TrueLife - Structural Power in the Digital Age: Networks, Control & Influence

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Based on a phenomenal book by Jakob Linaa Jenson: “ The medieval Internet”https://books.google.com/url?client=ca-google-gppd&format=googleprint&num=0&id=01xtzQEACAAJ&q=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/_/_%3Fean%3D9781839094132&usg=AFQjCNFfVMUuvVasbzyny83HOe-woq9rGQNow Available: NewsletterTranscript:https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/54901077Speaker 0 (0s): See, hope you are ready for the next episode. Hey, welcome to the next episode. Speaker 1 (8s): We're getting into the medieval internet here. This particular chapter is going to be specifically about instruments of internet. Power I'm going to get into the micro as well as the macro level. So let's jump right in here. Instruments of internet Power in the digital age, this is part of three of the series. The sociological study of communities and the public sphere has aimed at looking at what forces bind people together and how society emerges in that framework to play the necessary role of mediating between individuals in nature, another influential approach, which is sometimes correlated to the above approach and sometimes competes with it is to study power. As it constitutes social relations, regulating actions and institutions, finding subjects to rulers and penetrating the entire social order from government and the family life. Let us try to figure it out how the internet, which was touted by futurists in the 1990s and the two thousands as the ultimate tool have freedom. The liberating WEPAN giving the grassroots a voice and a space against the oppression in all its forms has been more coolly seen in the last decade as a means to exorcize various forms of Power strengthening rather than weakening Power relations. That keep the social order as strictly hierarchized and controlled. We are going to define and identify and describe a range of online Power mechanisms from the direct and instrumental to Structural and algorithmic. Let's talk a little bit about the power. I'm sorry. The concept of Power power and the way it binds social relations is among the most discussed topics in sociology, as well as in political theory, the mini diverging concepts of power might be summarized on a scale from actor based to structure based in short, from an instrumental view to a structural view on the one side of the scale Power can be ascribed to individual agency. Whereas two, the other side of the scale power is embedded in structures and agency, which has a definite force and effect in the eighties and nineties, many most notably Anthony Giddens attempted to give a more complex account of the dialectic between agency and structure by viewing structure itself as structured by the changing the result of the continual course of agent structure relations in which agents find and exploit holes and structures and thereby change the structures imminent form. The actor based instrumental view is often found in the liberal tradition, for instance, by Robert doll, it is also a dominant in the American sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism for instance, in the works of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blummer here, power is a product of human habits, norms and actions that are ultimately turned into rules and institution Governing the power structures of society in this tradition. However, power structures are always subject to change based on human actions. In this tradition, there was a profound focus on agency and thereby fundamentally on the freewill and empowerment of individual. You take a few minutes to think about how your life is structured. Where does the power lie in your life? Are you someone who has legitimate power in that people look up to you? Are you someone that has coercive power as in you can't do something to them negatively, if they don't follow what you say, Speaker 2 (4m 37s): Do you work Speaker 1 (4m 38s): For an institution that has power? Thus, some of that power is lent to you. What is your role in the world and how does power or your personal power manifest itself in the world in which you live? Speaker 2 (4m 54s): It's a good Speaker 1 (4m 55s): Idea to take a moment right here, just to go over that concept and think about where you fit in. Speaker 2 (4m 59s): We have this, once you do that, I think you'll have Speaker 1 (5m 3s): A better understanding of how the internet Speaker 2 (5m 6s): Has Speaker 1 (5m 8s): Found ways to either compliment the Power you have, or to take away Speaker 2 (5m 14s): The power that you have Speaker 1 (5m 19s): Structural view is found in the American sociological tradition of Structural functionalism. Most clearly found in the works of Talcott Parsons and his followers. Here's the society can be explained by a scheme. Parsons was known for his famous agile scheme, a G I Speaker 2 (5m 38s): L Speaker 1 (5m 41s): Reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions they achieve and perform. Let's think about that for just a minute. This is a reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions they achieve and perform. How many people do you know? The first question they ask, I ask, if you meet somebody like, Hey, what do you do? Hey, my name is so-and-so. What do you do? Or I'm a lawyer, or I'm a truck driver, or I'm a teacher. These particular sets of labels. They make some people feel great. They make other people feel poorly. However, there are just a little bit so on one level, but on another level, they are in fact, a definition of who you are to me. It's I think it's really sad. A lot of people define who they are by what they do in a small area of their life. And if something happens to that small area of them life, all of a sudden, they no longer know themselves. They can fall into a deep depression because this little small sliver of what they do has gone. And so now they have nothing. The thing to base their life fun. When in fact they probably have all kinds of things. Oh no, you're no longer with that company. Guess what? Your still a dad, you were still a husband is still a brother is still a person on this planet. You're still a good person. You still have this hobby. Like you were still all of these other things because you gave so much authority to this one slice when that's gone. It can seem as though, so your life is gone where your life is different. Is it? And to think about it is kind of fascinating here. Humans are wheel's in the huge machinery of society. And power is explained by the logic of social structures or a similar view of power. As a secondary phenomenon is also found in the French structuralist traditi...

