big sync after working on the web versions of the essays, moved all print md's to the content-print folder. Let's talk about that this afternoon!

1 month ago · 8447956099
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@ -5,7 +5,5 @@ print/
 print/*
 content/print/
 content/print/*
 content-print/
 content-print/*
 __pycache__/*
 rss-to-ap/*.secret
--- a/v10.jpg
+++ b/v10.jpg
--- a/+ 4
+++ b/+ 4
@ -46,7 +46,11 @@ help:
 	@echo '                                                                          '

 html:
 	@echo '----------------'
 	"$(PELICAN)" "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS)
 	@echo '----------------'
 	python3 rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap.py
 	@echo '----------------'

 clean:
 	[ ! -d "$(OUTPUTDIR)" ] || rm -rf "$(OUTPUTDIR)"
--- a/content/Essays/Inari-wishiki-about-virtual-residency_print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Inari-wishiki-about-virtual-residency_print.md
--- a/content/Essays/Mel-Hogan_Pandemics-Dark-Cloud_print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Mel-Hogan_Pandemics-Dark-Cloud_print.md
--- a/content/Essays/Re-Centralization-of-AI-print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Re-Centralization-of-AI-print.md
--- a/content-print/about_print.md
+++ b/content-print/about_print.md
--- a/content-print/back-cover.md
+++ b/content-print/back-cover.md
--- a/content-print/cover.md
+++ b/content-print/cover.md
--- a/content/Essays/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors_print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors_print.md
--- a/content/Essays/zabala_warning_print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/zabala_warning_print.md
--- a/content/Essays/zugzwang_print.md
+++ b/content/Essays/zugzwang_print.md
--- a/content/Essays/Inari-wishiki-about-virtual-residency.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Inari-wishiki-about-virtual-residency.md
@ -1,89 +1,38 @@
 Title: About Virtual Residency
 Author: Inari Wishiki
 Date: 25 January 2021

 <p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
 <div class="colophon">
 <p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
 <p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
 <p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
 </p>

 <p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
 <p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
 </p></div>


 <div class="first-page">
 <div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
 <div id="title">About Virtual Residency</div>

 <div id="author"> by Inari Wishiki</div>
 <pre id="ascii_blob">
 ----------------------------------a-----------------------------------
 -------------------------- -  -  - -  -  -----------------------------
 ----------------------n--n--n--n--n--n--n--n--n-----------------------
 --------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
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 -------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------
 ----------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-----------
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 ----------------w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----------------
 --------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
 -------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r--------------------------
 ---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k -----------------------------
 <pre id="first_letter_mel">
 █████╗
 ██╔══██╗
 ███████║
 ██╔══██║
 ╚═╝  ╚═╝
 </pre>
 s soon as the COVID-19 pandemic severely started to kick in Europe in March 2020, many of the local cultural events were switched to online. Like many others, It took me sometime to get accustomed to proprietary online meeting environments such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet (all of which I only use on the Windows side of my dual-boot Linux-base ThinkPad [Jitsi is an exception]). While I enjoyed the vibe of “anyone could attend anything from anywhere in the world”, I felt the novelty of “at home” or “remoteness” had quickly disappeared. These days, I still do book interesting-looking online events, but can barely get motivated to actually show up in front of the screen. When “online” has been rendered almost completely flat by the surge of repetitive Zoom conferences and streaming events, perhaps it is time to look back some of the first virtualization efforts of art in history. In fact, “available from home” was nothing new.

 <p id="subtitle">Defining our current network scenario: from “Telephone/Fax”, through “Early Internet”, to “Virtual Touring Software”, towards “a Slow-Speed Virtual-Physical Residency” </p>
 In 1991, the Project InterCommunication Center (ICC), founded by the Japanese telecom giant NTT, hosted an event titled “The Museum Inside The Telephone Network” by inviting almost 100 artists[^1]. Literally, it was an experiment to set up an invisible museum using telephone/Fax which were back then the most common and fastest ways to transmit audiovisual data. In the early 90s, telephones were mostly available from home and the level of mobility only stretched as far as a cordless landline phone. However, they managed to offer five different “channels”: Voice & Sound channel where prerecorded audio-based pieces could be listened to, Live channel through which you could attend live performances and talks, Interactive channel which involved interactions by physical telephone buttons, Fax channel by which you could print image-based pieces in black and white, and Personal Computer channel that allowed you to view computer graphics-based pieces on the computer screen. Some of the artists found optimal uses of the media: e.g. for Fax channel, the Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo selected 1080 images from his extensive waterfall postcard picture collection and made them available to print at home[^2]. As a result, a cascade of images incessantly came out of a Fax machine as though a real waterfall.

