Networked Proximity - Full PDF

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Networked Proximity - Full PDF
Ulises Ali Mejias has posted the final draft of his dissertation, a long PDF that will make good airplane reading. From unauspicious beginnings he makes a somewhat audacious claim - "the network imposes a nodocentric filter on the social, and only elements that can be mapped onto the network (the nodes) are rendered as real. This model is then used to institute a paradigm of progress and development in which those elements outside the network can acquire value only by becoming part of the network. The social becomes subordinate to the economics of the network, and the network becomes a model of subjectivation that prepares individuals for entrance into this form of sociality." Certainly this is something I would want to assess before accepting. More...