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Critical Conversations 2024–25: The Internet Is Not What You Think, Meeting One

Thu October 10 @ 19 h 00 - 20 h 30

In this year's season of Critical Conversations, historian and philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu will lead us through conversations on the history, philosophy, and politics of the internet.

What is the internet? How far back in history can we find its precursors, in the form either of mechanical social, or perhaps even biological information networks? What are the political and philosophical ideas that drove early efforts to network human society? And is the internet a fulfilment of these ideas, or does the actually existing internet turn out to be in certain respects fundamentally different from the political and philosophical vision that guided its early development?

In this series of conversations, we will be taking a maximally wide-focused view of these questions, and we will be looking in particular at their importance for understanding the unprecedent technological revolution we are currently living through, as well as its economic, political, cultural, and psychological consequences. We will be focusing in particular on those thinkers who have articulated a theoretical account of the nature of information networks, the possibility of machine intelligence, or the utopian (or dystopian) prospects of a society reliant on machine-aided decision-making.

Registration Details:

The 2024–2025 series will unfold over eight sessions, on Thursdays from October 2024 to June 2024. Conversations will begin at 19h00 and run for ninety minutes, in person, at the Library.

By registering, participants commit to attending all sessions and completing the assigned readings. To maintain the continuity of the series, attendance to individual sessions is not permitted.

Details

Date:
Thu October 10
Time:
19 h 00 min - 20 h 30 min
Event Category:
Critical Conversations 2024–25: The Internet Is Not What You Think, Meeting One
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