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Welcome to the next episode. We're getting into the medieval internet here. This particular chapter is going to be specifically about instruments of internet power. We're going to get into the micro as well as the macro level.

So let's jump right in here. Instruments of internet power in the digital age. This is part three of the series. The sociological study of communities and the public sphere has aimed at looking at what forces bind people together. and how society emerges in that framework to play the necessary role of mediating between individuals and nature. Another influential approach, which is sometimes correlated to the above approach and sometimes competes with it, is to study power as it constitutes social relations,

regulating actions and institutions, binding subjects to rulers and penetrating the entire. social order, from government to family life. Let us try to figure out how the internet, which was touted by futurists in the 1990s and the 2000s as the ultimate tool of freedom, the liberating weapon giving the grassroots of voice and a space against repression in all its forms, has been more coolly seen in the last decade as a mean to exercise various forms of power. strengthening rather than weakening power relations that keep the social orders strictly hierarchized and controlled we're going to define and identify and describe a range of online power mechanisms from the direct and instrumental to structural and algorithmic let's talk a little bit about the power i'm sorry the concept of power power and the way of power and the way it social relations is among the most discussed topics in sociology as well as in political theory.

The many diverging concepts of power might be summarized on a scale from actor based to structure based. In short, from an instrumental view to a structural view. On the one side of the scale, power can be ascribed to individual agency, whereas to the other side of the scale, Power is embedded in structures and agency, which has a definite force and effect. In the 80s and 90s, many sociologists, most notably Anthony Giddens, attempted to give a more complex account

of the dialectic between agency and structure by viewing structure itself as structured by the changing result of the continual course of agent-structure relations, in which agents find an exploit, holes in structures and thereby change the structures imminent form. The actor-based instrumental view is often found in the liberal tradition, for instance, by Robert Dahl. It is also dominant in the American sociological tradition of symbolic

interactionism, for instance, in the works of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blummer. Here, power is a product of human habits, norms, and actions that are ultimate turned into rules and institution governing the power structures of society. In this tradition, however, power structures are always subject to change based on human actions. In this tradition, there is a profound focus on agency and thereby fundamentally on the free will and empowerment of individuals. Take a few minutes to think about how your life is structured. Where does the power lie in your life? Are you someone who has legitimate power in that people look up to you?

Are you someone that has coercive power? As in you can do something to them negatively if they don't follow what you say? Do you work for an institution that has power? Thus, some of that power is lent to you. What is your role in the world? And how does power or your personal power manifest itself in the world? world in which you live. It's a good idea to take a moment right here just to go over that concept and think about

where you fit into this. Once you do that, I think you'll have a better understanding of how the internet has found ways to either complement the power you have or to take away the power that you have. The structural view is found in the American sociological tradition of structural, functionalism most clearly found in the works of Talcott Parsons and his followers. Here society can be explained by a scheme Parsons was known for, his famous agile scheme, A.GIL. Reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions they achieve and perform.

Let's think about that for just a minute. This is a reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions. the functions they achieve and perform. How many people do you know? The first question they ask if you meet somebody, hey, what do you do? Hey, my name's so-and-so, what do you do? Or I'm a lawyer, or I'm a truck driver,

or I'm a teacher, these particular sets of labels, they make some people feel great, they make other people feel poorly. However, they're just a label on one level, but on another level, they are in fact a definition of who you are to me it's i think it's really sad a lot of people define who they are by what they do in a small area of their life and if something happens to that small area of their life

all of a sudden they no longer know themselves they can fall into deep depression because this little small sliver of what they do is gone and so now they have nothing to base their life on when in fact they probably have all kinds of things. Oh no, you're no longer with that company. Guess what? You're still a dad. You're still a husband. You're still a brother. You're still a person on this planet. You're still a good person. You still have this hobby. Like you're still all these other things. But because you gave so much authority to this one slice when that's gone, it can seem as though your life is gone or your life is different. It's something to think about. It's kind of fascinating. Here, humans are wheels in the huge machinery of society, and power is explained by the logics of social structures.

