Benjamin H. Bratton
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029575
- eISBN:
- 9780262330183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029575.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Stack architectures are designed to be remade. Each modular layer can contain any technology able to communicate with the layer above and below it. This chapter examines not the Stack-we-have but the ...
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Stack architectures are designed to be remade. Each modular layer can contain any technology able to communicate with the layer above and below it. This chapter examines not the Stack-we-have but the Stack-to-come. It considers possible futures for each of the six layers, recognizing both the potential and the risks that each may bring. As each layer is considered in relation to its own potential accidents, as The Stack as a whole is a composite accident. Some scenarios suggest further ecological calamity, Cloud Feudalism, and revitalized political theological fundamentalisms. Others may suggest instead robust ecological polities, rationalized algorithmic governance, and a vibrant proliferation of human and non-human agents. Whether the latter wins out over the former depends on how well we cope with the Copernican traumas of planetary-scale computation.Less
Stack architectures are designed to be remade. Each modular layer can contain any technology able to communicate with the layer above and below it. This chapter examines not the Stack-we-have but the Stack-to-come. It considers possible futures for each of the six layers, recognizing both the potential and the risks that each may bring. As each layer is considered in relation to its own potential accidents, as The Stack as a whole is a composite accident. Some scenarios suggest further ecological calamity, Cloud Feudalism, and revitalized political theological fundamentalisms. Others may suggest instead robust ecological polities, rationalized algorithmic governance, and a vibrant proliferation of human and non-human agents. Whether the latter wins out over the former depends on how well we cope with the Copernican traumas of planetary-scale computation.
