Patrice Riemens on Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:39:10 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> IT for Full Spectrum Dominance: No Escape, No Future


Dears,

This piece is written with my 'disappeared' friend Arjen Kamphuis in mind, and also thinking of Paul Virilio, the recently deceased French thinker, among whose translators I am proud to have been.

A few days ago Vesna send me, off-list, and because I am supposed to be (also) an urban geographer, a number of articles from the Dutch architectural platform 'Failed Architecture'

https://failedarchitecture.com/about/

This one:

https://failedarchitecture.com/what-the-city-of-the-future-looks-like-if-we-dont-change-course/

sortof scared me the bezejus, not so much by what it said, but by its succintness. So it was more a case of of 'I am shocked but not surprised' in the end: I had been thinking along these lines about that for quite some time.

I believe that technology as we observe it now, and as it develops further in a linear fashion, has closed our future. We are promised, not so much die (though we will, of course) but to live the impossible and unhuman life of spectres in a world not only out of our control, but out of control, period.

In fact we have existed as zombies for quite some time now.

What is it about? It is not easy (for me at last) to define, but maybe, as a geographer, I can venture into the concept of 'the loss of space as a void'. The 'conquest of space' (on Earth) has been ongoing for centuries, first abolishing the 'white spaces on the map', then mapping existing space in ever greater detail. That process is in now in its final phase: the mapping, i.e. control, of and up to the most minuscule of areas, the annulation of the most diminutive of interstices: there is nowhere to hide any more.

One of the things that triggered this realision with me is the fate of Julian Assange, holed up for 6 years now in the Equatorian Embassy in London. Twenty years ago he could have been easily smuggled out. Well maybe not easily, but it would have been feasible, with some ingenuity. No longer, technology put that to rest by replacing the human by the machine. As long as the task is single and well defined, the machine will always beat the human. Assange will not leave the embassy, our sensors will see to that.

That was the line of Manuel De Landa in 'War in the Age of Intelligent Machines': the human is the weakest link of the chain and need to be taken of the decision loop. Meaning, in fine, out of the loop altogether. This is also, unfortunately, the fundament of 'Anglo' culture, which gave us the twin incubus of Donald Trump and analytical philosophy (never mind common law and constitution-less political systems). It also spawned Silicon Valley (& associated clones) with its dreams of libertarian anarcho-capitalism embedded in, driven by, and resting upon various but consistently similar technologies of domination.

And that dispensation has won. The war is over, and we lost it. Actually I think we never really started to fight that war. I mean 'we' not as us, on nettime or unciv, but as a population and politics at large. For the tech-driven 'Californian Ideology' it has been a promenade, and not even a military one. 'We' have been conquered by the soft power of convenience, intellectual laziness, misunderstood and unprincipled pragmatism, and not the least tby avarice, captured as we were by rule #1 of neo-liberal capitalism: cut costs ... at all costs.

By now bookshelves have been filled with studies about 'the society of control'. But may be its ultimate, harrowing consequences have not yet been fully grasped: that we all are on mental, and before soon, physical death row,for the time being with a suspended sentence. To many people it doesn't make sense (neither does it to you probably). This because they (you) think that they (you) still have time at your disoposal. You do, but you no longer have space. And space primes time, always has [1].

Tech has conquered space unto its most minute detail (think nano technology, but not only, by far). What has made me suddenly realise this is viewing the first film in the 'Hunger Games' serie. I found it totally repulsive, made it only in instaltments (and with quite a few swigs of akvavit), but the technological suggestion in it is fabulous, based as it on the mere extrapolation of existing or currently being developed projects. Their outcome? 'Full spectrum dominance' of both surface and airspace (maybe deep sea is still out of reach, but can we move there?). And of course, as the term implies, of all other component of the spectrum [2]. But interestingly enough, space is the most difficult to seize in its entirety: there were always spaces of escape.

Till now. They are no longer (or won't be, before short). As said the tech will see to that. And with the spread of invasive technologies of all kinds, think IoT, but even a 'simple' smartphone [3], escape into one's 'inner space' is also becoming increasingly difficult, and also, before soon, impossible. And anyway, the wish to do so becomes incresingly suspicious. There has come a, fatal, confluence moment between tech and politics, and I am afraid we have reached it - nay that we have passed it already some time ago .

Current politics combine a remarkable hunger for naked (which does not mean effective) power with an even more remarkable, because unprecedented, technical illiteracy. The latter is what the tech elite preys upon to advance its own interests: world domination by way of out of control advanced technology, with the syphoning off global financial wealth and other material resources for its own benefit as a result. And damned be the consequences since superior technology put the odds squarely in its favor - and this again, because it so completely dominates space.

I will not disgress on the social outcomes of all this, it has been down at length, if not at nauseam, in books and motion pictures. Read a few good Cyberpunk novels, (or J.G. Ballard), or look at 'period' (a dystopian future that is) films [4] and you know enough. But the question remains: can we do something, and so what?

Forget about 'exodus' in the wilderness, even if there is some of it left, it doesn't help: you can run, you can't hide. Three options of escape come to mind:

The increasing number of rich and powerful (the count of the 1%, who're actually more something of 0,001%, continues expanding - still leaving them a very, very tiny minority), will always need artisans for their exclusive, expensive, and 'discriminating' tastes. These people are allowed to live in the past, since they maintain and transmit its skills. They will even be pardonned for avoiding thech - up to a point.

The same applies to specialised, hi-skilled servants. A demeaning but protected position. As bearer of 'traditional' skills, valued as 'exclusive' their situation is akin to that of artisans. They too may indulge in a less technologically embedded life (yet remain at the beg and call of their masters).

Finally, and that is immo the only true 'exodus' option remaining, one could let one pass of as kooky. People wrapèping themselves in aluninium foil against electromagnetic waves are considered mad, not dangerous. Till the day of total anihilation of all deviances come, and it will, they will live you alone. After that, well, it'll be Mad Max I guess.

To come back to the opening sentences of this piece: Paul Virilio lived, till quite recently and for years on end as a recluse, said to suffer from depression. He came out of it, to his friends and admirers great joy, for a few brilliant months. But in the period before that I always tought that his purported despondency was due to the fact that all his (bleak) predictions had come true, or were about to. And so they did. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to my friend Arjen Kamphuis, whose extreme technological savviness and high grade activist expertise had made him all but optimistic about the future technology was taking us to, both because of its inherent hegemonism, and because of the sheer unfathomable ignorance and apathy of users and political decision-makers alike. If suicide proves to be the one (out of many) scenarios explaining his disappearance, I will know enough.

This was it for to-day. Keep soldiering (sic) on!

patrizio & Diiiinooos!
Fiesole September 19, 2018.






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[1] My principal reference for this is Gunnar Olson's 'Birds in Egg/Eggs in Bird', one of the weirdest geography books ever(my institute had a copy, which is a rarity). Yet I could fing no better resource on line that a review of his other book 'Abysmal, A Critique of Cartographic Reason', but it does capturethe gist:
http://www.cartographicperspectives.org/index.php/journal/article/view/cp68-kirby/29

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance

[3] Possession on which, and having it always with you, always on, has become near-mandatory, and will be mandatory before soon. Not having one (or one switched of) is already highly suspect in the eyes of the poewers that be.

[4] My favorites are 'Childrebn of Men' and 'Code 46' ...
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