A similar view of power as a secondary phenomenon is also found in the French structuralist tradition. For instance, associated with the famous anthropologist Cloud Levi Strauss and sociologists like Pierre Bordeaux, here the exercise of power is seen as embedded. and defined by structures, which operate through societal norms and institutions, while the instrumentalist view on power clearly postulates the individual capacity to exercise power and thereby responsibility in line with the greater liberal tradition. From Kant to J.S. Mill, the structural tradition takes a much more skeptical view of the limits of human autonomy.

If one takes the structural position to its extreme, humans are only nodes in giant societal structures on which they have no direct influence and then no responsibility. This, of course, raises two interesting questions. First, where did the structures come from? Were they given by a divine power or as something existing prior to society and human interactions by the species' nature of the human animal? this is a profound philosophical question ultimately leading to another question is their free will many philosophical traditions have tried to answer this question but here we will focus on the answers from sociology in the structuration theory of anthony giddens to which we have referred previously an attempt is made to make peace between the classically liberal and the structuralist tradition by arguing

that power structures, while real, are created continuously through human interactions that take place within certain frames and structures that supply them with rationality and motivation. The possibility of agency thereby is not unlimited, but the exercise of free will is also not denied. In fact, it is necessary for structures to adapt to the circumstances that change partly due to the very success of a given structure. Another tradition addressing these questions is found among the social constructivists, for instance, Berger and Luckman. They take the models proposed by symbolic interactionalism and use them to emphasize the indispensable role of language in the interplay between individuals and society. Society and its institutions exist in a melu consisting not only of natural givens, but also of the language and discourse through which these are understood. Humans are bound by the same institutions that facilitate communication and reflection itself.

Thus, language and the possibility of changing existing discourses and understandings offer individuals and groups the possibility of finding options for action and understanding that change and reinforce social norms and order. like structure like structure uh huh sorry like structuration theory social constructivism leaves room for agency which ultimately is the way in which the traditional idea of free will have been conceptualized what's your guys take on the free will question you going with sam harris i don't know i don't know if i believe that guy. Seems like there's something off about that guy.

Anyways, a very influential example of the social constructivist tradition is found in Michael Foucault. Despite being often labeled as a post-structuralist, a label to which Foucault himself objected, he represents a special

branch of the social constructivist tradition with a special focus on power. Foucault saw power as something produced through the organization of space, place, place, and institutions, and reproduced by humans subscribing to and interacting within these structures. For Foucault, all social relations and interactions are both formed by power and create a form

of power. By participating in society and its institutions, humans reproduce the power that binds them. For Foucault, power is exercised in three forms of relations, as strategic game plan. as domination and as government technologies. Hereby he summarizes a span of power forms also found in the work by Stephen Luke's, from the individual through the institutional to the societal. As such one might claim he bridges the concepts of power

found in symbolic interactionalism as well as structuralism. Not only language, but also knowledge, is of paramount importance, An old proverb states that knowledge is power. Foucault inverts this claim arguing that power is the ability to define knowledge in which the researcher would explore different truth regimes, that is, regimes of the possibility of such and such, a statement being true or false,

depending on the social epistemological context or epistine, comparable to what Kuhn calls a parody. and demonstrated what he meant by showing how the concepts of sane and insane, ill and well, normal or perverted, have changed over time. Foucault was interested in the marginal, the outsider as a prism to identify the truth regimes at play in a given epic and society, thus tracing the ways in which a given social order regulated the socius. Humans themselves exercise power by following the dominant discourses,

subscribing to such regimes and definitions. However, also the theory of Foucult has voluntaristic elements, what he calls heterotopies, the possibility of deviating and challenging existing concepts and thereby structures of power. Even though one cannot escape power that runs like society and humans, like a stream,

Foucult, despite often being labeled as pessimist and fatalist, leave some room for agency. All right, so let's bring us. break that down a little bit here. Let's jump back up to the beginning of that last paragraph that I read. Not only language, but also knowledge is of paramount importance. An old proverb states that knowledge is power. Here's where it gets good. Foucult inverts this claim, arguing that power is the ability to define knowledge. Think about that. That's an amazing claim.

