Category Archives: Social and Political Philosophy
Controversial Changes to Public Domain Works
This post takes a step back from that and, instead of looking at how new technologies butt heads against free speech, I briefly think through the significance of transforming ‘classic’ works of the English literary canon. Specifically, I want to argue that New South’s decision to publish Huckleberry Finn without the word “nigger” – replacing it with “slave” – demonstrates the importance of works entering the public domain. Continue reading
Decrypting Blackberry Security, Decentralizing the Future
Countries around the globe have been threatening Research in Motion (RIM) for months now, publicly stating that they would ban BlackBerry services if RIM refuses to provide decryption keys to various governments. The tech press has generally focused on ‘governments just don’t get how encryption works’ rather than ‘this is how BlackBerry security works, and how government demands affect consumers and businesses alike.’ This post is an effort to more completely respond to the second focus in something approximating comprehensive detail. Continue reading
Draft: Code-Bodies and Algorithmic Voyeurism
This paper, entitled “Code-Bodies and Algorithmic Surveillance: Examining the impacts of encryption, rights of publicity, and code-specters,” is an effort to think through how voyeurism might be understood in the context of Deep Packet Inspection using the theoretical lenses of Kant and Derrida. Continue reading
Conference Presentation: The Ontological Crisis of Melacholia
The abstract is below: Abstract In The Psychic Life of Power , Judith Butler argues that the power structures ordering individuals and states alike are predicated on a mourning that cannot be mourned; melancholia permeates the primary ordering structures of the individual and the state. … In this paper, I ask whether digital environments are spaces that can facilitate the resolution of modern subjects’ ontological crisis, and thus might provoke the reconstitution of modern politics. … I conclude by adopting the stance that Cyberspace may enable some individuals to acknowledge their experience of melancholia, but stop short of claiming that the possibilities afforded by this space’s plasticity can or will provoke a widespread reconstitution of modern politics. Continue reading
