Deepening the Narcissistic Wound: A Critique Through Steven Johnson's "Peer Progressive"

Pseudo-Abstract:

The work seeks to prevent a wide-spread misconception of the changing contemporary landscape: the belief that personal free will is the saving grace of a world run by machines. This idea speaks to a failure of the organism as it represses the utterly foreign nature of the emerging world. Steven Johnson's idea of the 'peer progressive' is examined as a better explanation of the new scene. This leads to the proposal that outmoded concepts like individual, humanity, and intelligence are best discarded. Only then will people make their place in the new world.

Important Links:

Greg Satell's piece.

Steven Johnson's piece. 

The stimulus for this post comes from Greg Satell's piece on the Evolution of Intelligence. The work starts off quite nicely by posing critical questions about intelligence and then extending it into the machinic domain. Admirably, it does not shy back from some of the harder implications:

Nevertheless, intelligence is something we admire, both in ourselves and in others.  It has been considered for most of history, to be a uniquely human virtue.  So it is unnerving, even terrifying, when we encounter other types of intelligence.  From crowdsourcing to computers performing human tasks, we’re going to have to learn to make our peace.

The terror that the author describes has been of particular interest to me along with any ideas that point to the decentration of the human position (1, 2, 3, 4). Thus, it was all the more disheartening when the author acquiesced to the popular human tendency to flee such tension with his closing remark:

In the future, our world will driven by machine intelligence, but our choices will remain our own.

This suggests a problem of some significance: the re-appropriation of extra-human phenomena in human-centric terms. In the history of science, this type of ad hoc appeal is an indication of a dying discipline. Yet, the pseudo-resolution it offers to those faced with the terror of an emerging systemic re-organization is so incredibly tempting that the idea is best classified as incredibly dangerous. Thus, this post will hopefully serve as an ideological inoculation of sorts to the inherent problems of such ad hoc commitments.

Interestingly, Satell's defense of his position through the use of Steven Johnson is all the more confusing when one examines the latter's claims. Johnson, a brilliant thinker and writer on a vast array of technologically related topics, has recently released a new book, Future Perfect, that seems to demonstrate the exact opposite of 'free personal choice.' In its place, one achieves the "peer progressive." To quote Johnson:

Inspired in many cases by the decentralization of the Internet, the movement uses the peer network as its organizing principle, with no single individual or group "in charge."

Thus, it is unclear how--to use Satell's words--these "faceless masses" of decentralized networks propagating themselves with the very hardware that embodies the terrifying foreign intelligences could possibly uphold the individual wills of its constituents. The etymological parallels between decentration and decentralization should speak to the absurdity of this perspective.

Satell's claim that human intent may still exists in these networks seems more coherent. Yet, the folk conceptions of 'humanity' or any conception that can even marginally suggest the possibility of primitivism is certainly not a part of this coherence. Human without machine is a fantastical concept that, at best, belies mankind's over-attachment to their own personal meat puppets. Thus, when taken with a more sophisticated conception of the human-machine system, Satell's observation about intent is almost entirely devoid of content. Human intent is machine intent as there is no distinction of kind.

What it takes to "make our peace" with this budding new era of the 'peer progressive' is not an appeal to such time honoured ideas as "choice," but rather the annihilation of obsolete ideas like individuality, humanity, and even intelligence. There has never been an individual apart from the group, a human apart from their technologies, or an intellect apart from the vast collection of systems (e.g., emotion) that support and motivate it. These false dichotomies, though real and relevant in past characterizations of the world, hinder the current development of the species, if not its progress. It is not my goal to oppose them for that would simply perpetuate the dichotomy. Instead, I hope to indicate that we already know what they lead to and where they lead is not useful in a network-centric world.

Images courtesy of:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/10/08/comrades-join-the-peer-progressive-movement/
http://epicprgroup.com/2011/09/the-persuasion-vaccine/
http://blogs.softchoice.com/itgrok/2011/07/13/optimize-the-management-of-network-resources/
http://ommmmmnomnomnomnom.blogspot.ca/2011/02/doughnuts-its-easy-and-takes-only-about.html

A comment on "The PR Crisis of Democracy"

It is incredibly refreshing to see someone challenge something as fundamental to North American culture(s) as democracy and Neuroskeptic did an excellent job of just that. In a nutshell, how can the growing discontent driven, in many ways, by our adoration of immensely reified and misused concepts like "Freedom," continue to be touted as the 'ideal.' As that link illustrates, I am not entirely sure I know what Freedom means anymore: differentiation to the point of emptiness.