Power is the ability to define knowledge. Power is the ability to define knowledge. What does that mean to you? Someone who's knowledgeable may be someone that you seek out for advice, but the very person who can define what knowledge is is the person who can lend credence or define who can be powerful. If you define the knowledge, then you define who can be powerful.

And who defines the knowledge in our time? Who's redefining our language at all times? Culture would be an acceptable answer if we were talking 20 years ago. And it may even be an acceptable answer today. However, the main driver of culture right now would be the social media companies. Therefore, they would be the arbiterers of power. These handful of multi-billion dollar corporations are in fact the very institutions that define what knowledge is. And you could see now more than ever that they're censoring what's happening.

Therefore, they're limiting the knowledge you can see. They are narrowing the terms. And when you narrow the terms of a conversation, when you narrow the parameters, you narrow the view. Right? We often speak about how the world is made of language. We often speak about perception and point of view. However, the words you use have a lot to do with that. And this is one of the main points that this book is trying to make, or I'm sorry, this is, while it is one of the main points this book is trying to make, this is a foundational part of the argument.

You see, the social media companies are narrowing our vision of what is possible. They're limiting our view of what can be said, what can be done in the name of equality, in the name of equality, in the name of, sustainability we're going to narrow your choices there's a lot of psychology there's a lot of philosophy that I think is dog shit however I'm a goddamn truck driver so what the fuck do I know there's a lot of these new paradigms that talk about choice is bad for you you spend too much time trying to decide and in the end it doesn't matter well it matters to me and it matters to other people And in fact, I would argue the people in positions of authority who are telling us that we don't need choice are the very same people that want choice in their life.

So they want choice for them, but not for you. Right. And when you do that, you, when you have a sheltered point of view, I mean, that's ignorance, right? And it's just so sad to see an instrument like the Internet that has so much potential being used. to being used to pare down, being used to limit, being used to in prison instead of to free us. And that's the argument they're making about power and how that is leading us backwards into the internet. Or I'm sorry, that's how that's leading us backwards.

This unbelievable tool that was thought to be a beacon of light, a lighthouse of freedom, blinking to ships out on the ocean to chaos is more like a tractor beam pulling you into a narrow port pulling you into the center of the spider's web i want you to think for just a few for a moment maybe a few minutes just how relevant that is today and might that be the very foundational problem with our society right now i'm going to read it again although such direct physical coercive worked on the margins, the social order depended on the average person, internalizing and ethos in which their self-worth depended on a form of obedience. The social order depended.

The social order today depends upon you internalizing and reasoning and believing wholeheartedly that your self-worth is linked to what you have. Your self-worth is linked to what label you put on yourself. That's the obedience. The obedience is where you work. The obedience is the label you have. The obedience is your tribe. The obedience is you recycling.

The obedience is, if you want to be a good person, You better not vote for this dummy. The obedience is a form of self-censorship. You see that? And if you could just think for a moment how sad and twisted that is, I think you could understand why people, men and women and children, black and white and brown and orange and yellow, whatever.

All people today are struggling. Everyone is fighting. I'm moving forward a little bit here. You may not even be aware of. In medieval, especially and modern society. Where I'm coming from you. Foucault's concept of power is relevant today. In a medieval as well as a modern context.

October. You want to know how? The lockdown. In medieval society, power was instrumental. The actor-based as well as structural. Bankers, serfs and paths. Mass charade. We're in some cases.

the economy in order to put on the wood ring in a new system of tyranny. See, we've all been to make them work and obeyed. We've all been explained that these labels. There's a book called the 48 laws of power. This social policing of ourselves. Green. I think that's what his name is. This obedience.

But if you look at green and 48 laws of power, it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. The same author has multiple books of. 48 laws of power. 48 laws of desire 48 laws of medieval disheartedly I forgot the other ones

the laws of mastery I think is one of them but it's really good and it goes into different types of power as far as coercive power to produce a true power of what could be accepted corruptive power some other one could not be it's well worth checking out a little side note there for you it's exactly what Robert Green

the social media companies are doing today although such direct physical coercion worked on the mark I can't say this word. The social order depended on the average peasant or surf, internalizing an ethos in which their self-worth. You know what's okay to do? Depended on a form of obedience.

