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Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2

Jan 23, 20253 min read

Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2

Bibliography

Mullaney, T. S., Peters, B., Hicks, M., & Philip, K. (Eds.). (2021). Your computer is on fire—Chapters 1 and 2. The MIT Press.

Abstract

“This book sounds an alarm: after decades of being lulled into complacency by narratives of technological utopianism and neutrality, people are waking up to the large-scale consequences of Silicon Valley-led technophilia. This book trains a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases in our technological systems, showing how they are not just minor bugs to be patched, but part and parcel of ideas that assume technology can fix—and control—society”— Back cover

Notes

Notes

1 Your Computer is on Fire

On the necessarity to continue to heavily critique techno-utopist approaches.

Go to annotation“Humankind can no longer afford to be lulled into complacency by narratives of techno-utopianism or technoneutrality, or by self-assured and oversimplified evasion.” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 4)

  • Nothing is virtual, everything is material (IRL)
  • This is an emergency; digital driven injustice and inequality is already interwoven into our systems
  • Where will the fire spread; Where do, as scholars, need to look and focus on

2 When did the Fire start?

Go to annotation“the fiction that the technology that shapes our lives can somehow be neutral or apolitical even though it has clear and massive impact on our social relations” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 12)

Disasters can be the necessary means of change. Nonetheless, most of the our current problem with technology is through and by white tech-bros, who have little understanding of the political and social implications of their technologies, or of the world in general


Go to annotation“Throughout history, we see technologies often deployed at scale for real-life beta testing, and the ensuing problems this inevitably presents.” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 14)

Go to annotation“Since those problems disproportionately harm those with the least power in society, there is usually a long lag between the problems being noticed or cared about by people in charge and becoming seen as important enough or disturbing enough to warrant solving.” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 14)

As those in power decide, and put into place, upon the technologies for society and communities, it is always the marginalized who suffer first and the longest. The problems of said technologies are often by design, not by accident, as in Facebooks in-built voyeurism. And, this has been ongoing since forever. Although known, and repeating patterns, those in power always find slightly changed ways to prevent the prevention the next disaster and abuse. All on little evidence that the proposed tech will solve what it’s supposed to solve. State, capitalists and academics alike are inter-linked in a drive to technologize/computerize everything, with very little accountability to back them up.

Go to annotation“These were not accidents or bugs in the system, but examples of business as usual.” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 19)

Go to annotation“we need to take advantage of this moment of disaster to understand how connected our systems are, and to leverage grassroots action and worker organization to change the ways we work, live, and govern ourselves.” (“Your computer is on fire - Chapters 1 and 2”, 2021, p. 22)

Looking at history, computers and their technologies have always been about power relations.

See also