Technology

"Technology" is a word about as specific as "sports" or "food" or "animal".

– Ontology Technological Dynamics - dredmorbius

I like technology (insofar as you can like an abstract concept). I have been interested in computer [[programming]] since young, and have a background as a software developer. I like networks and social media. So when I say 'technology', I probably subconsciously lean towards meaning [[information and communication technology]], worth bearing that in mind. But also interested in e.g. [[energy development]].

I'm critical of how technology is used, and very much into the use of technology for [[liberatory purposes]]. If it's not a net positive for humanity and the world in which we live, then what's the point.

Technology is not neutral. We're inside of what we make, and it's inside of us. We're living in a world of connections — and it matters which ones get made and unmade.

– [[Donna Haraway]]

I like the [[free software]] movement, and use a lot of it.

I'm interested in technology as used for communication, so yeah big fan of the [[Internet]] and am generally a fan of [[technological decentralisation]].

I am interested in the intersection of [[technology and nature]].

Other stuff

A grab bag of things I've jotted down but haven't really got into any order…

• [[AI and ethics]]
• [[Intellectual property]]
• [[Digital regulation]]
• History of the [[textile industry]]
• Limbo: virtual experience of asylum
• [[IoT]]
• [[Sustainable technology]]
• [[Cybernetics]]
• [[My Devices]]
• [[System/360]]
• [[Smart cities]]
• [[Algorithmic bias and racism]]
• [[Online content moderation]]
• [[organisational tech policies]]
• [[VPNs]]
• [[Networks]]
• [[predator prey modelling]]
• [[evolutionary and adaptive systems]]
• [[Repair]]

The 20th century showed that science and technology and their class character have played a role in the advancement of exploitation, inequality, unemployment, precarity, environmental degradation, genocide, extermination, manipulation, etc.

– [[The Utopian Internet, Computing, Communication, and Concrete Utopias]]

technology alone will not create a better world

Against [[technological determinism]].

Technology and Ecosocialism

URL : https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341580

[[Ecosocialist technology]]

Technology and nature

I don't have much of a fixed position but I'm definitely becoming more Luddite the more I age and reflect, Luddite in the original sense of the word as I understand it - i.e. rejecting a technology if it's not of benefit to society or is being used to repress the working class or is ecologically damaging.

I push back against technology being perceived as all bad.

I maybe align with 'fully automated luxury communism' as provocative as the name is… the idea that really with all of our technological advances, we could be living in an age of plenty for all that is well within ecological bounds, if only it wasn't concentrated in the hands of a few. The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed, as William Gibson said.

That said, I do not believe in accelerationism, or technology for its own sake.

I haven't read the book by Aaron Bastani. I think it can probably be taken a few different ways. I don't think I know the ins and outs of the term. I'm wary of it a bit, and I also don't like the word 'disruptions' - that's very Silicon Valley, the idea of disrupting things just for the sake of it. I prefer maintaining things.

I think it's a bit of a fine line - I don't wholesale buy into the idea that more technology is what we need to fix climate change. I mean it's possible that that is genuinely what we do need now we've let it get so far. But I prefer a cautionary approach to technology, only using it when necessary, not just for the sake of it. I think we could definitely use what technology we've already got in a much more positive and fairer and less destructive way, that could already solve much of our problems.

[[Machines of Loving Grace]] is an interesting poem on this topic.

I studied [[predator-prey equations]] at university, and enjoyed making models of them.

I studied a Master degree in [[evolutionary and adaptive systems]], which looked at the ways in which natural processes could be used in technology.

technology and political economy

:ctime: 20231113140445

[[Technology]] and [[Political economy]].

[[Technology plays a significant role in political economy]].

It is then essential to produce a critical understanding of political economy in order to comprehend emerging trends in network topology and their social implications.

– [[The Telekommunist Manifesto]]

Technology and Revolution

"May First's Technology and Revolution convergence campaign" https://techandrev.org/

Technology appropriation in a de-growing economy

URL :

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652616321977

Notes

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Technology capitalism

Lizzie O'Shea uses it in [[Future Histories]]. Did she invent it or is there precedent?

Technology does not guarantee progress

Technology does not guarantee progress. It is, instead, often abused to cause regress.

– [[Goodbye iSlave]]

Technology is a site of struggle

[[Technology]] is a [[site of struggle]]

I first heard this said by [[David Nemer]] on [[Technology of the Oppressed w/ David Nemer]], but I imagine it's been said plenty times before.

