In French, a computer is an ordinateur. Is this an ordering, organizing thing? This seems very distinct from calculation, which English-speaking scholarship tends to emphasize as the essence/nature of computing/computers.
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Ordering/organizing is a more managerial stance, like coordination, a valuing of alignments, as opposed to the production of numerical outcomes.
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There was a whole history of French computing around Minitel that was kinda managerial
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yeah totally different vibe, like ministries, offices, indices of info to be organized and coordinated. this bigger range of stories opens up the imagination about how we can be in the technological present and future.
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Futurama central bureaucracy vibes. Also Chilean cybersyn. Gives me the creeps tbh.
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