 </div>
 <header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
 <header id="pageheader-theme">About Virtual Residency</header>
 Following this, there was another virtualization attempt by ICC called “on the Web -The Museum Inside The Network-” in 1995[^3]. By this time, the Internet was becoming partially available at some homes and pieces of artwork were accessible through websites from personal computers. Some of the art projects foresaw the age of social media: Kazuhiko Hachiya presented “Mega-Diary” where the links to diaries written by 100 people were gathered and updated on a daily basis[^4], Kouichirou Eto made “Real Panopticon”, a web platform that worked on top of the exhibition website and allowed the viewers to observe what other visitors were currently looking at online[^5]. I have always been thrilled by ambitious remarks made while speculating on the future of the Internet from 90s. One of the committee members of the project, theorist Toshiharu Itoh left a quote that lets us reflect on where we are today[^6]:

 > The technology of information communications is a “technology of consciousness” that belongs to the realm of the spirit and the senses more than to the realm of practicality and function. Bearing this in mind, I hope to immerse myself within the fabric of the network.

 My question now is: What is our current state of consciousness and how should it be expressed through the network available? As an example of a pandemic-ready practice, Norwegian visual artist/musician Lars Holdhus a.k.a TCF comes into my mind.

 <div class="essay_content">
 I met TCF physically for the first time in 2016 at TodaysArt, an audiovisual electronic art festival hosted in The Hague, the Netherlands. I got to know him through a mutual friend and went to see him performing some compositions based on the same algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining[^7]. At that time, TCF was already well-established both in the fields of contemporary art and music, often touring around Europe and beyond. Then he, such a talented musician, somehow stopped making music a couple of years ago and relocated himself back to Norway where he is originally from. Not having heard anything of him for quite some time, TCF, after the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly appeared on the Internet radio run by Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. He said he just picked 50kg of mushrooms last month (at the time of the interview)[^8].

 TCF said he is trying to localize his practice as much as possible, be self-sufficient, and lower his impact on the environment, while keeping himself as an active agent in the field of contemporary art. TCF apparently does not tour any more and instead distributes a piece of software in which his 3D avatar learns how to walk/run through machine learning and the AI composes music on the fly.

 TCF presented “Awne” at Unsound Festival hosted from Kraków, Poland in October 2020[^9]:

 Awne is a system where natural farming, permaculture and biomimicry meets music and art. In recent years TCF has worked on setting up a way to compose art and music that draws inspiration from biological processes, natural farming techniques, the twelve design principles of permaculture, our understanding of nature, microclimates and how to lower your impact on the environment... It will be built around the software (Unity + Machine Learning) that TCF is currently using in parts of his live performances.

 It was live streamed from YouTube and was embedded in the festival website. Someone commented on the video: “I don’t exactly know exactly how my awareness of agricultural processes is increased if I watch plasticky looking 3D models of mushrooms bounce on other objects 😅. Nevertheless some of the animations and sounds were fun to look at / listen to.[^10]”

 I see our present network scenario to be somewhere between the following: reduced travel, an ever more powerful set of online tools, and environmental emergency (and urgency). Although Awne was a streaming event, I could still feel enough “flesh” of TCF, even compared to his live performance back in the day.

 Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process of setting up a “slow-speed” virtual-physical residency program between The Hague and Minamisanriku, a small municipality in Japan known to be one of the areas most affected by the 2011 Tsunami. It is an ethereal attempt to connect the two coastal regions beyond two vast oceans and one continent while setting “water management” as the common theme. “Virtual does not need to be fast” is the tag line and we are aiming to leave a “physical” trail in Minamisanriku through which the local residents can gradually shed the abominable image of a disaster-stricken area.

