Newsletter transfer 6 min read

Beyond dystopia ⊗ A new philosophy of planetary computation ⊗ Ark head

This week →{.caps} Beyond dystopia ⊗ A new philosophy of planetary computation ⊗ Ark head ⊗ From problems to curiosity engine ⊗ The right to longevity

A year ago →{.caps} A favourite in issue No.191 was Making a Living, the history of what we call work by Aaron Benanav.

Beyond dystopia

At Pioneer Works’ (an artist and scientist-led 501(c) nonprofit cultural center) Broadcast, Leon Dische Becker interviews Elvia Wilk (whom I didn’t know but seems great) and Claire L. Evans (whom I love) about “the changing role of science fiction in the age of COVID-19 and catastrophic climate change.” It’s presented directly in the interview format, so I’m not going to try and synthesise it, but definitely worth a read, on dystopia, utopia, the quantum state where both exist, the scifi-to-tech influence, solarpunk, the need for a new kind of science fiction, imagination, computers as just glorified rocks, and plant intelligence.

[I]t was past, present and future all next to each other in layers, a palimpsest of compost heaps. And I think that’s key: ==everything we’ve ever made and imagined continues to exist even as new constructions and imaginations come along. What the future really invites is more entanglement. Put it all together and that’s when the compost heap really starts cooking.== […]
Dystopian futures are a popular form of escapism because they represent a different hell than our own. We haven’t crossed the Rubicon into the full-blown cyberpunk nightmare just yet [IRL], even though we’re very much on our way. If we can imagine things that are worse, it makes the world that we live in seem better by comparison. […]
A lot of dystopian fiction is kind of an imagined prophylactic for the privileged—the idea being that if we could just anticipate it, maybe we can prevent it or control it. Realizing this has really changed the way I read dystopian fiction. I no longer see it as a cautionary future tale, I see it as something happening now. I no longer see it as elsewhere. […]
==I think there’s a grand tradition of completely missing the point. Big tech and biotech companies tend to pull the most memorable, charismatic, and interesting images from those films, while disregarding the moral or the political messages behind them.== […]
In my fiction, I’ve been very interested in simulations, because they seem destined to disappoint. Really, it’s the gap between the simulation and the real thing that I find interesting. If I had to make a case for fiction, that might be it. It’s a simulation that doesn’t aim to exactly predict what will happen. An extremely imperfect simulation.

A new philosophy of planetary computation

Most critical thinking I read and share here can be, very very roughly, summarised as something like “silicon valley is out of control, let’s curtail what they are doing so we have time to figure shit out, decide what is needed.” Benjamin Bratton seems to be saying something like “silicon valley is out of control, let’s understand all the things so that we may direct our global technology stack(s) towards global collective ends.” That’s what he calls planetarity, and the basis for “Antikythera, a program reorienting planetary computation as a philosophical, technological and geopolitical force.”

The group of affiliate researchers for the 2023 program is insanely smart and includes many, many names regularly seen in this here newsletter. They’ll be focused on “several primary research themes: Synthetic Intelligence, Recursive Simulation, Hemispherical Stacks, Synthetic Catallaxy, and Planetary Sapience.” They’re running a five-month speculative design-research Studio from February to June 2023, which you can apply to until November 11th.

Bratton always writes and speaks in an almost encrypted fashion, mid-way between academic speak and … I don’t know, someone who invents language as he goes? But it’s worth the effort. Amongst the various areas I watch he’s the only one with, seemingly, a clear vision angled somewhere intriguingly different to the main critical discourse.

==The purpose of Antikythera is to use the emergence of planetary-scale computation as an opportunity to rethink the fundamental categories that have long been used to make sense of the world: economics, politics, society, intelligence and even the very idea of the human as distinct from both machines and nature.== […]
Antikythera configures computation as a technology of the “planetary,” and the planetary as a figure of technological thought. It demonstrates, contrary to much of continental philosophical orthodoxy, that thinking through the computational mechanism allows not only “mere calculation,” but for intelligence to orient itself in relation to its planetary condition. […]
==We have constructed, in essence, not a single giant computer, but a massively distributed accidental megastructure. This accidental megastructure is something that we all inhabit, that is above us and in front of us, in the sky and in the ground. It’s at once a technical and an institutional system; it both reflects our societies and comes to constitute them. It’s a figure of totality, both physically and symbolically.== […]
The societies, economies and ecologies we require can’t emerge by simply extrapolating the present into the future. So what is the stack-to-come? The answers come down to navigation, orientation and how intelligence is reflected and extended by computation, and how, through the mechanism, it grasps its own predicament and planetary condition.

More →{.caps} Also in the ‘very smart people thinking about things in some new form of learning place’ folder. The AI Anarchies’ Autumn School “experiments in study, collective learning and unlearning.” My friends at HOLO will be present and compiling one of their excellent dossiers.

Ark head

Another inimitable voice who makes up language as he goes, Venkatesh Rao, proposes a useful framing for a “feeling of curious under-reaction” brought about by our collective human psyche battered relentlessly for so long with things calling for reactions. A saturation that seems to disable our ability to react proportionally to catastrophes, like somewhat of a ‘meh’ to a renewed nuclear threat.

Rao uses the term “ark head,” as in Noah’s Ark, arguing that “we’ve concluded that the rational response is to restrict our concerns to a small subset of local reality–an ark–and compete for a shrinking set of resources with others doing the same.” Those arks can take many forms, “utopian city-states, tech sectors (like AI, crypto, or metaverse) that seem capable of weathering the flood, narrow altruistic ventures, or artistic subcultures.” Political niches, cult-ish followers of politicians, and conspiracy theories of every ilk would all fit the bill too, I believe. ‘Everything happens so much, I’ll focus on this one thing where I belong’ kind of thing.

==We increasingly respond practically to the world without even attempting to make sense of it. … Ark-head is a survivalist mindset, not a sensemaking mindset.== […]
The battered psyche is actually the main part of the problem. I don’t think the state of the world is actually complex beyond comprehension. It’s much more complex than we’re used to dealing with in living memory, but not beyond the human brain to grapple with. […]
Ark-head is an interesting collective diagnosis. It’s not depression, anxiety PTSD, or collective brain fog, though all those currently common comorbidities tighten the grip of ark-head on the psyche. It’s an unconsciously adopted survivalist mindset that draws boundaries around itself as tightly as necessary to maintain the ability to function. It’s a pragmatic abandonment of universalist conceits to save your sanity.

From problems to curiosity engine

I’ll be honest, this one isn’t of the caliber of the three above. But I like this idea of identifying problems and turning them in to curiosity engines. I’d add that projects can do the same thing, this newsletter for example works pretty much exactly the same way as Le Cunff’s problems, as “a prism that separates incoming information into a spectrum of ideas — a frame that allows you to deliberately filter distractions, direct your attention, and nurture your curiosity. In short, your favorite problems become a curiosity engine.” (Not surprisingly, my front page has featured a list of “recurring inquiries” for months now. Same thing.)

Just like Feynman’s, your favorite problems will become a curiosity engine, encouraging you to look for patterns, ask questions, expand your knowledge, and seek the diverse opinions of others. As you learn and grow, those big questions may evolve, acting as a compass for self-discovery.

Shorts

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The right to longevity →{.caps} “And let’s not stop there – let’s mandate that anything that is manufactured with atoms, but animated by software and services *must have it’s firmware at minimum open-sourced if the service is shutting down.”* (Also, where I learn the term “endineering.”)

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Imagine 2200: The 2022 climate fiction collection →{.caps} “Fix’s climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope.”

Asides

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