<nettime> Will your insurance company subsidize your quantified self?

[Alexander Bard <bardissimo@gmail.com>]

Dear Florian

I have to say I'm confused here. I don't understand whether you disagree
with the meaning of the concept, or whether what disturbs you is the
importance I have placed in the concept? The first is just outright
confusing, whereas the second I could definitely understand and respect as
a position we would correctly have to agree to disagree on. And then
probably let history decide eventually.

As for the meaning of the concept "netocracy" we could of course also speak
of a "digerati" (to me though that term sounds like banal marketing speech)
but why not of the "net aristocracy" Tyler Cowen portrays in his 2013
dystopian bestseller "Average Is Over"? His "net aristocracy" is the
forthcoming 15% superclass of the United States ruling over the 85%
underclass of consumtarians following the full onslaught of digital
technologies and production processes over the next two decades. The "net
aristocracy" is driven both by attentionalist information flows and
capitalist money flows and is perhaps the interim hybrid we should look out
for first. Cowen finds its roots not only in Silicon Valley but also at
locations like Williamsburg, places which lack the financial muscle of
Silicon Valley but are already rich in attentionalist power. I'm sorry if
"netocracy" and "net aristocracy" did not turn up together on your Google
or Wikipedia searches. Perhaps this could explain why you would think I
only served my own interests in discussing the concept here. This is
frankly not the case.

My point, again, is to try to see the picture in a slightly more complex
manner, than classic Marxist analysis would take us, as to actually hit it
right. Power is more than money these days, especially as money
increasingly flows where the attention already exists rather than the other
way round. I am, if anything, not naive. And never compare me or pack me in
with internet hallelujah marketing people ever again. My ideological roots
belong with Michel Foucault and nowhere else. I'm not some kind of aspiring
Richard Florida figure, thank you!

Best regards
Alexander


2014-04-18 23:55 GMT+02:00 Florian Cramer <fcramer@pleintekst.nl>:

> Alexander,
>
>> I can sense that we disagree already - and probably have to agree to
>> disagree - but let me just state that "netocracy" is already well defined
>> in internt social theory and needs no confusing redefinition from you nor
>> anybody else.
>
> If Wikipedia can be believed, then the "internet social theory" that has
> "well defined"  "netocracy" is your own writing, based on a previous
> coinage of the term in "Wired". I just dare to disagree with your concept
> because it's based on an idealist notion of power.
 <...>


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