Zoekresultaten

Res Publica ex Machina: On Neocybernetic Governance and the End of Politics

In 2017, Denmark sent the first digital ambassador, Casper Klynge, to Silicon Valley. The aim of this move of ‘techplomacy’ was, as Klynge explained, not simply to distribute greetings notes by the Danish queen. Rather, the intention was to ‘update diplomacy’ based on the recognition that a few tech companies have obviously become much ‘more influential than some nation states’. Klynge framed the new political course in the manner of a well-known old but still utterly contemporary mantra: ‘There is no alternative’. In a similar vein, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelson highlighted the importance of the step as follows: ‘Just as we engage in a diplomatic dialogue with countries, we also need to establish and prioritize comprehensive relations with tech actors, such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and so on. (…) The idea is, we see a lot of companies and new technologies that will in many ways involve and be part of everyday life of citizens in Denmark.'

The Internet Revolution

Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron’s The Californian Ideology, originally published in 1995 by Mute magazine and the nettime mailinglist, is the iconic text of the first wave of Net criticism. The internet might have fundamentally changed in the last two decades, but their demolition of the neoliberal orthodoxies of Silicon Valley remains shocking and provocative. They question the cult of the dot-com entrepreneur, challenging the theory of technological determinism and refuting the myths of American history. Denounced as the work of ‘looney lefties’ by Silicon Valley’s boosters when it first appeared, The Californian Ideology has since been vindicated by the corporate take-over of the Net and the exposure of the NSA’s mass surveillance programmes.Published in 1999 at the peak of the dot-com bubble, Richard Barbrook’s Cyber-Communism offers an alternative vision of the shape of things to come, inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s paradoxical ‘thought probes’. With the Californian Ideology growing stronger, the Net was celebrated as the mechanical perfection of neoliberal economics. Barbrook shows how this futurist prophecy is borrowed from America’s defunct Cold War enemy: Stalinist Russia. Technological progress was the catalyst of social transformation. With copyright weakening, intellectual commodities were mutating into gifts. Invented in capitalist America, the Net in the late-1990s had become the first working model of communism in human history.In an introduction written specially for this 20th anniversary edition, Richard Barbrook takes a fresh look at the hippie capitalists who shaped Silicon Valley and explains how their influence continues to this day. These thought probes are still relevant in understanding the contradictory impact of ubiquitous social media within the modern world. As McLuhan had insisted, theoretical provocation creates political understanding.Richard Barbrook is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, London, England. He is a trustee of Cybersalon and a founder member of Class Wargames. He has written about the politics of the Net and gaming in his books Media Freedom: The Contradictions of Communications in the Age of Modernity; The Class of the New; Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village; and Class Wargames: Ludic Subversion Against Spectacular Capitalism.

Onze gedachten kunnen worden gekaapt

Tegenwoordig worden veel techbedrijven in Silicon Valley beschuldigd van het creëren van problemen in plaats van ze op te lossen. Er wordt bijv. gerefereerd aan de Russische inmenging in de presidentsverkiezingen in de VS. De macht en invloed van techbedrijven is zeer groot geworden. Amazon bepaalt hoe mensen winkelen, Google hoe ze kennis verwerven, Facebook hoe ze communiceren.

How Silicon Valley hijacked the sharing economy (and how to take it back)

Onze online platformen

Social media and sharing economy platforms do not only disrupt industries. They also bypass democratic institutions. That’s not without risk, because the dominant Silicon Valley based online platforms are designed to create shareholder value, not to strengthen society or democracy. Which is unfortunate, because online platforms – if designed to that purpose – can be uniquely power full tools for organising our networked society.In Amsterdam over 90 neighbourhood networks use online platforms for self organisation. This development accelerated from 2010 on. The networks aim at strengthening social ties and local initiatives and are increasingly involved in some way of democratic innovation. This study is a deep dive into this urban bottom-up-movement. It puts the phenomena of online neighbourhood platforms in a broader societal and economical context. It points at the importance of user owned platforms and data. And it draws conclusions on how society and specifically municipal management can bring this movement to a next level. Ultimately with the potential of growing into an alternative for the Silicon Valley owned online platform ecosystem.

HBO-I on tour in Silicon Valley

Wat is 'hot' en wat is 'not' in de ict? Dat was 'in a nutshell' de reden voor het HBO-I om een studiereis te maken naar het Mekka voor ict'ers: Silicon Valley. Voor VS-verhoudingen een klein gebied met relatief veel belangrijke ict-bedrijven: SUN, Intel, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard. En twee van de beste universiteiten: Berkeley en Stanford. Deny Smeets en Miranda Valkenburg geven hun persoonlijke impressie van de hbo ict-tour.