re:publica 18 - Alle Sessions

• Céline Keller

In my talk I will argue, based on the thoughts of the brilliant Jamaican theorist Sylvia Wynter, that it is not humanism we need to get over but the racism and duality of the self and the other on which western humanism has been build and various times been reinvented.

Traveling back in time, we will learn, how the value divide of heaven and earth of Christian medieval Europe and its structuring principle of body and spirit, has enabled first, the mighty power of the church, and was then remodeled, after Copernicus, into the superiority of the rational man over his irrational others, and finally with Darwin into the concept of the biologically (“naturally”) selected (white, male, straight, and rich) vs. the dysselected (nonwhite, female, queer, and poor). 

We then take a look at transhumanism with its proponents, like Steve Fuller and Elon Musk, who seem to just reinvent this never changing pattern of exclusion and oppression, casting many of us as subhumans to be left behind. 

How can we overcome this imaginary divide and opposition? 

Can we instead invent a humanism that includes us all? 
I will suggest that the pop culture zombies that keep haunting us might help. 

In a world of the 1% against the 99%, when, without showing any shame, cynical billionaires build fortifications to fight off future climate refugees, people that, very well, could be called the Undead. Dehumanized humans, stripped of their value and whom we are made to believe, we will need to fight. Why do we still identify with the privileged survivors, when watching tv shows like The Walking Dead? Today, those imagined surviving groups of arms carrying people, might be portrayed as diverse, but does that really make sense? And why, is it so incredibly hard to create and sustain solidarity, that is more than an empty lip-service? How come, we are so fascinated, instead of appalled, with those narratives of competition of us against them? Aren’t we all, like the zombies, the superfluous 99%?


In my talk, I will explore the dark side of humanism’s history and its cruel connection to de-humanization, racism and eugenics, and then link this history to the future proposed by transhumanism, and suggest, that identifying with the zombies instead of the cyborgs might help with imagining a new inclusive humanism, we urgently need. 

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Some of the papers the talk will be based on:



Sylvia Wynter: Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/ Power/Truth/Freedom Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument 
http://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2432989/Wynter-2003-Unsettling-the-Coloniality-of-Being.pdf



Steve Fuller - We May Look Crazy to Them, But They Look Like Zombies to Us: Transhumanism as a Political Challange 
https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/fuller20150909

Dale

Knickerbocker - Why Zombies Matter:  The Undead as Critical Posthumanist 
https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/135003/1_BohemicaLitteraria_18-2015-2_7.pdf?sequence=1
 

• Charlie Winter
• Nicole Celikkesen

This session, which is based on a longitudinal archive of primary source materials collected since early 2014, will set out the current state of play regarding the Islamic State.

First of all, by reverse engineering documents and publications leaked from the organisation in Iraq, Winter will set out the tactical and strategic rationale behind the group's propaganda operations, demonstrating how an obsessive desire for information and narrative supremacy has coursed through it and its predecessors' veins for a matter of decades.

After this, Winter will identify and discuss the three core objectives of its communication operations today - that is: (1) to present an alternative narrative to current members and would-be recruits; (2) to counter the global "fake news" agenda, which it considers to be a deliberate intellectual offensive against Sunni Muslims; and (3) to launch Islamic State "information bombs" in the form of offensive psychological attacks against populations and governments outside of Syria and Iraq.

The third section will consider how things have changed since 2014. Using data to track its evolution, Winter will demonstrate how the group's "virtual caliphate" has altered since its heyday a few years ago. He will also take this as an opportunity speculate as to its operational trajectory in the coming months and years, taking note of its new stated priority: to incite, instruct and instigate acts of violence outside of its immediate sphere of operations in Syria and Iraq. 

Throughout the session, which will be highly visual, Winter will engage with some of the toughest questions associated with terrorist use of the Internet, ranging from the merits (and demerits) of censorship to the implications of encryption technology. 