Technology Networks

Established in the ’80s by the left-wing [[Greater London Council]]. Democratic, community-based technology spaces. Some lessons for Hackspaces, Makerspaces, etc, in the current day.

These were prototyping workshops, similar to “makerspaces” or “hackerspaces” today. People could walk in, get access to machine tools, receive training and technical assistance, and build things.

– [[Internet for the People]]

Technology Networks were community-based prototyping workshops supported by the Greater London Council from 1983 until 1986. They emerged out of a movement for [[socially useful production]].

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

Amongst [[GLEB]]’s first acts was the creation of Technology Networks. These community-based workshops shared machine tools, access to technical advice, and prototyping services, and were open for anyone to develop socially useful products. GLEB’s aim was to bring together the “untapped skill, creativity and sheer enthusiasm” in local communities with the “reservoir of scientific and innovation knowledge” in London’s polytechnics ([[Greater London Enterprise Board]] 1984a, 9-10). In keeping with the political ideals underpinning the initiative, representatives from trade unions, community groups, and higher education institutes oversaw workshop management.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

Technology Network participants developed various prototypes and initiatives; including, electric bicycles, small-scale wind turbines, energy conservation services, disability devices, re-manufactured products, children’s play equipment, community computer networks, and a women’s IT co-operative. Prototype designs were registered in an open access product bank freely available to others in the community; and innovative products and services were linked to GLEB programmes for creating co-operative enterprises. Similar workshops were created in other Left-controlled cities in the UK

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

Technology Networks were an attempt to recast innovation and inscribe it with a radical vision for society.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

Ideas and enthusiasm for these workshops drew upon a wider movement for socially useful production, which in turn drew together strands of thought and activism from broader social movements, old and new. These included, [[workplace democracy]] and alternative industrial plans, community development activism, left environmentalist networks, radical scientists and alternative technologists, and, to a lesser degree, feminism. Workshops were conceived in movement terms of providing humancentred, skill-enhancing machine tools; developing socially useful products; and democratising design and production.

Features in Technology Networks are not only relevant to [[FabLab]]s, [[Hackerspace]]s and other workshops, but also to current ideas and practices in [[participatory design]] and [[critical making]].

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

Technology Networks, reflecting the wider movement for socially useful production, contained tensions in terms of social purpose, cultures of knowledge production, and [[political economy]].

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

The social tension was between spaces for product-oriented design activity, and spaces for network-oriented social mobilisation.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

The cultural tension was between professional and codified technical knowledge and the tacit knowledge and experiential expertise of community participants.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

And tensions in political economy – between socialism-in-one-space and the neo-liberal turn nationally and internationally – meant insufficient (public) investment was available to develop initiatives into significant economic activity, and especially without transforming the initiative into capitalist form.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

A key lesson from this history is that radical aspirations invested in workshops, such as democratising technology, will need to connect to wider social mobilisations capable of bringing about reinforcing political, economic and institutional change.

– [[Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production]]

The designs for the things they built went into a shared “product bank” that other people could draw from, and which were licensed for a fee to for-profit firms to help finance the Networks. The innovations that emerged included wind turbines, disability devices, children’s toys, and electric bikes. Energy efficiency was an area of special emphasis.

– [[Internet for the People]]

The Networks themselves were governed by a mix of local residents, trade unionists, tenant organizers, and academics.

– [[Internet for the People]]

One purpose of these spaces was to democratize the design and development of technology. This meant creating a participatory process whereby working-class communities could obtain the tools and the expertise they needed to make their own technologies.

– [[Internet for the People]]

It meant producing to satisfy human need—what organizers at the time called “socially useful production”—rather than to maximize profit. Satisfying human need necessitated the direct involvement of the particular humans whose needs were to be satisfied, since they were the ones who knew their needs best.

– [[Internet for the People]]

Sadly, the Networks were short-lived. Margaret Thatcher eliminated the GLC in 1986, and the Networks lost most of their funding.

– [[Internet for the People]]

The Technology Networks are useful for thinking about how to abolish the online malls. It’s conceivable that municipalities could create something like the Networks today, places where large numbers of people could contribute to the imaginative work of remaking the upper floors of the internet. They could team up with designers and developers to build alternative online services. Some might be hyperlocal; others might become regional, national, or even international. Some might be informal and volunteer-run; others might be placed under public ownership, or serve as the basis for new cooperatives.

