Enjoyed this. One of the more horrifying examples I've seen of the process of machines working through us is in Keegan's The Face of Battle:
The machine-gunner is best thought of, in short, as a sort of machine-minder, whose principal task was to feed ammunition belt into the breech, something which could be done while the gun was in full operation, top up the fluid in the cooling jacket, and traverse the gun from left to right and back again within the limits set by its firing platform. Traversing was achieved by a technique known, in the British Army, as the 'two inch tap': by constant practice, the machine-gunner learned to hit the side of the breech with the palm of his hand just hard enough to move the muzzle exactly two inches against the resistance of the traversing screw. A succession of 'two-inch taps' first on one side of the breech until the stop was reached, then on the other, would keep in the air a stream of bullets so dense that no one could walk upright across the front of the machine-gunner's position without being hit – given, of course, that the gunner had set his machine to fire low and that the ground as devoid of cover. The appearance of the machine-gun, therefore, had not so much disciplined the act of killing – which was what seventeenth-century drill had done – as mechanized or industrialized it.
Part of the utility of this is also in the shift in the relation of the machine-minder to the act of killing. This seems to have something to do with Enframing as you characterize it, enabling the machine-minder to stand in a different relation to the violence he's doing.
Thank you for this very stimulating essay—and for all the work you're doing on here. I think an important post-modern aspect of what makes twitter so crazy-making is that the promise of posting is, as you noted, in your previous piece, the promise of recognition and exposure. If you want to make a living as a writer/podcaster/journalist/pundit, you need to be visible on twitter. This means that in addition to all the work essay and book writing requires, you also need to be participating in the twitter economy so that when your work comes out, you have an audience primed to engage with it. You produce free content for twitter and facebook, and the payoff you get is recognition that you may be able to monetize down the road. Say what you will about Fordist capitalism, but those factory workers were getting paid for their time. The twitter economy, like any developed economy in the 21st century, is highly speculative and basically a matter of cruel optimism.
This is fascinating and persuasive. It's clear that people who post to Twitter are "working the machine." What's your view of people who only read? (That includes me, BTW)? Are we also working the machine? If so, how (if at all) does the work of "merely reading" differ from the work of writing?
I find this point a little over the top. Yes there is a sense in which in Capitalism everyone feeds the machine. But the problem with alienation is tied to the issue of deskilling that modern technology favors when tech is chosen by Capitalists. I think the moral point about machinery is closely related to Adam Smith’s point about how the division of labor dehumanizes the laborer. So too with deskilling technology. David Nobel wrote on these issue insightfully as did Braverman. At any rate, my question to you is do you think blogging, writing for the net etc is deskilling or more deskilling than doing so for, say, book or article publication. Twitter perhaps. But I found that blogging was the opposite of the deskilling one finds in large scale mechanization.
Last point, if the aim is to build the future in the present then some forms of work today provide glimpses of what work could be like were it non alienating. There are such forms, I believe. Artisnal work which can use fancy tech can be such, so too various kinds of academic work. They may not be as good as they might be, buT they are much different from the kind o mind numbing work on associates with assembly lines or call centers.
It's just meant to be thinking out loud. No, writing is not deskilled labor. I don't find writing to be alienating, but being on social media all day is.
And please dont let my flippant comment stop your out loud thinking. It is very enjoyable. I just thought that the deskilling aspect of technology is an important feature behind alienation. The problem is not tech per se, but how tech becomes embodied in machines under capitalism. Like I said, David Nobel has some fascinating things to say about how capitalists who buy tech favor machinery that deskillsmits workforce for reasons both Braverman and Adam Smith go into. And this is awful given the baleful impact it has on personality and the humanity of the worker. Tech, on the other hand, can be liberating and enhance our skills and make us more creative. At any rate, continue to think out loud. N
Enjoyed this. One of the more horrifying examples I've seen of the process of machines working through us is in Keegan's The Face of Battle:
The machine-gunner is best thought of, in short, as a sort of machine-minder, whose principal task was to feed ammunition belt into the breech, something which could be done while the gun was in full operation, top up the fluid in the cooling jacket, and traverse the gun from left to right and back again within the limits set by its firing platform. Traversing was achieved by a technique known, in the British Army, as the 'two inch tap': by constant practice, the machine-gunner learned to hit the side of the breech with the palm of his hand just hard enough to move the muzzle exactly two inches against the resistance of the traversing screw. A succession of 'two-inch taps' first on one side of the breech until the stop was reached, then on the other, would keep in the air a stream of bullets so dense that no one could walk upright across the front of the machine-gunner's position without being hit – given, of course, that the gunner had set his machine to fire low and that the ground as devoid of cover. The appearance of the machine-gun, therefore, had not so much disciplined the act of killing – which was what seventeenth-century drill had done – as mechanized or industrialized it.
Part of the utility of this is also in the shift in the relation of the machine-minder to the act of killing. This seems to have something to do with Enframing as you characterize it, enabling the machine-minder to stand in a different relation to the violence he's doing.
Thank you for this very stimulating essay—and for all the work you're doing on here. I think an important post-modern aspect of what makes twitter so crazy-making is that the promise of posting is, as you noted, in your previous piece, the promise of recognition and exposure. If you want to make a living as a writer/podcaster/journalist/pundit, you need to be visible on twitter. This means that in addition to all the work essay and book writing requires, you also need to be participating in the twitter economy so that when your work comes out, you have an audience primed to engage with it. You produce free content for twitter and facebook, and the payoff you get is recognition that you may be able to monetize down the road. Say what you will about Fordist capitalism, but those factory workers were getting paid for their time. The twitter economy, like any developed economy in the 21st century, is highly speculative and basically a matter of cruel optimism.
This is fascinating and persuasive. It's clear that people who post to Twitter are "working the machine." What's your view of people who only read? (That includes me, BTW)? Are we also working the machine? If so, how (if at all) does the work of "merely reading" differ from the work of writing?
I think attention drives, clicks, retweets etc
I find this point a little over the top. Yes there is a sense in which in Capitalism everyone feeds the machine. But the problem with alienation is tied to the issue of deskilling that modern technology favors when tech is chosen by Capitalists. I think the moral point about machinery is closely related to Adam Smith’s point about how the division of labor dehumanizes the laborer. So too with deskilling technology. David Nobel wrote on these issue insightfully as did Braverman. At any rate, my question to you is do you think blogging, writing for the net etc is deskilling or more deskilling than doing so for, say, book or article publication. Twitter perhaps. But I found that blogging was the opposite of the deskilling one finds in large scale mechanization.
Last point, if the aim is to build the future in the present then some forms of work today provide glimpses of what work could be like were it non alienating. There are such forms, I believe. Artisnal work which can use fancy tech can be such, so too various kinds of academic work. They may not be as good as they might be, buT they are much different from the kind o mind numbing work on associates with assembly lines or call centers.
It's just meant to be thinking out loud. No, writing is not deskilled labor. I don't find writing to be alienating, but being on social media all day is.
And please dont let my flippant comment stop your out loud thinking. It is very enjoyable. I just thought that the deskilling aspect of technology is an important feature behind alienation. The problem is not tech per se, but how tech becomes embodied in machines under capitalism. Like I said, David Nobel has some fascinating things to say about how capitalists who buy tech favor machinery that deskillsmits workforce for reasons both Braverman and Adam Smith go into. And this is awful given the baleful impact it has on personality and the humanity of the worker. Tech, on the other hand, can be liberating and enhance our skills and make us more creative. At any rate, continue to think out loud. N
I do read fiction, just not a lot.