 'reasoning' is extended in onesided evaluations. The other option is that 2-value (binary) logic is the problem of language, this limited condition and that the grey-area of life, via paradoxical logic (3-value: true/neutral or unknown/false, & N-value: true/N/false) must be mediated within language, as it exists in observation and thinking, yet is not allowed or effectively accessible within endless linear strings of data, and instead requires new conceptualization, of diagrams, modeling, circuitry, multilinear ecological relations and dynamics. Existing language has been founded upon a binary mindset that now is ideologically saturated and dead as language. It is a rancid disease-ridden corpse, nearly absent its truth. The problems of the Internet, of this or that, are firstly and primarily problems of language that involves how thinking exists in people and is or is not being communicated within given or necessary frameworks. The problem of the Internet or computers is also a problem of computing and technology, though moreso, how they are conceived and programmed, how the code exists is a problem of language - not writing it differently in a better optimization-- the thinking itself is wrong at the core, as with written language, so too code, programming. Thinking is off. Conceptualization. More communication of the same is bounded, destined to repeat the same patterns over and over, through extending original assumptions further. So how to write if it is impossible within the existing means of communication. How to interpret is related to this -- how do people interpret texts. And it indicates a condition of variability likely exists for some yet is not actually accounted for as part of the challenges of relating via text as medium (or face to face exchanges), in that interpretation and parsing of other views may require grounding of observations into internal models and frameworks -- whether or not they are actually true. So the issue of inaccuracy persists by default, and this relates to communicative inefficiency whereby massive noise and trace amounts of truth are exchanged and rebuilt anew for interactions and evaluations, and how robust or creaky these structures, based on the integrity of the thinking, then either spans or distances viewpoints. In that 'truth' can be shared via connective or related-to/through circuitry, or shared lies via pseudo-truth or deceptions. This is critically important, because in a high-fidelity approximation of interactions, those savvy to observation may be carrying multiple models of evaluation and parsing to different structures of truth, pseudo-truth, lies, unknowns, simultaneously, and thus [logic] may be inherent in how data and ideas are processed, compartmentalized, acted upon or ignored, yet 'truth' may still function in an ambiguous condition, a realm of dense impenetrable fog at the empirical level, allowing only local navigation or relations, where this boundedness of language provides cover for another reality that is unaccounted for by the machine state. Or functioning in parallel, in different processing beyond the horizon of biased observers, even as fictive overseers with godlike powers in the bubble condition, reliant upon constraints. So moving from a simple binary model of evaluating texts and communication for meaning, in that a onesided ideological viewpoint could be established, voiced or spoken about even as a basis for mass communications, while a more complex and involved model could co-exist that is mediating truth to its core, ground state, whereby the enigmatic characteristics give way to deep interconnectedness in other dimensions and at other levels that likewise are unaccounted for, for those opposed in principle, passive words and active deeds. Thus subtexts and various other dynamics and processes may be evaluated by observers, and may be shared and transmitted via communication at some layer in the enigmatic confusion, and whether or not you notice may involve genes, mindset, and initiation or rites of passage. An esoteric model of language then could exist, persist, in parallel, communicating beyond the boundary yet still held back or confined by it - indicating what needs to happen yet cannot occur within the existing approach. And thus it is the value or truth communicated, yet not grounded within the world or governing language in its overt relation to material development, due to the politics of language and the need to sustain the ongoing illusion of a false empiricism based on shared, biased relativistic self-interest of certain demographics. To cede language then, communication in its simplistic relation, is to forfeit territory that is then deemed conquered, owned by the victorious interpretation and its shared [reality]. And this can be as simple as agreeing with the viewpoint, which validates its truth, or being wrong and 'unreal' for not accepting these terms in the animalistic mindset and machine-processing. Thus to remember that such a concept is _variable, in its truth. It is a question, or hypothesis, a series of structures and considerations that must validate the presumption of accuracy and in this way, achieving universalism of view by its majority representation can be delusional if ignoring parameters beyond those of belief, opinion. To the binarist it does not matter, the viewpoint has been secured, it has 'won' the contest, success and administration is its proof. So within the string of words, the simplistic model could coexist within a more advanced analysis and consideration involving more distributed models that in their localizations have established grounding, yet not at the larger integrated scale, to compete with the false POV of ungrounded empiricism, allowed by an relativistic political worldview functioning against humanity. And yet it is through this language these distanced connections can be made, and communication thus retains some vital ability to transmit and relay signals, to help align the structures in their variety and depth, and build and develop the larger integrated framework. If tools were created that helped establish this communication ability in grounded truth, it would radically reshape the condition of language, whereby 'thinking' would be the central goal of communication, including organization of thoughts of the self and with others, via software, hardware, computer development. In that perhaps modeling and diagramming is what is needed in these varied instances (localities) to enable their connection at various scales and from various perspectives, to attain that global perspective that is often aimed for within texts, yet only illusory as words strung together due to the inherent error-rate within existing