User:Colm/RWRM-year2-Thesis-outline0.1.2

Thesis outline

standing outline for Thesis Graduate Seminar deadline 2016_11_07

The focus of this thesis will be the place and access of and to field knowledge in software technologies.

Central research question: How can software be a gateway to the knowledge and skills of the craft it facilitates?

Technology is typically seen as a problem-solver, and well-designed technology is supposed to follow an according aesthetic of efficiency, ease and—ultimately—automation.

To Save Everything, Click Here — Evgeny Morozov, ch 9

Is it important for software technologies to inform and teach the user of the broader context of the problem it is trying to solve? If so, is this happening in the software models we know today? So much focus seems to be placed on efficiency and speed, but what is the cost of that concentration? What models of software realms can we outline? What social and economic contexts to they hail from? What power do they give to the user? What is the consideration of each towards the intended value they create? What are the larger moral values on which they function? What is the intended position of the user in these models?

With some necessary contextualisations, the thesis will attempt to inform the relation between contributive economies and agonism. The first nodal point, contributive economies, will rely on threads developed by Stiegler and Ars Industrialis which put capitalism and contributive economies in perspective with skill, craftsmanship, production and efficiency. The secondary comparison point of agonism calls in other political and philosophical research threads these ones relying on Chantal Mouffe's research that recently have culminated in theoretical frames to understand modern designs under the lens of Adverserial Design.

My intention is to provide appropriate context to better understand certain contemporary movement in digital services that seem to focus mainly on efficiency as an attribute. This risks the further diminishing the cultural relevance and importance of digital practices and crafts, blurring all the lines between service and production.

The notion of contributive economies hails as an opposition to what a consumerist model is. The consumerist model appears in the 20th century, one step after a productivist-industrial-capitalist model. It's hard to say exactly when capitalism appears, but what is important is to note that there is a pre-industrial capitalism. When the industrial era of capitalism does arrive, end 18th start 19th, it is observed as a capitalism of investments, that rests on an interconnected understanding of techniques and sciences. The industrial dimension enables very high levels of production, and then the seek for more and more productivity begins.

Agonism is defined as

a political theory that emphasizes the potentially positive aspects of certain (but not all) forms of political conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflict, but seeks to show how we might accept and channel this positively.

The initial notions from the first paragraphs will all be explained in individual chapters to lay the ground for the thesis. Later, the questions posed above will come into focus, as I will attempt to look at the inputs and outputs of the two economical models. For this, the example of software will be a (the?) focus point. Digital technology has the necessary componentry to be able to inspect the models individually with examples that speak loudly to the secondary productions that I wonder about above.

Key texts

to save everything click here — Evgeny Morozov
La société automatique: Tome 1, L'avenir du travail — Bernard Stiegler
Adverserial Design - Carl DiSalvo
Chantal Mouffe
Terry Winograd & Fernando Flores — Understanding Computers and Cognition

(alternatively --more involved) research questions:

With the premice of contributive economies being opposed to capitalistic economies, do the characteristics of each apply to the software models they give way to, meaning f/loss software versus proprietary software?
A contributive economy is opposed to capitalistic economies, each being at their respective side for the agonstic attitude to remain in balance, but what other social and or cultural matter do each of these models produce aside from their economies?
What are their values and where do those values come from?
What are the links between contributive economies and agonism?
Are they separate thoughts or are they collaborative?
Should agonism be brought to contributive economies?
Do we need agonistic perspectives or does the theoretical model that supports contributive economies cover all of the aspects?