6/ It's even harder to communicate why my primary means of exploring problems is computational. If you're asking, "what are the information processing dynamics of this particular type of society?" the warnings fall a bit flat, since you're halfway there already.
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Replying to @generativist
I can possibly help a little with this, but at this point your question is vague enough that it feels like I need to throw the whole STS canon at it to get there. Technophilia is obviously a broad thing, so can we do a narrow instance? A type of tech and a type of problem?
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Replying to @MichaelTBacon
So, I've read two books recently — one academic proceedings and the other from crypto-adjacent technologists — both effectively talking about engineering a new political operating system.
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Replying to @generativist @MichaelTBacon
It's very hard for me as someone who simulates home/social behavior to essentially say, "look, don't touch." Like, claiming simulation as an instrument to see better while trying to say, "danger, this works less well as an engine!" is hard.
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Replying to @generativist @MichaelTBacon
My field has a lot of talk about the social simulation question in general. But lately, this whole "let's restructure society with modern IT" feels a lot more visible and specific.
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Replying to @generativist
Michael T. Bacon Retweeted Michael T. Bacon
Yeah, I'm definitely ready to respond, "actually let's not!" to that before adding "society is already in the process of restructuring around modern IT." But I think pace my point #1 here, Haraway's Situated Knowledges are a good place to start.https://twitter.com/MichaelTBacon/status/1232038454172803073 …
Michael T. Bacon added,
Michael T. Bacon @MichaelTBaconReplying to @MichaelTBacon @generativistI mean the most general responses I'd say are along these lines: 1. Experts, even very good ones, still only have limited views of the problem, and their views themselves are mediated by sociotechnical assemblages. So they are often missing something.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @MichaelTBacon @generativist
Standpoint theory gets to basically the same place in a different tradition but I love Haraway because she refuses to give up on some kind of scientific objectivity, she just wants it qualified by situation. You can still do science!
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Replying to @MichaelTBacon @generativist
STS also generally loves to talk about assemblages in this case and for good reason -- it'll save you from making silly mistakes. A "technology," like, say, Iowa's ill-fated voting app, doesn't operate alone as just a piece of code.
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Replying to @MichaelTBacon @generativist
That tech only works as well as the people using it and the phones they're using it on. If the phones and tablets are compromised by security flaws or the people too distracted to read the find print, it's going to fail.
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Replying to @MichaelTBacon @generativist
Further (and this is where I revert straight back to aging sysadmin mode and say, "nobody ever listens to us, it's okay, we're used to it") the technophilic emphasis on the new ignores the ingenuity it takes to maintain that system and help it absorb all that load all at once.
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Oh yea — maintenance costs seems like something east to communicate!
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Replying to @generativist
Yeah, not just maintenance costs though, but actual maintenance ingenuity. This is something the open source world really got right -- put your code in the hands of the people in charge of making it work, and they'll keep it working and make it work better.
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