language itself, which is establishes a boundary between truth, its representation. One example of this is speaking of relations between people and Google in terms of influencing those events, and the implicit yet unstated connection to establishing corporations as citizens, where a global business can have more money and workers than a single nation state, and then thinking an individual can 'reason' with that corporate-entity as if individuals in a legal dispute, or even an activist/protest mode, when instead this could be a fictive relationship and ungrounded, unreal as to what it involves, what the undercurrents of the state involve in its military dimensions, and so on. And thus assumptions are forced or not evaluated, yet are also critical to the validity of perspective. And it is incredibly difficult to sustain a common perspective that does not start skewing due to finite language or with word-concepts that have multiple meanings or in-depth structural relations that may counter or refute certain views. And it is a condition faced by writers and thinkers, within language. Whereas if communication "tools for thinking" existed, these dynamics could be tamed and and the core hypothesis brought into the common _known framework for peer evaluation. So it matters who knows what from whatever perspectives, to N-degrees of truth, for any length of text to be validated in a given context, in terms of its accuracy, and this cannot be dealt with using existing tools and technology and language as conceived for millennia. I do the same, it is impossible to write ideas because concepts do not work like linear strings, they are multilinear, go in every direction, outside of the movement of time in one direction, and yet it can be addressed, truth can be grounded within language, yet it has to be reconceived beginning at the level of logic, and patterns, and structures, truth itself, prior to description. And here is a case for interpretation as local modeling, and testing of models against one another, that this is what is occurring in minds and brains when parsing and translating the data of other viewpoints locally. That depending on the observer and their relation with truth, their observations and communications could be reinforced and strengthened in acknowledgement of truth, or further accumulate or protect false viewpoints, if not some of both to varying degrees, unless able to work past this condition in some future scenario. --- example versions.... Quotes from (Dark Google) article: version 1: "During the second half of the twentieth century, more education and complex social experience produced a new kind of individual. No longer content to conform to the mass, more people sought their own unique paths to self-determination. [...] The arrival of the Internet provided a new way forward. [...] This was a new 'networked public sphere,' as legal scholar Yochai Benkler called it. [...] The whole topography of cyberspace then began to morph as Google and Facebook shifted away from the ethos of the public web, while carefully retaining its rhetoric. They began to develop a new [logic] of operations in what had until then been a blank area. The new zone didn't resemble the bricks and mortar world of commerce, but neither did it follow the norms of the open web. This confused and distracted users. In fact, the firms were developing a wholly new business [logic] that incorporated elements of the conventional [logic] of corporate capitalism - especially its adversarialism toward end consumers - along with elements from the new Internet world - especially its intimacy. The outcome was the elaboration of a new commercial [logic] based on hidden surveillance. Most people did not understand that they and their friends were being tracked, parsed, and mined without their knowledge or consent." // in my estimation 'logic' here is used as a symbolic placeholder for a condition of grounded truth that is believed to exist in the world, yet is not being mediated within language or signs in this comprehensive way, such that accounting for truth is detached from the language used to communicate 'ideas' and this is closely related to relativism and issues of perspective. in other words, every instance of truth is not being evaluated within the language used, such that this excerpt can be considered 'absolutely true' in its conveyance. it is incredibly easy to falsify such statements, of most any text, by finding examples to the contrary. It could involve a proposition: 'the whole topography of cyberspace began to morph', which depending on how these are conceived and evaluated could range from truth to false. It also can be at the scale of words, such as 'cyberspace' being more than online experience, though also 'logic' being more than binary decision-making and analysis, which is a default assumption and does not necessarily correlate with grounded truth, just as a signifier. And yet it is that very referencing of a [word] that seems to validate its truth, and this is the predicament. It is variable, for one thing, and for another, based on observational context and interpretation, it could vary from truth to false to unknown. It could be partly true as a word, in a particular usage or relation, beyond the page or screen. It could be mostly false in one reading and mostly true in another, based on subtext. What may be readily accessible in this relation is the essence within the communication, that turns writing into a form of painting, or some illustrative medium that does not have nor require the deductive processing of the parts and instead renders the whole instead as this 'truth' that is carried by the words and sentences into a illustrated scene or perspective. And thus whatever truth is there could be accessed, though in a general condition, at a very high or topmost layer, when what is underneath cannot be evaluated to depth or degree due to the complications of language in this same conveyance and structural approach. Is it in some sense like a landscape painting to render observations, beyond words or of empiric meaning. version 2: "During the second half of the twentieth century, more education and complex social experience produced a new kind of individual. No longer content to conform to the mass, more people sought their own unique paths to self-determination. [...] The arrival of the Internet provided a new way forward. [...] This was a new 'networked public sphere,' as legal scholar Yochai Benkler called it. [...] The whole topography of cyberspace then began to morph as Google and Facebook shifted away from the ethos of the public web, while carefully retaining its rhetoric. They began to develop a [new logic] of operations in what had until then