MarianneSadd posted:

There is also a large-scale effort to turn these platforms into essential infrastructure.

This is definitely the current trajectory. Several years ago I was wondering at what point the golden age of promise of the internet would be behind us, now I realize it was already the case at the time I had my first suspiscions.

It's practically impossible to organize or communicate at scale without using these platforms. We have been conditioned to prioritize "slickness" over technological sovereignty. The younger generation (so called "digital natives") growing up with these interfaces as standard lack even basic skills or patience to navigate other protocols. Instead our usage patterns (every click, scroll, page accessed, gps coordinate, message) are leeched in ever-increasing resolution. Silently feeding the algorithms that determine how best to keep us engaged and dependant on their platforms.

Having all interactions and sense of self/identity/community brutally virtualized in the last few years has left many of us broken and isolated, with our only hope of finding a vestige of meaning, connection or belonging staring into a luminescent rectangle. Docile, predictable, and easily manipulated.

This is (soft)power at a historically unprescedented scale, a cybernetic concept of control, management of information flows. We are only at the beginning.

Gssh posted:

MarianneSadd posted:

There is also a large-scale effort to turn these platforms into essential infrastructure.

This is definitely the current trajectory. Several years ago I was wondering at what point the golden age of promise of the internet would be behind us, now I realize it was already the case at the time I had my first suspiscions.

It's practically impossible to organize or communicate at scale without using these platforms. We have been conditioned to prioritize "slickness" over technological sovereignty. The younger generation (so called "digital natives") growing up with these interfaces as standard lack even basic skills or patience to navigate other protocols. Instead our usage patterns (every click, scroll, page accessed, gps coordinate, message) are leeched in ever-increasing resolution. Silently feeding the algorithms that determine how best to keep us engaged and dependant on their platforms.

Having all interactions and sense of self/identity/community brutally virtualized in the last few years has left many of us broken and isolated, with our only hope of finding a vestige of meaning, connection or belonging staring into a luminescent rectangle. Docile, predictable, and easily manipulated.

This is (soft)power at a historically unprescedented scale, a cybernetic concept of control, management of information flows. We are only at the beginning.

I really enjoyed this post and hope you'll write something for the front page that can encourage more discussion on this topic.

Gssh posted:

I've been working steadly for a few months trying to write an effortpost on exactly this topic, yet struggling to find some framework for analyzing the scope of the problem with a view to leading to action or at least a valid indication of where the "frontline" is.

So far my research has mostly led to deep despair for the future. I've interacted with a number of people who are influencial in that world and it's horrifying the degree to which they blindly believe they are bettering humanity. Every day it penetrates deeper into our psyches and our cultures. The scale of the problem is nothing but cthulhian.

there's some good reading on this in the marxist digital humanities world. also writing on the psychological phenomenon of dissociation & how it is affected by interacting with online/virtual spaces.

i've been reading and compiling a lot of this stuff for some writing i want to do but it, too, is almost too depressing and awful to comprehend, so mostly i would just like to drink, forever. see you in dytd

Gssh posted:

drwhat posted:
there's some good reading on this in the marxist digital humanities world


I'd be grateful if you could point me to any specific sources you're happy to share.

I think I had a good list somewhere but it seems to have disappeared. instead I asked marxoteen and digital humanities researcher/writer Daniel Joseph on the twitters about this & linked him to the thread, this is his post by proxy, hth:

danjo.txt posted:

haha THIS FORUM!!! i should join sometime... OK there's quite a bit

these links point more towards my own research area but some might be relevant http://dropouthangoutspaceout.tumblr.com/post/138673911891/a-brief-list-of-sources-relevant-to-games-and

Christian Fuchs is prob the most important political economist of hte internet right now http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/search/results?query=fuchs&searchField=1

i wrote this review of Dyer-Withford's book cyber-proletariat as well http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2016/01/serfing-the-net/

also: i think that one thing about writing on alienation on the internet is that it relies on psychoanalysis (like jodi dean) while most poli-econ accounts just talk about commoditization / accumulation in less psychological terms

both make up the dominant critical discourse around the net / communities. then there are folx like Sherry Turkle who once were more influenced by post-humanism and multiple identities / but later went back on it / stress alienation

Petrol posted:

thats not terrible tbh but i see they talk about monsanto a lot. correct poltiics eh

well yeah, it's super cringey and stupid just like the real daily show and i said more correct politics, not correct politics. anyway i was flipping channels the other day and was only able to watch five minutes of it before getting exhausted but i thought the idea that this show exists on RT was funny