Archive

Humans as Software Extensions

What is this con­di­tion? I would sum­ma­rize it as peo­ple extend­ing com­pu­ta­tion­al sys­tems by offer­ing their bod­ies, their sens­es, and their cog­ni­tion. And specif­i­cal­ly, bod­ies and minds that can be eas­i­ly plugged in and lat­er eas­i­ly be dis­card­ed. So bod­ies and minds algo­rith­mi­cal­ly man­aged and under the per­ma­nent pres­sure of con­stant avail­abil­i­ty, effi­cien­cy, and per­pet­u­al self-optimization. 

Welcome to the Entreprecariat — Disrupting Precarization

The rec­i­p­ro­cal influ­ence between an entre­pre­neuri­al­ist regime and per­va­sive pre­car­i­ty, their ambiva­lent coex­is­tence, is what the con­cept of the entrep­re­cari­at refers to. To artic­u­late some of the ways in which this mutu­al influ­ence takes place, I’d like to intro­duce what I would call a pos­tu­late of the entrep­re­cari­at. So here it is: The more pre­car­i­ty is present, the less entre­pre­neuri­al­ism is voluntary.