Active Propositions

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A reading of the original proposition

Going through the Proposition title in the wiki above, trying to unfold meaning a bit – from where I sit.

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title: Diffracting + Decentralisation: exploring collective asymmetry

Diffracting refers to Science and Technology Studies (STS), especially the concept of Diffraction, inherited from the physics of optics, and developed by Donna Haraway and especially Karen Barad in her 2007 book Meeting the Universe Halfway.

Decentralization refers to the hacker mantra Do not trust authority, and the free software movement’s effort to bring to reality a peer-to-peer network infrastructure, starting from (re)decentralizing the Web, that was originally conceived as a distributed document space where each node would connect to other nodes in order to retrieve relevant information, but evolved into a monoculture where central servers absorb most of the information and serve it as their own.

Exploring collective asymmetry refers to the various layers of meaning and situational awareness that anyone – but not everyone^[1], confronted with seemingly untouchable imbalance of power, amplified by technical means, experiences. But this is not about “the individual” nor about identity: it’s really about relations, and relations not “in opposition to” but “in solidarity with”. Collective asymmetry also refers to this anyone but not everyone in another aspect: anyone is concerned, but not everyone is resisting…

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subtitle: Hacking and Philosophy at Pa-f

As much as contemporary philosophy^[2] and hacking both seek changing the actual system, destroying its asumptions, defusing its theories, their methodologies seem to take opposite routes. Within the spectrum of researching the “truth”, philosophers tend to use abstraction as a way to reach understanding, while the latter tend to test concrete limits and start from there. Yet both worlds seldom know or meet each other: this is why we want to bring them together. There’s no opposition between philosophy and hacking: they are complementary to each other and interdisciplinary exchange could be useful to both disciplines.

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approach: informing experience from/towards theory and combining desires into action

This refers to what Simondon calls “infomation”, what Barad calls “intra-action”: informing experience means that we start from experience, not from abstraction, the form comes as a witness of the ongoing process, therefore cannot be considered from/as an external perspective. From/towards theory refers to the consciousness of the inseparability of theory (and practice), aka. praxis: it is critical to understand that one cannot “have a theory” and “live outside of it”; one cannot theorize what they do not practise, and vice-versa: one cannot practise without theorizing this practice; this is a virtuous circle of consistency with the truth – and makes a very easy marker for bullshit detection. Combining desires into action refers to the will and desire to not blow air, but to actually affect the world in which we live in significant ways.

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methodologies: conversation, study groups, participatory workshops and diffractive readings

These are non-hierarchical methodologies from STS and feminist heritage. Some of them are yet to be experimented (for example, there’s no explicit definition of what diffractive reading means, besides the examples given by Karen Barad and Iris van der Tuin.)

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context: we will address the implications of technology in our diverse collective endeavours inclusive of feminist and intersectional concerns

Hence, we’re not looking at how much our outreach has grown thanks to tech X, but rather what balance can be found in using and deploying technologies to consolidate collective action and the cost-benefit of increasing agency vs. social/ecological cost of doing so.

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Now, maybe I can go through the three research axis (questions) and unfold some of them shortly to convey the perfume they can exhale…

Self-organization

• agency of resistance networks clearly refers to the goal of consolidating and expanding resistance to capitalism.

  Here is a former proposal to edit an issue of JoPP. It would be called .RES.IS.TRANS.:

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  . R E S . I S . T R A N S .

  Resistance (< 1 Ohm) is futile. Yet, resistance networks arise everywhere. What is resistance, and why resist? French kilometric philosopher Bernard Stiegler said: “I hate the word resistance. I hate it. Resisting is accepting domination…”, ignoring from his privileged space the very fact that domination, for most people, is not an idea, but a current state of affair, and resistance is the required second step, after awareness, to stop domination in its track, to signal a limit has been passed and the wind is about to change direction – or a last, desperate call to the world for help dismantling a genocide. Resistance is invention, under pressure, of a new space where breathing becomes not only vital but the premise of a fight back.

