====================================================================== Title: The New Control Society Date: 2025-05-05 Tags: box3, internet, philosophy Link: https://spool-five.com/box3/20250505t114015--the-new-control-society__box3_internet_philosophy/ Word Count: 1274 ====================================================================== #philosophy[1] =>[1] https://spool-five.com/box3/20220602t000000--philosophy__box3/ This is a note about an interesting article I just read, The New Control Society[2] by Jon Askonas. =>[2] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-new-control-society The core idea, that social control has moved from a 'disciplinary' model, where power is centralised, to a 'protocol' model of control, where power is decentralised, is not new at all. As the author mentions, one of the first, clearest articulations of this shift is found in Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control[3], but we can also see clear articulations of this concept in Alexander Galloway's book Protocol (2004)[4]. The New York Times also had a recent story about the "Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber"[5], which looks at how some of the Ted Kaczynski's ideas relating to technological control have found advocates across the political spectrum. You could also say that some of Slavoj Zizek's work is tangentially related. Although he doesn't reference the idea of the 'protocol' as the mechanism of social reorganisation, he does frequently reference the shift in ideology from Soviet communism to 'western' capitalism, sometimes summarised by reference to Coca-Cola. Whereas in Soviet times you were commanded to 'obey', in capitalist times you are encouraged to 'enjoy!'. =>[3] https://cidadeinseguranca.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf =>[4] https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/2528/ProtocolHow-Control-Exists-after-Decentralization =>[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/magazine/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-luigi-mangione.html Traditional systems of control and governance are highly centralised (and national). In the best cases the people in charge of these systems are also democratically elected. In the 'protocol' society, there is no single 'architecture' for the system. Instead, multiple, modular systems emerge that are most efficient for a particular 'local' task. These systems interface with one another through some common, ubiquitous language (the protocol), and the resulting 'macro-architecture'/'macro power-structure' is something that emerges organically through the interactions of various local networks. In the protocol society it is much harder to trace a 'single' source of power or decision-making. What the Askonas article adds to this idea are some very useful concrete examples and analysis of how this has played out in more recent times. For example, references to the role international standards organisations play in developing and shaping protocols. These organisations often exist 'outside' the traditional forums of political governance and national legislative processes. He also has an interesting analysis of the left and right reactions to the new forms of social control introduced by the 'protocol effect', where, for example, a lot of the right wing conspiracy theories are seen as arising from a general misunderstanding and confusion about who is in charge now - no one is 'in charge' in the traditional sense, power is created through network effects. > QAnon is what you would get if you gave a mediocre Hollywood screenwriter > a theme — the destruction of the American way of life by a corrupt elite > — and asked him to fill in the details. In contrast to the central > figures of true conspiracies, who are almost always hidden deep in the > bowels of a bureaucracy or network, the central figures of distorted > conspiracy theories are almost always notable to start with. Q-type > conspiracy theories take decisions that are largely made by countless > grant-writers, management consultants, tax lawyers, and nonprofit > executives and attribute them to Bill Gates or George Soros. There is also an interesting picture painted of the effect that big data (and open, connected systems) have on 'taste' - when we have systems that can collect, aggregate and present the 'best' options, as decided by collective, emergent choices, the result is the reduction of everything to single common denominators. > The global Airbnb aesthetic, the moneyball three-pointer, the Marvel > movie, the paintings of The People’s Choice: these are not imposed by > any cabal; they are the mathematical average of actualized desire, the > calculable outworking of information flowing freely. They will be > displaced not by some authentic vision, but merely by the next algorithmic > average. At the outset, Askonas links the rise of the protocol-controlled societies to neoliberal economists. They argued that the state is not in the best position to make informed decisions about the economy. Rather, all of the necessary _information_ is held within economic systems themselves - who knows more about the best way to run a cafe, the owner of the cafe or the government bureaucrat? Therefore, the most optimal way to allow an economy to develop is to have as minimal government intervention as possible, let the local actors make more informed decisions about their own areas. It is similar in relation to the protocol. With a system built on protocols, all that is decided centrally are some basic, minimal rules for different localities to communicate with one another. After that, things run automatically, there is no need for central/governmental decision-making. The result is a highly _scalable_ and efficient system. Think about the internet. Although governments can have some degree of control over their national infrastructure, there is no single government or authority that can have a say over the whole network of the internet. If you did want to change how it works, you would have to change the protocols themselves, which are overseen by independent, international standards organisations, like the IETF. Even when those organisations themselves want to make a major change to the system, like the move from IPv4 to IPv6, there is little they can do in terms of 'forcing' or 'coercing' all the individual network and device manufacturer to adopt a new standard. The question, however, is how far this analogy with neoliberal economic thinking can go. The author seems to suggest that neoliberalism, as a political force, and the computing/protocol era go hand in hand: > The deregulatory agenda of political leaders like Margaret Thatcher, > Ronald Reagan, and Deng Xiaoping only cleared the way for neoliberalism’s > real power: designing the world economic system for openness through > shared protocols. When seen through this lens, it seems that larger > forces even than the Reagan Revolution were at work. People on the left often vilify leaders like Thatcher and Reagan, because they saw the real, all-too-human consequences of what happens when the state hands over power to the markets and neglects its most vulnerable. Does this mean that we should also blame the revolution in information technologies as part of this social neglect? I think this goes back to the age-old question of whether technologies are 'neutral' tools, or whether they have some kind of implicit/normative 'values' built into their design. I genuinely don't know the answer to this, and it seems like the author also wouldn't make that conclusion, as by the end he seems to suggest that the way to take back power in a new control society is to create competing networks that are free from the kinds of market 'rationality' that we see with neoliberalism. In other words, the only way to overcome the protocol effect is with better protocols? We like to think about the internet in the way some of the early founders thought about it - in terms of the dream of human, global connection, information sharing, leveling the playing field, and so on. Maybe we are still on the path to that dream, with some bumps in the road. Or, maybe we have created a sort of nightmare for ourselves, a labyrinth of networks and data and protocols, similar to the law-offices in _The Trial_, where it is impossible to find who or what is really in control.