Friday, October 13, 2023

Unseeing like a State

 Just read Seeing like a state, by James C. Scott.  Incredible scope and vision for what is often, but not always) wrong with "tech" led solutions - though in a very broad sense. - looks at imposition of regularised/normalized villages, farming, transport, city structures and so on, especially by "developed" world on the (frequently) completely inappropriate contexts of colonies but also post colonial, self imposted. From russian collective farms, to modernist cities like Brasilia, from mono-culture farming to single-minded, wrong-headed cultural impositions, an amazing read!

It basically makes it pretty obvious why the following stuff happens:-

Tim Wu's Eyeball Bandits

Ian Hislop's Fake News

Doctorow's Drain Overflow


Basically, the Internet users are the hunters and gatherers that just got fenced in and collectively farmed, like ants. Grate.

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misery me, there is a floccipaucinihilipilification (*) of chronsynclastic infundibuli in these parts and I must therefore refer you to frank zappa instead, and go home