• Markus Deimann
• Christian Friedrich

Seit mindestens 30 Jahren wird davon gesprochen, mithilfe von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien Unterricht, Lernen und Lehren zu verbessern. In Schule, Hochschule und auch in der Weiterbildung gab es unzählige Feldversuche, experimentelle Studien, Förderprogramme und Initiativen, um die angestaubt wirkenden Bildungseinrichtungen grundlegend zu erneuern. Gemein ist den meisten Versuchen, dass sie die hochgesteckten Erwartungen - Lernen wird effizienter und effektiver - nicht erfüllen konnten. So mündete auch die Idee, mehr selbstgesteuertes Lernen und partizipatives Lehren in die Einrichtungen zu bringen an vielen Stellen genau im Gegenteil: Sprachlabore zum Nachsprechen; Learning Management Systeme, die dem Duktus der Selbststeuerung, die Pragmatik und Dogmatik der Kontrolle und des Rechtemanagements entgegensetzen; der Einsatz von Fördermitteln für digitale Infrastruktur parallel zum Verbot, Mobiltelefone im Unterricht oder Laptops in der Hochschulveranstaltung zu nutzen.

Technologie scheint die ihr zugesprochene transformative Kraft im Bildungssystem nicht so recht entfalten zu wollen. Megatrends wie Künstliche Intelligenz oder Virtuelle Realität werden seit Jahren als ‘the next big thing in education’ angekündigt. Social Media sollte Machtgefüge aus den Angeln heben und Partizipation fördern. Die Öffnung von Bildung mit Technologie und offenen Lizenzen sollte Zugänge schaffen, wo vorher keine waren. Liest man Pressemeldungen und Projektbeschreibungen von 2007 oder 1997, so genügt der Tausch einiger Buzzwords, um eine Doppelseite in der Süddeutschen, im Spiegel oder der ZEIT zu füllen.

In unserem Vortrag möchten wir uns diese Entwicklungen genauer ansehen. In einigen Fällen lassen sich alternative Szenarien aufzeigen, aus denen wir für digitale und zeitgemäße Bildung in 2018 und darüber hinaus Schlüsse ziehen können. Einige der Beispiele aus den letzten 30 Jahren dürften auch für den einen oder anderen Lacher gut sein.

• Steve Lambert
• Andrew Hudson
• Mushon Zer-Aviv
• Maya Indira Ganesh

How can we use data analysis and AI, deterministic technological practices that are conservative by design, to build models for better futures? What can we learn from new genres in science fiction that break from dystopia and envision new, different and desirable futures? And how can activists and artists use Utopia as a tool in their political and creative practice?

• Andreas Pawelke
• Lejla Sadiku

Digital data offers manifold opportunities to development. It enables organizations and individuals to strengthen decision-making processes, improve service delivery and elicit meaningful citizen participation, among others. At the same time, it generates new forms of exclusion, new methods of surveillance and threatens individual privacy.

A recently published study is looking into the current state of data for development and emerging trends. For each of the six trends identified in the research, there are negative and positive potential scenarios as they unfold within the next years. For instance, more sources of data can make the development sector more agile, but may open opportunities for surveillance and threats to individual privacy. Artificial intelligence offers novel ways of tackling development problems, but in some cases, algorithms have proven to be biased, opaque and out of reach of scrutiny. While opening and sharing data between partners can serve the public good, this can also threaten citizen privacy due to the technical challenges of fully anonymising data.