– [[Internet for the People]]

Here too the Technology Networks of 1980s London can offer inspiration. They weren’t just places where people built things. They were also organizing spaces. The act of prototyping products in a workshop could serve as a starting point for a broader conversation about what kinds of transformations would be needed to create a more equitable society. In the process of trying to solve their problems with technology, people came to realize that technology often fell short of solving their problems. Politics was needed. Along these lines, one of the Networks kick-started a campaign called “Right to Warmth” that involved organizing community energy efficiency initiatives, creating local energy cooperatives, and pressuring Margaret Thatcher’s government into putting more money toward energy conservation measures.

– [[Internet for the People]]

Technology Networks for Socially Useful Production

http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/53574/2/Smith_2014_Technology_Networks_JPP_final.pdf

[[Technology Networks]] for [[socially useful production]].

• This site is based on two main technologies. First I take all my notes on Roam, and export the JSON.
• Then I use roam-export to process the output. This script is pretty messy, but has a lot of neat features
  • automatically resolve embeds and block-embeds
  • queries
    • (I've got this working, but it's not quite integrated yet)
  • advanced link handling
    • use a heuristic to see where I've added an external URL to a topic
    • for pages that are not part of the export, either convert internal URLs to external URLs, or turn them bold (to distinguish from links that actually go to internal pages with content)
  • automatically determine pages to export
    • right now, it exports all pages linked directly from the about page, as well as any page or block that has the public tag. (If the tag is top-level on a page, the whole page is exported, but if I have a block on a daily page I want to export, I can just add that tag, and the whole block+children is exported as a page)
• Finally, I send the output to Gatsby, using a Aengus McMillin's gatsby-theme-brain and Aravind Balla's gatsby-theme-andy, which gives the nice theme and automatic link preview.
• I have many ideas on how to improve this
  • Commenting, maybe even inline (using Hypothes.is or something else?)
  • Tag some pages as blog posts, which get a date, a stream of posts, an RSS feed etc
  • Render highlights (^^) correctly
  • Enable folding of long pages (example https://www.loom.com/share/246622d45cb844559ecfc2543ff1d55c using react-treeview)
  • Interlinking with other people's digital gardens

Technology of the Oppressed

URL : https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/technology-oppressed

Author : [[David Nemer]]

Subtitle : Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil

Brazilian favelas are impoverished settlements usually located on hillsides or the outskirts of a city. In Technology of the Oppressed, David Nemer draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to provide a rich account of how favela residents engage with technology in community technology centers and in their everyday lives. Their stories reveal [[the structural violence of the information age]]. But they also show how those oppressed by technology don't just reject it, but consciously resist and appropriate it, and how their experiences with digital technologies enable them to navigate both digital and nondigital sources of oppression—and even, at times, to flourish.

Nemer uses a decolonial and intersectional framework called [[Mundane Technology]] as an analytical tool to understand how digital technologies can simultaneously be sites of oppression and tools in the fight for freedom. Building on the work of the Brazilian educator and philosopher [[Paulo Freire]], he shows how the favela residents appropriate everyday technologies—technological artifacts (cell phones, [[Facebook]]), operations ([[repair]]), and spaces (Telecenters and Lan Houses)—and use them to alleviate the oppression in their everyday lives. He also addresses the relationship of misinformation to radicalization and the rise of the new far right.

• [[Even with access to technology, marginalized people face numerous sources of oppression]].

Contrary to the simplistic techno-optimistic belief that technology will save the poor, even with access to technology these marginalized people face numerous sources of oppression, including technological biases, racism, classism, sexism, and censorship. Yet the spirit, love, community, resilience, and resistance of favela residents make possible their pursuit of freedom.

– [[Technology of the Oppressed]]

Technology of the Oppressed w/ David Nemer

A : [[podcast]]

URL : https://techwontsave.us/episode/120_technology_of_the_oppressed_w_david_nemer

Series : [[Tech Won't Save Us]]

Featuring : [[David Nemer]]

Great interview focused around the book [[Technology of the Oppressed]].

Paris Marx is joined by David Nemer to discuss how residents of Brazil’s [[favela]]s reshape technologies developed in the Global North to serve their needs, and how technology alone does not solve social oppression.

About the use of technology in favelas in Brazil. Really, really good. Talking about [[digital inclusion]] to some extent, specifically in the favelas of Brazil. But maybe more [[digital autonomy]], less digital inclusion. I guess my main takeaway so far is how digital inclusion attempts of any kind needs to be very much local and embedded with an understanding of what the actual needs are of the communities into which the digital inclusion is being worked on for.

