Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
calculatingempires.net
Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#2Beautiful from a conceptual arm's-length distance, and clearly a massive effort invested in this. But I find myself asking who this is meant for?
A lot of unavoidable, but still quite subjective compromises had to be made to project the very high-n space addressed by this infographic into 2 representational dimensions. A lot of stuff got mapped to the zero vector here.
On that note, when I drill into the details I see things that are initially puzzling, such as the lineage starting from cartesian geometry seeming to end abruptly at vector calculus, to be resumed (but without guiding connectors) both above as forecasting, and a panel or so rightward as Markov Chains and further on, the somewhat loose cluster of concepts headed by the word "Transformers."
And... what's with all the hunched-over shoegazers? Are they here to pay off a debt? Their multiplicity and contextual disjointedness with respect to their surroundings somehow gives off MidJourney vibes. First time I've ever felt a pang of sympathy for clip-art.
It looks like the authors were inspired by those mind-bendingly complex biological cycle charts published by Roche, but didn't want to attempt the extremely tedious (and necessary, IMO) bird's nest business of cross-linking causally influenced (but rep-space remote) systems with a spaghetti of directed connectors and data detailing that those charts made famous.
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#3I cannot think of a more annoying way to present this information
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#4This is a fairly Western-centric view. I don’t really see any entries on innovation outside the Western world.
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#5I wonder how this connects with this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For...
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#6I’d really like to download the entire chart as a vector graphic and print it out on a huge plotter.
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#7This is a fairly Western-centric view. I don’t really see any entries on innovation outside the Western world.
the chart, for all its flaws, doesn't seem to conclude anything interesting about innovation per se, but rather suggests that the development of technology is ultimately motivated by the desire by the few to abstract, concentrate and consolidate the levers of power in order to cultivate the values and actions - the culture - of the many to suit the preservation of their status as elites.
Indeed, there are a great many non-western examples of this as well.
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#8Amazing! If the authors are in here, I'd love to chat ways one might make this architectonically unified, AKA fractal in composition. As-is, this is probably the coolest and most ambitious literary thing I've seen this year, so I'll take that as a win! I wonder if they're using Genealogy in a technical sense re:Foucault's Archaeology, or if they're just generally invoking progress.
I will say that there's a lot that could be added before and after Frege that would be helpful, for the programming languages bit. Whitehead, Russell, Peirce, and Chomsky would be nice to see, not to mention Aristotle and Hegel
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#9Is this trying to imply there wasn’t computer speech synthesis until 2000?
Re: Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
#10Neat! Consider embedding links to source material, like wikipedia?