In this session, we will present the key findings of the study, provide practical examples of how digital data is being used in development and engage the audience in a discussion on the potential negative and positive scenarios of increased reliance on data to achieve development impact.

supported by BMZ

• Surya Mattu

In today’s digital world social, economic, and racial injustice lurks in the shadows of the unseen Facebook post, the hidden algorithm used to sort employment resumes, and the risk assessment tool used in criminal sentencing.  These systems tend to be opaque and beyond scrutiny. Access is usually restricted to large companies and governing bodies whose interests are often unaligned with large parts of their customer base and citizens. Much of the criticism of the technology industry tends to be hypothetical or speculative because it can be very difficult to measure the ways in which people are being harmed. The methods of personalization that have transformed how we use the internet have also obfuscated the disparate impact that takes place there. This makes it significantly harder for those interested in regulation to collect the evidence necessary to hold tech companies accountable. It is possible to collect some of this information by harnessing the network and communications infrastructure that the internet is made up of. The data traveling through these systems tell compelling stories if you know how to look for them. They also often reflect systemic biases and prejudices prevalent in society.

• Renato Losio

When a user uploads a picture, posts on Facebook or searches on-line for the nearest events, location-based services are part of the equation. They present unexpected challenges to the developer who targets an international audience but wants to rely on location data to control new features. When a controversial decoding is in a disputed territory or a partially recognized state, the corner cases might become a support and PR nightmare: what are the safest patterns and how do the four big platforms (Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook) tackle issues related to geolocation?

35 participants

• Corinna Baldauf

Die Märkte verändern sich rasend schnell und Unternehmen kommen in ihrer Entwicklung oft nicht hinterher. Sie planen zu langfristig und agieren zu langsam. Als Gegenentwurf ist Agiles Arbeiten Synonym für Dynamik und Beweglichkeit geworden.

Darum ist Agilität oft ein Grundpfeiler in ‘New Work’-Konzepten. Doch wie klappt das im Alltag mit selbst-organisierten Teams statt Managern? Wie fließen Informationen durch das Unternehmen? Und wer stellt neue Mitarbeiter ein?

Seit 2010 arbeiten wir bei sipgate lean und agil. In dieser Session teilen wir konkrete Methoden aus unserem Arbeitsalltag: Vom firmen-internen BarCamp über Post-Its bis zu Peer Recruiting. Vielleicht nehmt ihr den ein oder anderen Impuls für eure Organisation mit nach Hause. #hackingwork 
 

• Jim Groom

A Domain of One's Own is an international initiative in higher education to give students and faculty more control over their personal data. The movement started at the University of Mary Washington in 2012, and has since grown to tens of thousands of faculty and students across hundreds of universities. The first part of this presentation (5-10 minutes) will provide a brief overview of how these Domains projects enable not only data portability for coursework, but also a reflective sense of what a digital identity might mean in terms of privacy and data ownership.  

The second part of this presentation will explore how Domain of One's Own could provides a powerful example in how higher education could harness application programming interfaces (APIs) to build a more user-empowered data ecosystem at universities. The initial imaginings of this work has already begun at Brigham Young University in collaboration with Reclaim Hosting, and we will share a blueprint of what a vision of the Personal API could mean for a human-centric data future in the realm of education and beyond.

• Matthew Stender
• Adam Harvey

Biometric sensors are used by governments, corporations and even NGOs to perceive unique identifiers for individual humans. This session will parse the distinction between two types of biometric traits (hard and soft) - those that we possess and those that we perform - and discuss how both are increasingly being used as unique identifiers to catalogue our whereabouts, categorize our actions and customize our experiences.

These automated biometric systems, created by humans are increasing religating humanity ‘out of the loop’. Simultaneously, humans are unable to hide or escape from the view of machines. Without oversight or accountability, humans changes the way they operate in the physical space, eroding their agency. The ethnographic and anthropological implications  of the biometric shape more than individual behavior and can even lead to a “flattening of culture.” From data modeling leads to replication of discrimination to biometric product design doesn’t account for non-able bodied persons, technology will increasingly leave its fingerprint on human society. Finally, forced participation in these systems brings up philosophical questions as to what constitutes human rights in the 21st century.

Beyond traditional access control mechanisms (like an undergoing an eye scan to enter into a secure facility), collective biometrics now give those in power the capacity for predictive analysis through future modeling. Micromovements can now be disambiguated to tell stories about our human bodies that we ourselves may be unaware of.