{"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":302,"pdf_page":316,"physical_index":316,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"7845fed6fd6e7643057f89332b84259a3abab4fd692bb25346ea113a67057abf"},"chapter":"Fheck The Stack |On Software and Sovereignty Benjamin H. Bratton","content":"And so, “ comparative planetology ” works not only between this astronomic body and that one, but also between one body and the computational model that simulates it and governs it in turn. For the Earth layer of The Stack, the fragility of this model comes also from its purported successes, and specifically, from how much it underestimates the difficulty of achieving them. Core to the utopian project for pervasive computation and ecological governance is positing a world in which every square inch is in some way constantly outpouring infinitely communicable information about itself, overwhelming some expert systems while spawning others, enabling the world to declare itself as data tectonics. From this another polity could emerge in this parametric swarm of information secretion and consumption, one that represents itself to itself through these enforceable representations. It implies (perhaps) a flatter, a less authoritarian, a less anonymous, less humanistic (and even less designed) geopolitical space — or perhaps instead just another mode and method for its design. However, the simpler and sadder truth is that we are, as of now, incapable of governing ourselves according to the already available, more rudimentary information that ecologies communicate. A clouded river, a shrunken branch, a coughing fish: these are also instances of “ data visualization, ” and we do a bad job of interpreting them and acting on them. At best, we attempt to pathologize them and even criminalize them because they do not conform to quality metrics and thresholds (and higher resolution of images of the pathology will not ensure that the model can govern better). Still, perhaps the problem is also that the vast plurality of worldly actors are left out of the picture, and perhaps by rendering those variables visible and transmissible, by incorporating them at the scale of a planetary archive, those “ trees ” become things for which political engineering can be more systematic and effective. The most difficult question for this design-and-monitor-and-diagram system remains whether a more appropriate geopolitical architecture can be deduced from and designed by and for the Earth layer.\n\nIn petabyte-aggregations of ecological knowledge and application, is there a channel for these instances to pluralize, to assemble into networks of different size, so that they can in fact become more durable forms and be properly empowered to make gestures at the scale of the forces that affect their fates? Can the “ second planetary computer ” create worlds and images of worlds that take on the force of law (if not its formality) and effectively exclude worse alternatives? If so, its mediations will surely include some abdication of the central piloting role of modern political subjects as played by the anthropic “ human ” who is the geological agent of the Anthropocene. Here technical representation and political representation become more symmetrical and less rather than more “ parliamentary. ” The process by which sovereignty is made more plural becomes a matter of producing more than discoursing: more about pushing, pulling, clicking, eating, modeling, stacking, prototyping, subtracting, regulating, restoring, optimizing, leaving alone, splicing, gardening and evacuating than about reading, examining, insisting, rethinking, reminding, knowing full-well, enacting, finding problematic, and urging. In these, mediation and translation between ecology and model move from one scale to another, up and down and back again, and that itinerary is where the action is and where the story plays out.\n\n302\n\nThe Stack to Come","previous_page":301,"next_page":303}