• from autonomy to stigmergy refers to a follow-up to the autonomist movement that goes beyond its strategies into a discontinuous signaling system that performs situated solutions that can be transmitted across networks to share differences rather than commonalities: graph (street art), shows exactly this, leaving hints not only of what they convey graphically, but also that you too, can claim public space; another example: subcomandante Marcos’ address, Don’t join us: do it yourself, incites, as a counterpoint of the (neo)colonialist approach, to look in our own backyard and start from there, rather than trying to impose ready-made solutions there (in Chiapas) from outside – which is what commodification does; graphers and the EZLN send a signal: that it is possible, that it is happening, that it is grounded, situated. Stigmergy leaves a manifest track of desires.

Infrastructure

Considering the whole chain of production, from conception to disposal, through slavery and ecocide, encourages to think systemically, and evaluate the trade-off between using and deploying technologies to amplify our actions, and the energetic costs engaged (including social costs and human sacrifice).

For example, we’re often talking about decentralization, decentralized services, etc. But when looking into it, where are the “decentralized servers” running, we end up with most “alternative” providers using a handful of datacenters. How decentralized is that? What does it entail to move away from those datacenters, in terms of infrastructure, human labor, energy costs? Is larger decentralization (e.g., self-hosting) energy-efficient compared to huge datacenters? What effort is required to combine forces amongst ISPs serving resistance networks to reinforce everyone? Is it possible, if at all desirable?^[3]

Solidarity

Freedom as responsibility comes as an attempt to distinguish “liberal freedom” (or individual freedom – as detached from others) from freedom without an adjective, achieved here and now by people acting together in a spirit of solidarity – cooperation, mutual aid, self-determination.

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In the Western world, the promise of personal growth and individual freedom is considered the key to a successful life and/or entrepreneurship. In this context, however, individual freedom is often understood as the capacity to do anything you like without responsibility. In free software, stability is grounded on free, voluntary association, and a new concept of freedom is necessary to keep the system from running out of control. We must acknowledge that with freedom comes responsibility.

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Not all software is born equal. Software brings forth unprecedented changes in our lives, as extensions of the human mind and capacity to act upon and shape reality. We must apply thought and attention to software development and we share responsibility, as users and developers of software systems, to foster values of cooperation in the spirit of science, human cultures, and the diversity of life.

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Singular Technologies inscribe themselves in contexts were many fights happen and accompany people in delicate environments. Their proximity to resistance movements across continents makes for an important responsibility in organizing humans, their resisting spaces, and their alternatives.

I hope this reading can inspire the conversation.

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1. Jodi Dean, 2017: Thesis Two: Anyone but not everyone can be a comrade in Four Theses on the Comrade - Journal #86

   The term “comrade” points to a relation, a set of expectations for action. It doesn’t name an identity; it highlights the sameness of those who share a politics, a common horizon of political action.
   […]
   To reiterate: that anyone but not everyone can be a comrade highlights how comradeship designates a relation and a division—us and them—a political relation but one that is not the same as the relation between friend and enemy, an absolute and exclusive state relation. Instead, there is a space of possibility: anyone can be a comrade, but not everyone.

   The four theses are:

   1. “Comrade” names a relation characterized by sameness, equality, and solidarity. For communists, this sameness, equality, and solidarity is utopian, cutting through the determinations of capitalist society.
   2. Anyone but not everyone can be a comrade.
   3. The Individual (as a locus of identity) is the “other” of the comrade.
   4. The relation between comrades is mediated by fidelity to a truth. Practices of comradeship materialize this fidelity, building its truth into the world.
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2. from this term I exclude the lackeys of capitalism who trade a philosophy for a bowl of soup: justifying inequality and the powers in place have more to do with prostitution than with philosophy. ↩︎

3. a large number of alternative ISPs building InfraRED and the LibreHosters network seem to think it’s desirable, and counts among them. ↩︎