 <p><pre id="first_letter_mel">
 █████╗
 ██╔══██╗
 ███████║
 ██╔══██║
 ╚═╝  ╚═╝
 </pre>
 s soon as the COVID-19 pandemic severely started to kick in Europe in March 2020, many of the local cultural events were switched to online. Like many others, It took me sometime to get accustomed to proprietary online meeting environments such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet (all of which I only use on the Windows side of my dual-boot Linux-base ThinkPad [Jitsi is an exception]). While I enjoyed the vibe of “anyone could attend anything from anywhere in the world”, I felt the novelty of “at home” or “remoteness” had quickly disappeared. These days, I still do book interesting-looking online events, but can barely get motivated to actually show up in front of the screen. When “online” has been rendered almost completely flat by the surge of repetitive Zoom conferences and streaming events, perhaps it is time to look back some of the first virtualization efforts of art in history. In fact, “available from home” was nothing new.</p>
 <p>
 In 1991, the Project InterCommunication Center (ICC), founded by the Japanese telecom giant NTT, hosted an event titled “The Museum Inside The Telephone Network” by inviting almost 100 artists ^[^1]^. Literally, it was an experiment to set up an invisible museum using telephone/Fax which were back then the most common and fastest ways to transmit audiovisual data. In the early 90s, telephones were mostly available from home and the level of mobility only stretched as far as a cordless landline phone. However, they managed to offer five different “channels”: Voice & Sound channel where prerecorded audio-based pieces could be listened to, Live channel through which you could attend live performances and talks, Interactive channel which involved interactions by physical telephone buttons, Fax channel by which you could print image-based pieces in black and white, and Personal Computer channel that allowed you to view computer graphics-based pieces on the computer screen. Some of the artists found optimal uses of the media: e.g. for Fax channel, the Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo selected 1080 images from his extensive waterfall postcard picture collection and made them available to print at home ^[^2]^. As a result, a cascade of images incessantly came out of a Fax machine as though a real waterfall.</p>

 <p>
 Following this, there was another virtualization attempt by ICC called “on the Web -The Museum Inside The Network-” in 1995 ^[^3]^. By this time, the Internet was becoming partially available at some homes and pieces of artwork were accessible through websites from personal computers. Some of the art projects foresaw the age of social media: Kazuhiko Hachiya presented “Mega-Diary” where the links to diaries written by 100 people were gathered and updated on a daily basis ^[^4]^, Kouichirou Eto made “Real Panopticon”, a web platform that worked on top of the exhibition website and allowed the viewers to observe what other visitors were currently looking at online ^[^5]^. I have always been thrilled by ambitious remarks made while speculating on the future of the Internet from 90s. One of the committee members of the project, theorist Toshiharu Itoh left a quote that lets us reflect on where we are today ^[^6]^:</p>

 <blockquote>The technology of information communications is a “technology of consciousness” that belongs to the realm of the spirit and the senses more than to the realm of practicality and function. Bearing this in mind, I hope to immerse myself within the fabric of the network.</blockquote>
 <p>
 My question now is: What is our current state of consciousness and how should it be expressed through the network available? As an example of a pandemic-ready practice, Norwegian visual artist/musician Lars Holdhus a.k.a TCF comes into my mind.</p>
 <p>
 I met TCF physically for the first time in 2016 at TodaysArt, an audiovisual electronic art festival hosted in The Hague, the Netherlands. I got to know him through a mutual friend and went to see him performing some compositions based on the same algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining ^[^7]^. At that time, TCF was already well-established both in the fields of contemporary art and music, often touring around Europe and beyond. Then he, such a talented musician, somehow stopped making music a couple of years ago and relocated himself back to Norway where he is originally from. Not having heard anything of him for quite some time, TCF, after the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly appeared on the Internet radio run by Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. He said he just picked 50kg of mushrooms last month (at the time of the interview) ^[^8]^.</p>
 <p>
 TCF said he is trying to localize his practice as much as possible, be self-sufficient, and lower his impact on the environment, while keeping himself as an active agent in the field of contemporary art. TCF apparently does not tour any more and instead distributes a piece of software in which his 3D avatar learns how to walk/run through machine learning and the AI composes music on the fly.</p>

