{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title":"The Stack On Software and Sovereignty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780262029575","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","uuid":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title":"The Stack On Software and Sovereignty","normalized_title":"thestackonsoftwareandsovereignty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780262029575","isbns":["9780262029575"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":517,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/The%20Stack%20On%20Software%20and%20Sovereignty","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/search"},"page":{"printed_page":263,"pdf_page":279,"physical_index":279,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"f497e41069f4999383cbb6d624b53b5e656c493e1dae12aa72258edcb12561f2"},"chapter":"Fheck The Stack |On Software and Sovereignty Benjamin H. Bratton","content":"This hyperattenuated version of the User is claimed by myriad relations, and in stepping into its position, one is “ already a crowd. ” <sup>22</sup> The overdetermined QS is analogous to the blackened canvas, overwritten with layers and layers of figures, colors, diagrams, and abstractions, all targeting the same referent and in so doing generating multiple means and medians. As for Theseus ’ s paradox, identity is tuned and retained, but despite all attempts at resolution and actualization, it remains an open field into which and out of which any of these layers might travel. That overdetermination does not prohibit creativity, but it does shift its terms of operation. When the canvas is full, completely blackened with overlapping content, the act of creation doesn ’ t mean adding paint, more black on black; it is instead subtraction, that is, the introduction of absence and silence so as to make room for information now made visible by this negation — scratching the black away to let the light in, removal as design strategy. We see this play out with the absolute User’ s slide into an abyssal dissolution of the self when confronted with the potential totality of virtualized experiences. In response to the white noise of his infinitely refracted subjectivity, he reflects this entropy by sliding back into perceptual incoherency (or potentially stumbling toward secular hypermaterialism). It ’ s true that the real purpose of QS is not to provide all possible information at once, but to reduce systemic complexity with summary diagrammatic accounts of one ’ s inputs, states, and performance metrics. But adding more and more data sources to the mix and providing greater multivariate fidelity also produces other pathways of dissolution. By tracking external forces (e.g., environmental, microbial, economic) and their role in the formation of the User-subject ’ s state and performance, the boundaries between internal and external systems are perforated and blurred. Those external variables not only act on you; in effect they are you as well, and so the profile reflecting back at the User is both more and less than a single figure (and as we ’ ll see, sometimes those extrinsic forces live inside one ’ s own body). This is one site from which alternative User positions can be invented. It ’ s where the fictional resolution of the individual person as the core unit of the User position gives way toward something else, where nodes begin to work like edges and edges like notes. The ocular appearance of the resolved first person, first seen in the outline reflected back in the mirror and then verified in the continuity of feedback from input, state-condition, and performance diagrams, multiplies into a mosaic of new components clinging to other subjects, bigger and smaller than the individual person. 23\n\nUser Layer\n\n263","previous_page":262,"next_page":264}