#shaping things

[stevie-vincent]

06-27-2017

on magick

I reach into the cool dark of the pantry to feel for the doughy shape to check the density to gauge its closeness to plate and knife apron tied around my neck and belly if it must be plucked in case of doneness

[kenyatta]

Allegedly, the internet of things means "the internet" plus "things", but it's been stretched to cover home automation, wearables, health gadgets, urban transport, banking, water, sewerage, grocery logistics, traffic lights, electric power, manufacturing, military operations, big-data analytics and even smart planet environmental monitoring.  "Internet of things" is a kindly, upbeat term. It could have had a much more sinister name. "The cybernetic consortia for control of property", anyone? The internet of things is not a revolution in the way the internet once was. It's a power grab. It's a clampdown, a seizure of the formerly unseizable. It's not for rebels. Everything about the internet of things would meet the firm approval of the offshored billionaire landlord of an empty London skyscraper.  The internet of things is the contemporary system that put that landlord in remote control of London already -- only much, much more so. The strategy's already clear: the internet of things is about billionaire-oligarch geek power. The tactics are clear, too: grab cybernetic control of all old-fashioned, leaky machinery, devices and services; disrupt and disintermediate the previous value chain; eliminate the labour unions and fire the industrial workforce. Eliminate the middle class, route around national regulators and move all profits to the top of the heap. That's already been happening at a pretty brisk clip, as Britons know better than anybody. Democracy won't stop it. But something unclear probably will stop it, and that obscurity is what interests me most. The grand internet-of-things scheme will fail for the same ornery human reasons that soured manned spaceflight, nuclear power, Marxism-Leninism and the New World Order. The comic spectacle there will cheer me for many a day.

The internet of things is an oligarch power play (Wired UK) by brucesterling h/t mostlysignssomeportents

[brucesterling]

[amandamccc]

Progressivism versus conservatism is a culture war. People who win or lose a culture war don't merely act as it they won or lost a culture war; they genuinely win it or lose it. It's always war--and if it's not magnificent, then designers are losing.

Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling, page 67.

If you like your media theory readable, well-designed, funny, philosophical, exhilarating, and existential-crisis-inducing/soothing, this is the book for you.