[-empyre-] the "conversation"

[Alan Sondheim]

On another, less theoretical, breezier, level, check out Adam Alter's 
Irresistable, The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping 
us Hooked, Penguin, 2017. The level of addiction and its basis in 
localized feedback loops is analyzed, as well as the engineering of these 
loops. We all internalize them.

I wonder why Brenda Laurel's older book, Computers as Theater (which I see 
has been updated, 2013) isn't mentioned.

And I wonder as well how many of us, from any political position, think we 
understand the 'other side,' and have 'the other side's picture' so to 
speak.

For 'epistemic bubbles,' the literature on addictions is enormous; I think 
even back to Terry Winograd's block world, microworlds, on one hand, and 
his later prescient book on Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New 
Foundation for Design (with Fernando Flores), with its emphasis on the 
potential of failure (if I remember correctly), from 1986.

And it's the idea of failure which pierces bubbles, allows new knowledge/ 
learning - whereas the failure of Trump and company leaks out only as fake 
news; they continue to totalize, suture, processes which are embraced by 
their followers ('Trump is my hero'); and perhaps we do the same 'on the 
other side' - if there is another side. The w/hole is troubling within and 
without...

- Alan

On Wed, 22 Mar 2017, simon wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------

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