[-empyre-] seeing yourself a prototype - the limits of open source

[davin heckman]

Julian,

I'm sorry for being unclear.  What I had meant to say is that,
typically, a prototype is a discrete thing which is created with the
intention of being tested.  Certainly the way the prototype is tested
is a) the object itself is put through various challenges that are
anticipated uses and stresses, and b) the general integration of the
thing into the system is also tested at that point (how the thing
might fare in light of unanticipated uses and stresses).  The
distinction I was trying to draw was the coercive potential of
innovations.  Where there is less an interest in testing an individual
thing with the intention of improving it....  and more of an interest
in introducing an innovation with the intention of forcing adaptation
in the population.

I was less concerned with individuals modifying themselves through,
say, education or societies changing populations through educational
institutions.  These things, on their face, have the intention of
shaping the person and society.  They are, at least in principle,
geared towards the preservation of individual and social existence.
Or, at least, they do insofar as they are generated by a public in
service of the ideal public which they represent.

On the other hand, there are technologies that seem to be introduced
with the stated purpose of achieving one objective, yet have the
larger objective of changing human populations.  Take, for instance,
the infamous case of Nestle's infant formula strategy in Africa.
Company reps masquerading as health workers introduce infant formula
to a population that had not used it previously.  The suggested
purpose is to provide nutrition and humanitarian aid.  But when women
stopped lactating and suddenly found themselves forced to pay for the
product or watch their children starve, a much more radical technical
innovation becomes apparent--the forced creation of a new social web
in service of corporate interests.

More current (and relevant) examples might be the sort of biological
innovations that have been spurred by petrochemical industries as
ubiquitous products (plastics, agricultural products, drugs, etc)
saturate ecosystems with chemicals that interfere with hormone
production across the food chain, resulting in an explosion of
diseases requiring treatment.  I don't know that I know enough to say
that there is anything resembling a conspiracy here....  other than
the sort of conspiracy of opportunistically imposed apathy and
ignorance.  But the general recklessness of big business seems to
suggest that there is something intentional about turning quick
profits, letting major catastrophic accidents happen, and then
profiting further.  Habituating people to live in a precarious state
of withered consciousness seems to have been the real "value"
uncovered by the pervasive barrage of technical innovations....  human
beings can be turned into quivering beasts who will tolerate any
injustice simply to hope for another day, and in many cases, who will
tear at each other's throats in defense of the paymasters responsible
for this exploitation.

I suppose I should hang it up, here.  I might be drawing a false
distinction.  And I certainly am off the rails for this month's
discussion.  There is something moralistic in my argument, resembling
the months old discussion of "good" and "bad" that we had here.  Yet,
I wonder that there might be some value in drawing distinctions
between orders of technological existence.   That the fast-forward
orientation of prototyping is fascinating and productive....  but it
is a loaded term...  and it is one that I have a hard time unpacking.

Davin



On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Julian Oliver <julian at julianoliver.com> wrote:
> ..on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 03:10:01PM -0000, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>> >> Davin wrote:>> At one point in time, discrete objects were things that were considered prototypes that could be thrown into an existing system and tested. Increasingly, it seems like the prototypes are geared to test individual and collective consciousness.  In other words, maybe we are the  prototypes?  Being tested so that we can be effectively processed, shrink-wrapped, labeled, bought and sold>>
>
> Hmm, This statement from Davin confused me also. I thought it was fairly clear
> that any act of learning - or any 'attempt', which all action is at it's root -
> simultaneously produces the self as a prototype, even if only for the duration
> of that act. The very notion of a prototype assumes a platonic and eventuating
> objecthood, a finished thing. When are people ever so singularly resolved?
>
> Second order prototyping is the work of other people, especially aquaintances,
> marketeers and those that resource people.
>
> Beast,
>
> --
> Julian Oliver
> home: New Zealand
> based: Berlin, Germany
> currently: Berlin, Germany
> about: http://julianoliver.com
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