Hey, in about 3 hours, at 8pm ET, we're going to get together to talk about the last chapter of Techno-Negative (we still have another week of the book, so we're not "finished" with the book yet).

I've been really interested in the idea that algorithmic modeling is like the distilled version of trying to construct a hack to model the world rather than accept the chaos and uncertainty of the world (I wrote a whole paper about my struggle with this issue with AI/ML systems), and I'm thinking a lot about Dekeyser tracing the history of that "original sin" of computing to the beginning of cybernetics. I had drawn a different connection to the emergence of "scientific forestry", and I'd be super curious to hear whether he sees an ideological connection between that attempt to manage the natural world and the cybernetics project of ... targeting fighter planes during World War II.

I'm also really, really interested in a couple of quotes he gives (or relays) in this chapter:

[page 139] Their obsession was the left-wing militant

[page 146] there were no demands, just fire.

[page 148, quoting Deleuze] "repressive forces don't stop people from expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves."

I really want to hear what (or if) you all thought about some of these quotes, and/or if you thought a lot about any other parts of the chapter. I feel like I didn't fully comprehend the temporal (past vs present vs future) point he was making, so I'd also appreciate spending a minute to either collectively be confused, or alternatively listen to someone else who got a better grip on this than I did.

When you're ready to join at 8p ET, you can click on this link or you can go here:

https://al2.in/ReadingGroupRoom

See you then.

(PS: This email should be arriving a little earlier in the day than usual; I'm experimenting with giving people more time to read my reflections, vs running the risk that people will read the email and then go do other things and forget that we're doing our video chat. I'm trying sending this earlier because someone suggested it - if you have suggestions, please let me know!)

(PPS: I realize I didn't send an email on Monday - sorry about that; hopefully it was intuitive what I was planning on reading this week, based on the table outlining my reading plans week-by-week.)