<nettime> THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM

[Tom Sherman <twsherma@mailbox.syr.edu>]

THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM

Automating culture requires scientific management techniques.  Management
today is a science, after all.  [Some feel this is society's greatest
problem.] We can deny it, but more and more management is taking on the
ideology and methodology of science.

Business today is not about keeping your word or building trust.  Today
businesses are run on math.  First it was the almighty dollar, now it is
the almighty algorithm.


--------

MANAGEMENT AS HISTORICAL AGENCY

Managerial responses to present day reality are always problematic,
because we have nothing but old techniques to apply in completely new
circumstances.  This is the main beef of youth -- old ways of doing things
are applied inappropriately to their realities.  Or to invert this,
management science tries to maximize profits by applying new techniques to
old problems.  The past and future, memory and hope, are defined to a
great extent by the inadequate responses of management science resulting
in the aggravated frustration of youth.  This outlook may yield some
useful insights in terms of anticipating, controlling and subverting
currently unmanageable emotional behaviour in the future.

We always fail when we apply old management techniques in new
circumstances.  We can choose to see this as an unavoidably flawed but
logical, pragmatic attempt to solve today's problems, or simply an
exercise designed to moderate the uncertainty of the future by
historicizing the present.


--------

PARENTS, POLICE, ADVERTISERS AND MARKETING AGENCIES

Parents, police, advertisers and marketing agencies are strange
bedfellows, but are clearly the purveyors of order in pan-capitalistic
societies.  Parents and police are counter-supported by advertisers and
marketing agencies, as designers and demographers work hand in hand to
stimulate and maintain consumer demand and economic activity.  Keeping
people busy shopping and consuming, chasing their dreams and desires in
work and play, supplants the enforcement of law and order.



Tom Sherman


-----

Syracuse University
Department of Art Media Studies
102 Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse, NY 13244-1210
USA

http://www.allquiet.org/
http://www.screenarts.net.au/tool/tool20b/sherman/org.html
http://thing.at/granular-synthesis/html/shermte.htm#shetop



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net