This was written in response to Pedro Gadanho's post: Digitally-aided Degrowth
I like this term, 'the great transition.' The current term of 'green new deal' is already suspect – both the words 'deal' and 'green' have already been so viciously co-opted. Transition is hopeful, fluid, a process rather than an endpoint. I do wonder, what do you mean by the 'logic of digital platforms'? If tactical urbanisms need to be immune to it, I'm guessing this logic is of a nefarious quality. The thing is, not all digital platforms operate with the same logic. I believe that's absolutely what we need more of – a greater diversity of logics, ways of being, ways of making, ways of coming, and being together in (also digital) space. This is precisely why small scale projects and platforms are so important. I'm thinking about platforms like Are.na and Relevant that have been built in opposition to the algorithm-based, data-selling, addiction-fueling logic of the behemoth platforms whose names shall not be said. Or even just some of the small and private discord and telegram groups I am a part of. One of these started as an experimental art residency by an artist/curator duo from Minsk and has subsequently turned into a political organising space amidst the ongoing nationwide attempt by the people to oust the dictator of Belarus. Digital platforms whose logic is to not sell users to the highest bidder, but to support what Sam Hart, Toby Shorin, and Laura Lotti call squad wealth.
I think the digital ecosystem needs to learn from the earth's ecosystem: (bio)diversity is the sign of health. One species grows too dominant and it's bad for everyone. Like species, digital platforms need to be able to mutate, evolve*, and die* regularly – fire clearing space for new growth. But yes, any behemoth digital platform whose goal is eternal life – relentlessly adding billions of users to make billions of dollars/euros/RMB – will ultimately succumb to a nasty logic, but that's not digital logic I think, that's just plain old neverending growth logic (which brings us back nicely to the great transition).
But I don't believe in the digital utopia either – everything is always more complicated, and it's in the messy contradictions that things lie. As Sterling writes in White Fungus, 'In the long run, we got neither Utopia nor Oblivion; we got what we have.' The smart-ass digital start-ups, far from always well-intentioned, might very well usher in a return of the commons – but it might not be as blissful and romantic as we hope. Commons are so often tragic. But scale seems to have something to do with it – in small groups where trust and accountability are present, commoning can and has flourished. So how does this go digital, and global? Circles is an interesting experiment towards these ends, a crypto-currency trying to rewrite the rules of relations by disincentivising capital accumulation, building income distribution into the currency, and building the whole thing around small circles of established trust networks. The thing is, it needs people to experiment and play, to see if it can even work. And so we circle back to scale.
And that's just one experiment among many. All these small-scale initiatives require people to scope out their possibilities, experiment in their various world-building projects (and logics), and understand which ones can best serve specific communities and purposes. But attention, monetised and weaponised by big tech, has become a scarce resource these days. And do we have the practice and the patience for playing, experimenting, trying out new things that might not work perfectly just yet? We've been trained to expect ever-growing automation, the certainty of immediate flawless functionality, and total ease. The great transition will not be automated. Or easy.
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un-cancelling the future
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