I would liken the current uproars in various countries to the "terrible twos" of childhood where the budding personality, to the 'horror' of everyone, learns to say, "No." I draw this connection not to mitigate the effort and sacrifices made by these groups. But, rather, to highlight the conflict in a developmental sense: many of the ideals we hold are incredibly naive and incompatible with the way we live our lives. They are juvenile in the sense that they lack subtlety and tend to approach a problem in the most direct route (e.g., by creating a false, black-white dichotomy). That is, one could arguable describe a network, in an anthropomorphic sense, as juvenile if it lacks the appropriate complexity of connections necessary to approach a particular problem in a non-dichotomous framework. Democracy, then, is a cultural celebration of that era. And no, I'm not secretly suggesting a silent recapitulation theory here. The comparison is just interesting.

I have, in the past, drawn the association between cultures and individuals of varying age groups. That is, if, for example, countries were people then you can get some interesting implications on the basis of age alone.

India, China, Japan, etc. as older cultures might be the grandparents of the circumstances. Though some may be decrepit and need to be institutionalized, every once in a while they can toss a kernel of wisdom your way. At very least, they tend to be more patient and slower moving.

Europe, in contrast (and you can see my North American bias here as I lump all of Europe into one category), can be likened to an individual in their late 40's, maybe even into their late 50's. They're old enough to 'know better,' but still young enough to do unintelligent things. Arguably they are currently experiencing a mid-life crisis.

The U.S. is in the end of its rebellious teenage years: still vigorous and aggressive but starting to catch on to the subtleties of the world. Canada is the younger brother that cannot help but follow its older sibling's often terrible advice. Australia is the youngest and, due to their position and temperament, still think its 'play time.' Russia and Mexico are the ever budding bullies on the play ground.

And where does everyone else fall? Who knows. Many of the other cultures are the remains of ancient civilizations that have become so prolific that they are best taken as the ground of the rest of the world. A ground that is ripe to be raped, pillaged, and set on display at the whims of the 'family.'

Democracy, in this framework, is merely an appeal to the beauty of a freedom that was always hoped for, pseudo-achieved, and difficult to let go. Though this story is entirely implausible, a bad rendition of an Eikos Logos at best, it does illustrate something important here: self-regulation is a process that operates and/or needs to operate at all levels of organization and it is key to development. Development means change and even something as apparently permanent as democracy will come to an end.

In an effort to motivate a conceptual shift that operates more smoothly in non-democratic frameworks, I offer the idea of machinic organization (you have to read a bit to get to the reference). Note that, though elements of the ideas I will set forth may look like other familiar architectures like communism, totalitarianism, etc. They are not the same much like a pendulum is not the same for a clockmaker and a scientist.

The best description of what I mean by machinic and how it applies here is illustrated by William Gibson's Neuromancer. Though, the association is not my own. In this fictional universe, heads of corporations are regularly assassinated by other corporations, but to no consequence. As soon as one body dies, a new one takes its place and a database of memories are waiting to help reintegrate the new body with the role.

By suggesting the concept of machinic I am neither trying to perform an upward causal reduction (extreme top-down framework) nor am I trying to suggest that we will one day be some rendition of the Borg. A technological singularity, though plausible, is not what I am referring to. The goal is to illustrate that highly individualistic concepts in the standard Western context like freedom, prosperity, wealth, justice, progress become extremely unfamiliar when the framework shifts. As I said in a previous post that is particularly relevant here: when your individuality is no longer relevant and you assume the role of a statistic, all these concepts drop away.

I will reinforce the fact that this does not mean you are not free, prosperous, wealthy, just, or progressing (though this latter one is a tad odd to be combined with the rest by Neuroskeptic). It simply means that these concepts no longer have application in this domain (much like dividing by zero in most mathematics). Neither does it mean that one cannot examine these properties--this is not a moral or ethical discussion. It just means that in a machinic framework, the end of democracy makes sense. At the extreme point, it never existed in the first place (I'll evade the "problems with ontology" rant here).

Naturally, given that none of these activist groups are likely to cease their activities, even if they were to read my blog for some reason, the efficacy of this shift in framework is likely at question. But, the intention is not to change these behaviours in any practical sense. It is to begin adopting a framework where they simply no longer are relevant. I do not protest them. I do not suggest we ignore them. I am really not saying anything about them at all.

How do you destroy a product? You stop buying it. How do you stop buying it? You eliminate the ideology that justifies its use. Remember, people are irrelevant. One extremist group can and will be easily replaced by the next. But, if we change the ideology such that it removes the efficacy of that maneuver, then there is nothing to be gained. People simply will not even think about it. This is the goal.