Horrible name. That's fine. On a structural level, the Catholic Church function to produce a truth regime. See, of which could be accepted. We're going backwards. And you can't fix critics of truth and power. One kind of racism with a different kind of racism.

challenging and dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at the stake on a structural level the catholic church functioned to produce a truth regime of what could be accepted and whatnot critics of truth and power those challenging the dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at the stake critics of truth and power those challenging the dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at the stake critics of truth and power critics of truth and power those challenging the dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at the stake. Critics of so-called truth and so-called power challenging the dominant worldview were burned at the stake. Think about that in today's idea. What is a narrative you're not supposed to challenge in the one of the consequences? Let's say you had a meeting. Let's say you were going to your kids school and it was a conference where you were with parents and teachers and they were asking questions about issues. And some people were standing up,

raising their hand, addressing things. And you decided that you were going to challenge or ask questions about a popular narrative. And you stood up and you said, hi, I just wanted to stand up and let everybody know that global warming is not entirely true. That while the planet is warming, The planet's climate has been changing forever

and that no one accounts for lots of different variables instead we just claim that it's man-made global warming and that therefore we need to restrict property rights we need to restrict rights of people and that people are pretty

horrible and they're killing the planet that's bullshit and if you stood up and you said something to that matter, you would probably be looked down upon. If you said you didn't believe global warming, if you said, listen, I think this is bullshit, and here's why. There'd probably be a lot of people that just shut their eyes or shut their ears off. At the moment you said, you don't believe global warming.

They wouldn't listen to the evidence you presented. They wouldn't listen to the books you've read. They wouldn't listen to the theories about seasons. in a galactic year. Instead, they would just say, you're a dummy. You don't know what you're talking about. This is exactly why,

in the movie The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo that we don't wake people up after a certain age, not because they can't wake up. Right? Do you guys remember that scene where Morpheus tells that to Neo?

Well, what he's saying is that you can wake people up later in life. You can show them this stuff. however it's very difficult and dare I say impossible to wake up someone who's pretending to sleep you know what I mean by that have you ever like pretended to sleep and someone trying to wake you up like you don't fucking wake up right because you don't want to wake up you're not even sleeping you just don't want to fucking hear it you don't want to be around it you don't want to see it and that's where unfortunately a lot of people are right now is they don't have time to worry about that

And so they're just herded into the pins and pushed along and used as political and momentum for the rest of the agenda. And that's where the power comes along. And that

sometimes I think maybe we weren't even returning to the middle age. Maybe we haven't left the middle age. It's interesting to think about. Let's talk a little bit about how The church is similar to social media companies today and a strategy that worked for the church that is currently working for the social media companies today. And that is having a monopoly of the education system and having openings that allowed

bright non-aristocrats to advance in society. The church exercised a strong disciplinary power through its control of both the ethical and cosmological vision of the life of most people. Societies were structurally legitimated by reference to the principles automated by the church. Symbolically, this was figured in urban space by the central position of the cathedrals. Practically, this rationalized the church's domination of education, even though in certain parts of Europe, like Northern Italy, this was being challenged in the 15th century,

and social insurance aid to the poor or the destitute was officially in the hands of the church. Together with the kings and the feudal lords, the church imposed an order in which the macrocosm that the church represented was reproduced in the microcosm of the world, until the world ended and the kingdom of heaven began. Likewise, modern society is full of direct and observable power relations. For instance, between government and population, parents and kids, teachers and pupils. But there are also more structurally invisible power relationships that are less simply classified, dominant worldviews, truths that are rarely challenged.

These are all similar to the Middle Ages. Examples are the technological optimism shared by almost all governments in the world, the big data ideology. That is used as an instrument of governance in a growing number of societies. And the reliance on algorithms and algorithmic governance, which I will discuss later. Algorithms do a lot of work in the contemporary world. They aid governments and health authorities, define what we find on Google and see on Facebook, and are the soft determinants that shape our range of possible actions and thus our worldview. But unlike the Catholic Church, which theologized in public, the source of algorithmic power is hard to detect.

All algorithms can ultimately be traced back to programmers, to humans, but as more and more algorithms are generated and closed circuit, within the domain of machine learning, the ability to trace them back to the original watchmaker, to compare the original intention to the actual practice, to disentangle the unintended consequences from the core program becomes hard, difficult, almost impossible. The problems this raises are almost unsurmountable. They're fundamental, putting in question the future of agency and ultimately the role of free will or the autonomy of the subject, upon the assumption of which our liberal democratic societies rest.