been a blank area. The new zone didn't resemble the bricks and mortar world of commerce, but neither did it follow the norms of the open web. This confused and distracted users. In fact, the firms were developing a wholly new [business logic] that incorporated elements of the [conventional logic] of corporate capitalism - especially its adversarialism toward end consumers - along with elements from the new Internet world - especially its intimacy. The outcome was the elaboration of a new [commercial logic] based on hidden surveillance. Most people did not understand that they and their friends were being tracked, parsed, and mined without their knowledge or consent." // this is an area that pinged my brain and broke my parsing, because 'logic' is really quite difficult to address, particularly in existing language (versus modeling or diagramming), and thus my assumption was that this condition was evaluated in a particular dictionary definition that corresponds with truth, yet may not be accounted for as truth, via logic, and so it may not involve any 'new logic' to the degree stated, though finds expression in these terms because it allows the essence of the situation to be communicated, perhaps accurately, relativistically. It is not to nitpick though seek clarity in language, its truth, that likely 'logic' here is a placeholder for other ideas and concepts, such as 'strategy' or 'reasoning' which would more realistically appraise what is actually going on, and how it is not _that different than what has proceeded, in terms of a leading-edge of innovation at the edge of civilization that develops according to new or expanded principles. I think it is a false perspective that is allowed that then 'logic' seeks to validate as if an empirical reality shared as a mindset when it does not add up within the language itself, the words, sentences, in terms of their truth. If taking ideas out of context, that is one aspect, yet considered in terms of 'thinking itself', if all ideas are 'out of context' by default, and this context is not allowed to develop, then most any writing that is referencing a standard library (used for interpretation) could be full of skew, distortion, warped relations by default. That said, while interpretation is _variable, and in a certain instance an observer may not be able to accommodate the assumptions (say 'logic') though replace or substitute (translate) another set of concepts in terms of interpretative options, then [business logic] could be translated into [business strategy] or [business philosophy] and then retain its meaning in the structures it may be related to locally, in terms of modeling and grounded truth. In that a given concept could be a placeholder for another concept or idea or model, nested within it, and language has this capacity to expand and contract, this fractal ability within words and ideas, as if interrelated molecular structures, some aligned some not, and this quality or characteristic or these parameters seem correlated with deconstruction and linguistics, as a method of reading, yes, though potentially also of writing (potential hypertext, wiki, etc). Then again, with strings and interpretation, the processing of the data stream into a given or considered framework - this entire situation is itself variable. And at its core what establishes and helps determine 'meaning', that is, how truth that exists is accessed and represented else absent, is [logic]. And thus a binary or 2-value approach would yield, say, the above evaluation and discard the issue of logic as logic, to gain a more descriptive aspect of ideas. Whereas, if this viewpoint where revisited - the endless looping that language is - in time, it would be possible to have multiple co-existing interpretations and perhaps in some instance this use of logic is correct, such that it is variable, and thus multiple logics could be a subtext that is represented by its use, indicating a 2-value, 3-value, N-value Google may exist as a type of superposition of activity in this same context, and that a multidimensional, non-flat earth approach (referencing Flatland and more going on than perceived in certain conditions) could be a highly accurate modeling of the situation conceptually, whereby [logic] is variable, does not default to a particular interpretation except logic as a concept, in its span of truth. This references the idea of 'recontextualization' of a text, then, by the variability of a word or concept that is shifted or changed or held in [superposition]. The circuitry that is grounded in truth could change, one interpretation to the next, in differing frameworks and structures, yet in its interrelated details could emerge some visions otherwise unseen or beyond view, if only taking one path or another. And so how many dimensions can be accommodated by a given observer, and how does this relate to conceptualization and how logic is identified, established, and parsed, and a basis for 'reasoning', writing and reading, interpretation. In some sense perhaps there is an issue of packaging, compression, unpacking nested data related to concepts and language, and yet while it may automatically occur in evaluating of texts and communicating ideas by placing them into form, that tools do not exist to shape language in the way that thinking actually occurs, especially in logical terms, of truth. version 3: "During the second half of the twentieth century, more education and complex social experience produced a new kind of individual. No longer content to conform to the mass, more people sought their own unique paths to self-determination. [...] The arrival of the Internet provided a new way forward. [...] This was a new 'networked public sphere,' as legal scholar Yochai Benkler called it. [...] The whole topography of cyberspace then began to morph as Google and Facebook shifted away from the ethos of the public web, while carefully retaining its rhetoric. They began to develop a new [ ] of operations in what had until then been a blank area. The new zone didn't resemble the bricks and mortar world of commerce, but neither did it follow the norms of the open web. This confused and distracted users. In fact, the firms were developing a wholly new business [ ] that incorporated elements of the conventional [ ] of corporate capitalism - especially its adversarialism toward end consumers - along with elements from the new Internet world - especially its intimacy. The outcome was the elaboration of a new commercial [ ] based on hidden surveillance. Most people did not understand that they and their friends were being tracked, parsed, and mined without their knowledge or consent." # 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