In the Swarm
Digital Prospects
by Byung-Chul Han · first published 2017
50% recommend50% neutral
"Digital communication and social media have taken over our lives. In this contrarian reflection on digitized life, Byung-Chul Han counters the cheerleaders for Twitter revolutions and Facebook activism by arguing that digital communication is in fact responsible for the disintegration of community and public space and is slowly eroding any possibility for real political action and meaningful political discourse. In the predigital, analog era, by the time an angry letter to the editor had been composed, mailed, and received, the immediate agitation had passed. Today, digital communication enab
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I recommend reading "In the Swarm" by Byung-Chul Han, and also his "The Crisis of Narration"; in those he tries to tackle exactly these issues in contemporary society. His "Psychopolitics" talks about the manipulation of masses for political…
on “How elites could shape mass preferences as AI reduces persuasion costs” ↗I disagree completely. I recommend you to read "In the Swarm" by Byung-Chul Han as a primer. People on the internet are tiring because how they interact is shaped to turn everything into a binary, the platforms where people spout their opinions don't foster any…
on “We are going to kill "unalive"” ↗Off-topic: have you enjoyed "The Disappearance of Rituals"? I went on a binge of Byung-Chul Han last year, reading "The Crisis of Narration", "In The Swarm", "Psychopolitics", and "The Burnout Society". Really enjoyed all of them, and given how dense it can be I set myself to read them at least twice which I'm just finishing, was on the lookout for what…
on “Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself” ↗…TensorFlow is open source, the chips are available. We just have to use them in a way that expands human freedom. Is anyone writing about the political economy of AI? I can think of Byung-Chul Han's In the Swarm, but that's more about social media sans algorithmic moderation.
on “Facebook unblocks '#saltbae' after Vietnamese minister's golden steak” ↗…single-handedly decided by someone, it's all part and parcel of the system they decided to (or ended up at) participate. I think Byung-Chul Han hit the right spot when talking about "shitstorms" on "In The Swarm". Societies after the digital age got too narrowly focused on explosive bursts of outrage against individuals, instead of discussing more in-depth the issues that create systems these individuals live…
on “Tech Fascism Has Come for American Democracy” ↗