Tommi Space

Thesis

or also: Computer Sciences are Social Sciences,
latest edit:

I intend to thoroughly revise and partly rewrite my bachelor’s thesis, to publish it as a book. In the meanwhile, for all those who ask me about it, I am making it publicly available.

The rest of this page collects random inputs and resources gathered while writing the thesis. Its main topic is a philosophical and sociological account of the Internet; broadly put, its main and fundamental claim is: Computer Sciences are Social Sciences!.

Outline

  1. Historical account
    1. Paul Baran: centrifugal approach
    2. Licklider, ARPA, and collaborative endeavor
    3. The values of the early Web
    4. The Internet’s Original sin
  2. The spread of Surveillance Capitalism
    1. Zuboff and the Unprecedented
    2. Stallman and the FSF
    3. The Linux phenomenon
    4. The intrinsic link between economics and technology: Weber
    5. Heidegger: the essence of technology
  3. Case study: Hong Kong’s Umbrella movement
    1. Political background: Hong Kong’s strive for democracy
    2. First wave: centralization and emotional control
    3. Second Wave: be water
    4. Interpreting the Umbrella Movement with respect to Hannah Arendt’s conception of the social sphere
  4. A better Internet
    1. Philosophy in Science, rather than Philosophy of Science
    2. Using the Web to pursue utopias: Aaron Swartz and Brewster Khale

Missing things

  • what is the problem with current Internet? Pinpoint why I am giving solutions. Solutions to what?
    • Technocratic degeneration of society
    • Public administration digital infrastructure subsidized to privates
  • the better Internet
    • Decentralization
      • ≠ blockchain
      • forcing interoperability by design.
      • horizontal vs vertical scalability
    • Alternative thinking, alternative technology
      • Obsidian, Luhmann, Zettelkasten
      • Deleuze’s rhyzomes
    • The Fediverse as a/the solution
    • Yarmo’s point about self-hosting
  • underline cypherpunks ≠ crypto-anarchism/cyberanarchism
  • Panopticon
  • Making ethical internet “cool”!

Insights

  • Bernard Stiegler
  • Digital spaces ownership
  • Digital anarchism
  • Intersectionality, coded bias
    • Feminism
    • Racism
  • social media are of critical relevance because they are not mere services, but the medium through which virtually anything is conveyed
  • content responsibility, freedom, regulation
  • oil industry comparison
  • Wiener’s Cybernetics?
  • Hayek in relation to Wikipedia?
  • The opposite of move fast, break things… ?
  • peer-to-peer
    • encryption
    • distribution of load and power
  • Jonas’ ethics of technology

People

Notes from meeting with professor

  • Heidegger sul senso della tecnica. La preoccupazione fondamentale è che la tecnica da mezzo neutrale si trasformasse in fine. Non più l’uomo che
  • Hans Jonas: il problema del futuro non sarà più cosa noi potremo fare con la tecnica ma cosa la tecnica potrà fare di noi: Tecnica, medicina ed etica, primi capitoli
  • Günther Anders: L’uomo è antiquato

Articoli più recenti che mettono in pratica quanto scritto prima
Come lo strumento tecnico è fatto condiziona l’utente. Esempio delle chiavi delle stanze più pesanti. Lo strumento non è neutro

Il modo in cui le tecniche si presentano impone anche un certo ordine social e un certo ordine culturale

Come orientano l’azione? Chi decide come viene orientata?

🔎