Computers Technos: Another future is possible: on ‘Homo pluralis’ Luca De Biase

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A strange but appropriate coincidence accompanied me in writing these few lines of ‘Homo pluralis. Being human in the technological age ‘of Luca De Biase. In the same time the case studies and with the personalization of Internet services they put me under your nose a number of old interviews with Noam Chomsky on the relationship between media and propaganda, an editorial by Jamie Bartlett on how to defeat really ISIS and beautiful, ruthless intervention of Christopher Hitchens on the deep meaning of freedom of expression, in its most pure and irrefutable.

Different themes for different authors, but united by the same belief message: extended look, ask yourself questions that call into question the traditional view of the information system in which you are immersed, developed a real independent judgment. And do it now, if you want to remain human . There are many ways to say it, but the background is similar. In Chomsky, fight the “ filtering system ” that indoctrinates us making us victims of “ model of propaganda “; in Bartlett, argue that the answer to the ideology of ISIS “ is to teach young people how to think critically, how to measure and evaluate for themselves the information they encounter online ” (is why we are failing). As for Hitchens, is all in ‘On Free Speech’: “ Do not take refuge in the false sense of security consensus, in the sense that whatever we think is likely to be acceptable because you are safe in the moral majority ” .

That look overall at De Biase is called “ story “, and is the thread that allows you to not get lost in the 200 pages of the book published by the Code, concise but dense – starting by cultural references, ranging from neuroscience knowledge economy, from information theory to the practice of propaganda. Even the network, argues De Biase, is a “ story “. Indeed, more precisely, “ Internet is its own metaphor “. Not only or not so cables, infrastructure, data, platforms, users: the network “ is the vision of those who interpret “. And each of these visions has several limitations and possibilities for the very capacity to think about the relationship between man and technology, and therefore our future.

The point is that this “ story “, the network must have a look wider and more complex set of that provided by the current dominant narratives: on the one hand, the market with its promise of efficiency automatic (which invariably results in monopolies and inequality); on the other, the technological determinism, for which “ the solution to every problem will come from the emerging results of the evolution engineering “. It seems so that our gaze is forced into a suffocating dichotomy between the individual and society, between individual behavior perfectly scrutabili and manipulated and mass behavior equally scrutabili and manipulated. Result? What is under the eyes of all: the utopian rhetoric of liberation has turned into a nightmare of surveillance, control and generation of artificial wants more precisely calibrated on the preferences and behavior of users.

But we are not forced to submit to one of these two “ stories ,” writes De Biase: We can, indeed we must, live the present with the ambition to reiterate that ‘ man comes before the technique, and that it is and must remain the master. “ Another future is possible ,” it said, as long as you change “ story ” reference, adopting a “ eco ” that safeguards sustainability and complexity of the human, his being inherently “ plural ” – key term in the volume that is not however, in my view, a sufficiently detailed and functional – and therefore irreducible to requests, silly and trivializing, the platforms that we use (“ Like? ‘,’ where are you ?”, “ What are you doing? “). In the words of the author: “ The plural dimension we are talking about is neither collective nor individual: it is common on many connections between people and the different circumstances in which they live, on the way in which those connections impact on people and their actions, placing constraints and providing opportunities . “

So the collective intelligence (” procedural, automatic, purely collective “) becomes” intelligence plural “, ie a system with the ambition to not only make decisions more you participate, but likely” actually improve decisions “; Innovation is not limited to the “ multiplication of news ” but serves the quality of life; and social media, which would reduce us to our like, are reconfigured as “ average civic “. Because, writes De Biase, “ when you have to make decisions that affect the” common good “can not be limited to bringing together the ones we like: systems are needed to create a dialogue constructively people who, in fact, not necessarily like each “. It is not as simple as we thought, write Eli Pariser and Ethan Zuckerman.

Not that it is enough to change “ story “, that profound sense of perspective, to get all these miraculous adjustments. Is that changing “ story ” change meanings and possibilities, and consequently interpretations and actions. And so, if the network through the eyes of the market net neutrality can be conceived as an undue obstacle to the freedom of enterprise, with those of the approach pluralist-ecological De Biase becomes the contrary (well, remains ) a precondition for the development of the Internet that does not stifle the human. At this serves therefore the attempt to achieve a charter of fundamental rights in the network, of which it is an integral part of De Biase: giving voice and institutional arrangement to a “ cultural movement ” that has yet to heart the value of privacy, anonymity, access rights as individuals, not as a source of competitive advantage or, worse still, lanterns at the mercy of the wind unstoppable technological progress.

There is still a lot of theoretical and practice that leads to the definition of the concept of “ plural ” and, above all, its practical application to the many thorny ongoing debates on Internet governance. After all, was not the place – the necklace is at the intersection of cutting academic and topicality reasoned – and the author himself admits in the finale: “ intelligence plural ” is primarily a locution suitable to keep in mind that we are not forced to surrender to the “ climate of cultural homogenization ” in which we are immersed. For this reminded Chomsky, Bartlett and Hitchens: after all, they are saying the same.