And ultimately there would be no requirements of external support or parachuting in of digital inclusion, it would just be entirely autonomous and with agency of the local communities. I guess in the absence of that, the place to start at least is to not certainly not do it through some dislocated central body which thinks that it knows what all the requirements are for any given locality. I guess it's the idea of appropriate technology in a way, though I kind of love the reframe from E.F. Schumacher's slightly paternalistic 'appropriate technology' as a noun to 'appropriate technology' as a verb, an act of agency.

Nemer uses the term [[mundane technology]] which I think his definition was something like: ways in which people in the local community use the technology for their own needs and requirements and just their everyday life. Sort of I think in contrast with the idea, the Silicon Valley idea, of this constant churn of innovation and new technology. I think mundane technology is more about technology for everyday life. The uses of it within a local community.

I very much like the example he gave of the [[telecentre]]s. Sort of like community spaces where people could go in and use computers. Telecentres existed in the favelas and were widely used in Rio, and then one of the mayors said, I know, we will get rid of these and what we'll do instead is we'll have open wifi access for everyone. Then everyone can have access anywhere. But it didn't work, it wasn't appropriate for the favela. The telecentres were closed down too as a cost efficiency and people were worse off.

~00:10:21 [[Technology is a site of struggle]]

~00:15:22 Digital inclusion often comes with prescriptions on how to use the provided technologies. [[Digital inclusion risks being paternalistic]].

~00:16:25 With digital inclusion you have to know what is going on in the field where the technology is being given. Importance of local role in digital inclusion. [[Digital inclusion needs to be locally embedded]].

~00:18:34 Mundane technology. vs Silicon Valley innovation.

~00:22:32 Connectivity for all versus community computing centres.

~00:31:56 Community broadband in Lan Houses.

~00:33:03 The Lan Houses moved on to be about technology repair.

~00:34:54 Repair as a means of understanding and developing a personal relationship to technology.

~00:38:09 Repurposing technology for local needs. Qwerty keyboard example.

Technology Patterns

Go to [[Week 2 - Introduction]] or back to the [[Main AI Page]]

If you look at AI adoption patterns based on which technology is being used, you see that automated scheduling and planning is the most used, with pattern recognition the second-most.

More information can be found in [[IBM's cognitive advantage global market report]]

Technology plays a significant role in political economy

[[Technology]] plays a significant role in [[political economy]]. [[technology and political economy]].

Because

• [[The means of production are heavily reliant on technology]].

Epistemic status

A : [[claim]]

Technology should be liberatory

I believe that technology should only be used for socially beneficial aims. [[Technology does not guarantee progress]]. To be liberatory, technology should save time and labour without having damaging 'externalities'.

What is [[Liberatory technology]]?

Some uses of technology that I think are liberatory in goal:

• [[guerrilla technology]]
• [[Project Cybersyn]]
• [[Digital public assets]]
• Humanitarian tech
  • Glia
    • Tarek Loubani on 3D-Printing in Gaza
    • Restart Radio: 3D printing medical devices in Gaza
  • [[Coronavirus and 3D printing]]
• [[Distributed Cooperative Organisations]]
• [[IndieWeb]]

How is it different from 'tech for good'? I think 'liberatory technology' has a more defined political agenda. Tech for good is a bit vague. This specific phrase comes from Murray Bookchin, I think. As a general concept it probably goes back further.

Could [[3rd and 4th industrial revolutions]] be liberatory?

[[Radical technology must be accompanied by radical politics]]

Useful links

• Communalism Pamplet
• Towards a Liberatory Technology, Murray Bookchin

Related

• copyfarleft
• [[appropriate technology]]
• small tech

[[Value flows]]

Should behavioural analytics be used in the fediverse?

• https://social.coop/@mike_hales/102954515608206585 pull
• Emergent patterns could be interesting. Although needs more unpacking. Instinctive push back to mass behavioural analysis, so need to be sure of the benefits. It would have to be some kind of opt-in, hoovering of data exhaust is one reason people shun the big networks.
• Perhaps an element of temporality can be introduced. Avoid real time, but see patterns over the last month, year.
• There at emergent phenomena, like protocol updates etc. These bubble up from somewhere and coalesce without quantitative analysis.
• Who would collect and analyse the data? Squinting a bit Feels a bit like anarchist assemblies vs a party structure. Could be a data commons.

technology transfer