Algorithms and Red Wine By Joe Bageant

[HarveyDarkey]

Is the 'digital hive' a soft totalitarian state?

Ferrara, Italy

Sitting in a trendy wine bar, one of those that brings out food to match your particular choice of wine, mystified by the table setting. What was that tiny baby spoon for? Cappuccino surely, at some point, but why no big spoon to go with the knife and fork? The things a redneck American does not know grow exponentially in Bella Italia, starting with the restaurants -- not to mention several civilizations beneath one’s feet. Being in a house that has been continuously occupied for over 1000 years -- resisting the temptation to piss in the hotel room bidet, that sort of thing.

One thing the Italians can never be accused of is being a culture given to vinyl sided sameness, fast food franchises. Another thing is lack of a good educational system, given that Italy’s is among the very best in the world. So here I am sitting with some college kids trying to hang onto my end of a discussion of evolutionary consciousness, and whether Italy can withstand the cultural leveling of globalism.

“And Mr Bageent, what do you think of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the hive mind and the noosphere? Can monolithism and totalitarianism possibly be resisted in the cybernetic age?”
Huh?

“Il regno mondiale dei computer, global computerization. Do all those disassociated shards of human input constitute an overarching hive intelligence? Or are they the emergence of further evolutionary structures?”

“Ahem, uh, well, Timothy Leary once convinced me that they are,” I said. “But after the drugs wore off, I was not so certain. And now I’m certain again that he was right. But, with a far more chilling outcome than he or Chardin could have ever predicted.”

Which was pretty good for pulling it out of my ass.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/10/algorithms.html

[ixion]

1. "Life is lived anecdotally, not algorithmically." Actually

An anecdote is a subset of algorithm. :evilgrin:

[Teaser]

2. article is mostly boring tech bashing

epic fail.

if he finds tech dehumanizing, he doesn't have to use it. I hope he enjoys his cave.