2024
A wild read with many interesting graphs. The lack of social theory is part of the argument, but it really shows. #degrowth
efficiency is a catalyst for technological sprawl [everywhere]
#Saigon vibes. #streetphotography
I’ve been to a lovely #sts conference in #HCMC (more on this elsewhere).
The south of #vietnam is a somewhat different place. The first random chat in town was about business (am I with Intel, em??), hitting one stereotype right on the head. But there’s more.
We’re finishing a lovely “situated”, and a bit speculative, dictionary on virtuality this week. It’s been a wild ride co-editing this—such a cool team we have.
But I’m also tired. It’s one of those weeks where academic tasks just agreed to cuddle and pile up. #academicchatter
Bei Soziopolis bespreche ich das für den Sachbuchpreis nominierte Buch „#Müll. Eine schmutzige Geschichte der Menschheit“ von Roman Köster. Mit kritischer Notiz zum Begriff des mismanaged waste, der sich in das Buch eingeschlichen hat.
#soziologie
You want to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie on YouTube but you first have to sit through an ad. Then you sit through a preview for the trailer itself. Etc. pp.
A tale of #enshittification #tech.
And #streetphotography #vietnam.
Hey, look at this.
Rubin features our data centre project and my research in #Vietnam ❤️
#datacenters #sts #ethnography #semiconductors #wisskom
“Exotic animal,” mobile application.
#streetphotography #photography #scooter #vietnam #hanoi #animals #animalrights
Ever used Zoom? Googled? Discussed numbers and their implications?
We have a new article out and ask how online data is endowed with worth in virtual collaboration workshops.
valuationstudies.liu.se/article/v…
A RUSTlab and Uni Dresden collab. 🫶
#valuationstudies #sociology #sts
Future here, again. 👋
On a hot #planet, you need more ventilation. But since you’re living in a polluted world, better keep the windows shut. And turn the machines on.
Containment, purification, energy, degrowth, efficiency; it’s a mess. Expect harm. Neglect.
#climate #airpollution #heat #vietnam
#HeatWave in #SEA.
People turn on ACs or hide in a mall. But there is not enough energy, infrastructures fail, so imports and Diesel generators help out.
A likely future. More heat, more energy needed, more fossil-fuel to the rescue. More heat. repeat.
Solid melts into air. All, that is.
#tsmc in Arizona: a concrete monster hungry for water, in the middle of the desert, driving a culture shock. A debacle? That’s quite a story by Rest of the World.
I wonder how this will play out in Dresden, when the new chip facility comes.
#Deutschlandfunk Kultur hatte mich zugeschaltet. Wir sprachen über #Elektroschrott: Geräte, Mengen und vor allem #Verantwortung.
www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/zu-viel-e…
#Nachhaltigkeit #Abfall
Sincerely, your favourite chatbot by #OpenAI. #AI
OpenAI’s training crawler was stuck pinging “the world’s lamest content farm” millions of times
For all you rhizomes out there, here are more than 1k drawings of plant roots:
❤️
#philosophy #relations #deleuze #sociology
Zwar beschleunigt sich die Nachhaltigkeitskrise.., aber das friedensbewegte, zivilgesellschaftliche, ökologische, basisdemokratische Alternativprojekt erscheint auffällig erschöpft. Ingolfur Blühdorn
#Transformation #sustainability
The Discarded interweaves stories about imaginary #books with reflections on libraries, both real and dreamt. In an age of decreasing literacy, disposable content, and banned books, what do we preserve and discard?
The #technofix is under scrutiny in #sts. But for a somewhat surprising reason: because of its conceptual weakness. So here is the #infrastructure fix. And thoughts from #LeakageSTS in Dresden
This is a hot take that Lee Vinsel has been trying to drive home for a couple of weeks already. “Hot”, as in, a lively idea, something he grapples with. I find the idea puzzling and compelling. So here are a few thoughts, experiences, and links to follow.
Describing something as a #technofix has become a staple of critical commentary on technology, and perhaps global capitalism per se. A technofix is not really a fix, rather, it distracts from the actual issues. Mostly, these are social ones. Think all of what Silicon Valley is doing, like AI solving something. It’s delusional.
Yet Lee and others ask: Is this really a pressing issue? What exactly are technofixes? It appears like this is a slippery term applied to anything vaguely. Sounds familiar to me. More importantly, however, technofixes might not be the most pressing things to discuss. STS devotes too much attention to problematic technologies. (Perhaps technologies and innovations more generally.)
Check out Lee’s recent podcast Peoples & Things where he discusses the matter together with the engineer Guru Madhawhan, who wrote a book on wicked problems.
This also relates to the discussion around “solutionism,” a term that, I agree, remains rather vague yet very strong and often ignores materialities, impasses, and virtualities.
