Poetic Conversations

Sentences I’m thinking about as we crack open 2022:

Rather than link increasing velocity to liberated exuberance, Virilio, in Speed and Politics, suggests that “the more speed increases, the faster freedom decreases”: By the time an action is required in real time, the moment to act is already swiftly disappearing into the past. Freedom requires the time in which to deliberate and to act, and extreme speed deprives individuals of that time. 

Zachary Loeb, Inventing the Shipwreck, Real Life Mag, Jan 3, 2022 (emphasis mine)

“Freedom requires the time in which to deliberate and to act, and extreme speed deprives individuals of that time.”

Rather than anticipating what might happen out of the myriad and unknowable possibilities on which the very idea of a future depends, machine learning and other AI-based methods of statistical correlation “restrict the future to the past.” In other words, these systems prevent the future in order to “predict” it—they ensure that the future will be just the same as the past was.

Chris Gilliard, Crime Prediction Keeps Society Stuck In The Past, Wired, Jan 2, 2022 (emphasis mine)

“In other words, these systems prevent the future in order to “predict” it—they ensure that the future will be just the same as the past was.“

Untitled
anticipating what might happen, the moment to act is swiftly disappearing.
the time in which to deliberate the very idea of a future
depends on the past:
ensure, predict; restrict, prevent.
“the more speed increases, the faster freedom decreases”
"the future will be just the same as the past was."
Rather, rather.

Rather than helping us to manage social problems like racism as we move forward, as the McDaniel case shows in microcosm, these systems demand that society not change, that things that we should try to fix instead must stay exactly as they are.

Chris Gilliard, Crime Prediction Keeps Society Stuck In The Past, Wired, Jan 2, 2022

It may seem obvious today that there had never been a car crash before the car was invented, but what future wrecks are being overlooked today amidst the excited chatter about AI, the metaverse, and all things crypto?

Virilio’s attention to accidents is a provocation to look at technology differently. To foreground the dangers instead of the benefits, and to see ourselves as the potential victims instead of as the smiling beneficiaries.

Zachary Loeb, Inventing the Shipwreck, Real Life Mag, Jan 3, 2022

amidst the excited chatter

what future wrecks are being overlooked today?
things that we should try to fix
helping us to manage social problems like racism;
To foreground the dangers instead of the benefits
may seem obvious.


as we move forward
these systems demand that society not change;
to look at technology,
to see ourselves 
as the smiling beneficiaries
instead of 
as the potential victims.

things
must stay exactly as they are.
 

Welcome 2022 and take this thought with you, too.

Respect your “who all gon’ be there” friend because they’re likely asking to protect their energy.

— Dani Kwateng (@danikwateng) November 12, 2021

Protect your energy and help your friends and loved ones do the same.