Let's stop attacking the symptoms and acausally deligitimate the framework that non-linearly supports the problem.




Images courtesy of:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Broken-American-Democracy-by-Brett-Redmayne-Tit-120604-863.html
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/R/Recapitulation.html
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2010-00343-004
http://fusionanomaly.net/neuromancer.html

An end to privacy

Both Facebook and Google intermittently incite uproars in the public due to their potential breaches in any normal human's 'decency.' This never ceases to be a curiosity in my eyes. Do people honestly think we live in a world where privacy even remotely exists anymore?

We're filmed at work by our employers, filmed walking down the street by various satellites and stores, filmed by stoplight cameras, filmed by smart phones and digital cameras of various kinds. We have built in tracking services attached to our every phone call, land or wireless. Smartphones are walking tracking devices along with GPS. Our cars and laptops are tracked for security reasons. We tweet, post, or otherwise link our web services to our current locations. And this is just our position.

Ninety percent of stores have our address, phone number, name, and purchase history. Both of the giants we began the story with will store any and every last bit of information you'll give them. Every other website is making you sign some agreement that you never even took the time to read... (Yes, that was a lot of hyperbole!)

Let's face it, if someone, somewhere, doesn't know or have the potential to know the colour of the last pair of socks you wore, I would probably be surprised. If privacy is your goal in life, you're already bloody doomed.

But, there are two reasons why this is completely inconsequential.

1. The average individual, in the grand scheme of things, is completely irrelevant, expendable, and replaceable. We are just another statistic. A blip on a graph that can just as easily be replaced by the rest of the population that falls within a standard deviation of the mean. And, better yet, if you do happen to deviate from that population, you're even more irrelevant. Who would you market to? The strange person in the corner or everyone else?

For the sake of brevity, let's ignore the complexities of sub-populations and the leading edge of the popularity wave (which should be likened to becoming the next Michael Jackson). If you're one of those people, you probably don't even write your own social networking material, anyhow. That or you're savvy enough that this entire conversation is moot.

The point is... you can feel safe in your irrelevance.

"But what about those folks I know, ten times removed, who lost their entire livelihood thanks to..." I can hear you say.

The answer is obvious. We're statistics, right? A certain percentage of people are going to have bad things happen to them: the Canadian Goose that should not have arrogantly crossed the street.

"But if we had had our privacy..."

Oh no. You can't get out that way. Those privacy settings, as I tried to demonstrate above, don't do jack. You would need to drop out almost entirely or spend the greater part of your time hiding yourself. That is, to avoid getting hit by a car, you would have to stop crossing roads (e.g., RFID credit card fraud is just one demonstration that your information is already everywhere and vulnerable). Though some percentage of people will adopt this method, the greater majority will not. Surprising? Hopefully you're not afraid to cross the road...

But my point is not that people should stop shouting nor is it that your privacy settings should be at zero. It's that none of this has anything to do with 'privacy.' The reified construct hides more than it helps. Address the problems that come your way as best you can and then forget about them. But, name them as they are: "Facebook and Google have massive amounts of your information that is potentially vulnerable to an attack by malicious third parties." That's not a privacy issue. It's a software one.

On to the second point.

2. Personally tailored advertising is genius.

Let's face it. As a member of most Western societies, we buy stuff. We like to buy stuff. We spend a greater part of our lives enabling ourselves to buy stuff. If every single ad I ever saw from this point forward was perfectly tailored to inform me of the things most relevant to me that I could buy (Think of Amazon's, "other users who purchased this purchased..")... I would almost watch commercials instead of regular television. I don't think I am the only one that would feel this way. But, if we even accept that tailored advertising is not the next apocalypse, where do we stand on this issue?

I think most people do have a problem with people making money off of their actions, especially if they don't get a piece of the pie. I, certainly, often feel this way. However, I think we have the order of things reversed. It is not the case that Facebook and Google are providing you a service and then capitalizing on your use of the service. Rather, Facebook exists to make a (tidy) profit and then the user leeches off of this fact in such a way that they get services out of it (more likely this relationship is bidirectional but I choose to emphasize this direction due to the lack of current discussion on this perspective). The entire claim for "better privacy" is an illustration of this point: the companies want to continue making money, so they (sort of) oblige.

One could argue that at some initial point Facebook or Google was not really for profit. However, I would argue that this point is practically irrelevant and the proto-F and G were conceptually unrecognizable to the organizations of today. Additionally, these fledgeling companies would never have left the ground if they did not even have the potential for profit and, hence, investment.

Thus, in a nutshell, the user is an irrelevant leech with dedicated advertising.

Go social networking!

This post was partially inspired by Network.