Leakage Experience
Moving on to our recent #stsing conference in Dresden. I was taking part in a panel on waste and discards, hosted by a research network that we, as waste scholars, have received funding for. Check the links for info on both the event and the network.
sts-leakage.org waste-in-motion.org
Some presenters and commentators mentioned the notion of a technofix. It is indeed a recurring theme in all things discard. When you encounter marine plastics, there are gigantic projects around ocean cleanup that spread hope and call for a solution. With a lot of funding. Easy rollout of the technofix critique. I’ve research electronic waste in detail, and through recycling technologies, the technofix is ever-present. Well, digital devices themselves are technofix devices to a certain degree, promising easier lifes, more efficient work, less paper, less stress, whatnot.
Where to go from here? First, I was reminded of the critical discussion around this critique (a criti-hype).
(Citing Cory although this is also a term introduced by Lee)
sts-news.medium.com/youre-doi…
Technofixes might not be that big of a problem, empirically speaking. Thus, this analytic would have outlived itself. It might be us scholars bathing in our on conceptual pool. Still, we had a fruitful conversation in Dresden around this very notion. The critique of the critique was resonating, but staying with the technofix as a genuine problem remained of high value.
Excessive systems of industrialism, capitalism and colonialism turn to seemingly novel technologies to turn the tides and stay focused on growth, no matter what. This is hot the oil industries turn to plastic materials in times of crises.
www.fastcompany.com/90771524/…
In Dresden, we also had the pleasure of enjoying Nerea Calvillo’s keynote on air pollution. Nerea argued that technologies of remedy are part of the problem of containing air pollution. Well, even the notion of “containment” is problematic, because no container holds tight. What has to be done instead is tackle the upstream pollution; to cut off the gas, and oil, and move away from coal. To stop the pollution instead of adapting to it.
As a daily user of air purification technologies and face masks (#Vietnam, #Hanoi), I was puzzled. Is there no value in maintenance, care, even for moments, even if this is not helpful in a systematic sense – because it saves lives, here and now. But Nerea doubled down and made this into an argument of against repair.
I am not sure whether I like this twist, turning against maintenance and repair, even if only for strategic reasons. Narea has published on the troubles of living in a permanently polluted world, so this is not really an argument against care and its conceptual siblings, I suppose.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11… www.arch.columbia.edu/books/cat…
Max Liboiron offers a related argument, although with a different focus. Similarly vast in consequences, perhaps. Think threshold limits and pollution. The dose is the problem; you know the deal. Sounds reasonable. Keep pollution below the limits.
But because of the very invention of threshold values, pollution is here to stay. Because of the fixation on threshold values, it is here to say. Threshold values pushed Ulrich Beck into mad mode in his Risk Society book, a paragraph that is hardly cited. And Max writes,
Instead of changing systems that allowed industrial effluents to begin with, governance could turn to technical efforts to locate and manage allowable limits. This is the foundation of [what Max calls] the permission-to-pollute system." (p. 51 in Pollution is Colonialism)
The Infrastructure Fix
Instead of juggling with technofixes, it is worth exploring “infrastructural fixes”. When systems set up and embrace infrastructures that make sociotechnical change an impossible task, then the infrastructure fixes people, things, and lives. Investing in the brutal nature of these infrastructures becomes deeply problematic. Slow violence is bound to happen. This is demonstrated well in energy thinking, say, when the After Oil collective posits:
“Then there are the enduring powers of infrastructure: pipelines, refineries, highways that push us to replicate behaviours and cultural forms. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, for the social majority to imagine and embrace a society that is not dependent on carbon energy.” (After Oil 2015: 39)
So, when you and I and the affected communities just cannot move away from daily struggles, deadly troubles, then it’s worth rolling out a “fix” critique. A critique that turns to infrastructural harm.
It sounds like a good idea to stop using notions when you hardly know what they are about anymore. Sure, uttering “technofix” might get people engaged and find an initial common ground. But it’s trajectory is puzzling. So, here’s the infrastructure fix as a rough sketch.
The snapshot attached is from the Leakage conference, with a zoom on materials dug up in a panel on coal landscapes and imaginaries. Imaginge fixing that mix of contaminated and probably clean matter.
The chip rush of #Vietnam is in trouble.
As explained by Mike, energy shortages will hit the country this spring. Again. Investors might move on. Some already did
#tech
Check out this story about the methods of #AI model training. The stacking. Etc. A qualitative critique.
It’s only by looking at datasets that we can get a better sense of how AI models work, and the gaps, errors, and biases that can emerge.
#arte has a solid documentary on #chips. Most of the big names of the ongoing public drama are featured.
#geopolitics #tech #semiconductors