Newmedia on Tue, 14 May 2013 20:16:29 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Jaron lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class |
Brian: > Let's get to work on this. Great idea! But, before you roll up your sleeves, if you want to have any useful ideas on the structure of labor (and leisure and consumption) then you must begin with a CRASH effort to understand the impact of *digital* technology on the economy. Are you prepared to do that? You and what ARMY? <g> Economists -- including the "heterodox" ones -- uniformly treat technology as an "externality." That means there is no place in their models or narratives for fundamental technological change. When I asked the editor of Real World Economics Review last year if he had *ever* (in 10+ years) had any articles submitted to him about these basic relationships his answer was "No, why don't you submit one?" When I asked a fellow I know who sees most of the grant requests for new economic research if he has seen *any* applications to study this his answer was, "Not one -- all we're seeing now are people who are interested in studying complexity." Sociologists convinced themselves 40 years ago that it would be better to be "constuctivist" instead of "operational" and have steadfastly clung to the CONDEMNATION of anyone who proposes a primary role for technology as being a "determinist" -- including on this list. Recently a group (mostly in the UK) have launched a sub-field called "Digital Anthropology" with a book of that name. From what I can tell, their work is interesting but its still doing anthropology *about* activities that occur when using digital stuff (therefore attracting companies who make that stuff) -- not FLIPPING the inquiry to ask how digital technology should drive a reexamination of anthropology itself. Before the rise of "post-modern" social science in the 1970s, there was a very lively discussion about what technology was doing to the economy and society. Post-Vietnam that discussion *stopped* and has not been revived since. What was once called post-industrial -- which is in fact what is going on not "over-devlopment," making it *unexplored* territory for those who try to understand industrial economics -- then became "late-stage capitalism" or "neo-liberalism," which *deliberately* obscures what is happening and recasts the discussion in terms of a "political" framework that ensures nobody has a clue about what is really happening. Addressing the fundamental issues got "re-framed" out of consideration by *euphemisms* . . . !! Jaron (who I know pretty well) is a very clever guy who has the benefit of NOT being any of these things. Yes, he's a musician but, more importantly, what he says he just "makes up" (i.e. rarely footnotes and mostly has no collaborators) and he doesn't care what some *profession* has insisted is the proper "method." Good for him. So, is he going to be taken "seriously"? No. He is mostly being treated as an oddity who, because he comes from the Sili-Valley tech industry (a point he highlights repeatedly in his book) gets attention for being "anti-technology." And, he's not alone in the category of what many are calling (inaccurately) "neo-luddites." MAN bites DOG (i.e. Internet destroyed the middle class) . . . reads the headline! If you want to "get to work" on the problem of a disappearing middle-class (which, as an *industrial* artifact should be *expected* to "disappear" when the economy shifts to post-industrial) then you'd better explore the factors that are driving the tectonic shifts in the economy. Are you (or anyone else) ready to do that? Or, would you prefer to talk about 3D printing and a revival of (industrial) manufacturing . . . ?? <g> Recently, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen published their "The New Digital Age," in which they argue that we now live in two *civilizations* -- one "physical" and the other "virtual." So what are the economic, social and psychological implications of living in two very DIFFERENT worlds? Any takers? I've written a review (unpublished) of the book that focuses on this question but I've watched/read a dozen interviews/reviews and NONE of them have dealt with this at all. It seems to go right "over" their heads. The name of this list is NETTIME. The implication is that there is something *different* about living in NET time, as opposed to other sorts of "time" -- but what are they? Who has the *courage* to tackle these questions? Without doing this, all the calls to "get to work" will be just more impassioned chatter and breast-pounding . . . !! Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY # 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