 <p>
 TCF presented “Awne” at Unsound Festival hosted from Kraków, Poland in October 2020 ^[^9]^:</p>
 <p>
 Awne is a system where natural farming, permaculture and biomimicry meets music and art. In recent years TCF has worked on setting up a way to compose art and music that draws inspiration from biological processes, natural farming techniques, the twelve design principles of permaculture, our understanding of nature, microclimates and how to lower your impact on the environment... It will be built around the software (Unity + Machine Learning) that TCF is currently using in parts of his live performances.</p>
 <p>
 It was live streamed from YouTube and was embedded in the festival website. Someone commented on the video: “I don’t exactly know exactly how my awareness of agricultural processes is increased if I watch plasticky looking 3D models of mushrooms bounce on other objects 😅. Nevertheless some of the animations and sounds were fun to look at / listen to. ^[^10]^”</p>
 <p>
 I see our present network scenario to be somewhere between the following: reduced travel, an ever more powerful set of online tools, and environmental emergency (and urgency). Although Awne was a streaming event, I could still feel enough “flesh” of TCF, even compared to his live performance back in the day.</p>
 <p>
 Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process of setting up a “slow-speed” virtual-physical residency program between The Hague and Minamisanriku, a small municipality in Japan known to be one of the areas most affected by the 2011 Tsunami. It is an ethereal attempt to connect the two coastal regions beyond two vast oceans and one continent while setting “water management” as the common theme. “Virtual does not need to be fast” is the tag line and we are aiming to leave a “physical” trail in Minamisanriku through which the local residents can gradually shed the abominable image of a disaster-stricken area.</p>
 </div>
 [^1]: https://www.ntticc.or.jp/en/exhibitions/1991/intercommunication-91-the-museum-inside-the-telephone-network/

 [^2]: https://monoskop.org/File:InterCommunication_91_The_Museum_Inside_the_Telephone_Network_1991_hires.pdf
@ -103,3 +52,7 @@ Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process
 [^9]: https://www.unsound.pl/en/intermission/events/tcf-presents-awne

 [^10]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQucsMWYVnI

 -----------------------

 **Yoshinari Nishiki**. Born in an unacknowledged commuter town to Osaka, Nishiki had to invent his own ways to have fun and that ultimately shaped the foundation of his art practice. After irreversibly failing in the Japanese education system, Nishiki left the country for the UK and started to run art projects. Through a judgmental discount card scheme that actually worked on a main street of Liverpool, he met Graham Harwood who was to invite him to a masters program at Goldsmiths. Despite the lack of qualifications, Nishiki successfully made a legal train fare dodging system using racing pigeons and graduated with a merit. Nishiki relocated himself to Japan and began to be based in an international Augmented Reality laboratory in the middle of a mountain. He made Augmented Tree Climbing for the boy scouts and the research got published in a gaming conference. Since 2017, Nishiki has been based in Rotterdam and collaborated with researchers from TU Delft on artistic interventions into logistics systems. Projects pursued have included, among others, free transport by crowd, moving a mountain of agricultural produce with food couriers, and single-handedly flipping a 20-foot container. He is also known as Inari Wishiki.
--- a/content/Essays/Inari.odt
+++ b/content/Essays/Inari.odt
--- a/content/Essays/Kris_De_Decker-how_to_build_a_low_tech_internet.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Kris_De_Decker-how_to_build_a_low_tech_internet.md
@ -1,763 +0,0 @@
 Title: How to Build a Low-tech Internet
 Author: Kris de Decker
 <!-- Status: published  -->

 <p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
 <div class="colophon">
 <p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
 <p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
 <p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
 </p>

 <p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
 <p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
 </p></div>


 <div class="first-page">
 <div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
 <div id="title">The Philosophy of Warnings</div>

 <div id="author"> by Santiago Zabala</div>
 <pre id="ascii_blob">
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 -------------------------- -  -  - -  -  -----------------------------
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 ----------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-----------
 -------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------
 -----h---------h--------h---------h---------h--------h---------h------
 ----i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i-----
 ----n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n-----
 ----g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g-----
 ----- --------- -------- --------- --------- -------- --------- ------
 -------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------
 ----------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-----------
 -------------t------t------t------t------t------t------t--------------
 ----------------w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----------------
 --------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
 -------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r--------------------------
 ---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k -----------------------------
 </pre>


 </div>
 <header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
 <header id="pageheader-theme">The Philosophy of Warnings</header>

 <div class="essay_content">
 <p>
 Wireless internet access is on the rise in both modern consumer
 societies and in the developing world.</p>

 In rich countries, however, the focus is on always-on connectivity and
 ever higher access speeds. In poor countries, on the other hand,
 connectivity is achieved through much more low-tech, often asynchronous
 networks. 

 While the high-tech approach pushes the costs and energy use of the
 internet [higher and higher](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html),
 the low-tech alternatives result in much cheaper and very energy
 efficient networks that combine well with renewable power production and
 are resistant to disruptions.

 If we want the internet to keep working in circumstances where access to
 energy is more limited, we can learn important lessons from alternative
 network technologies. Best of all, there\'s no need to wait for
 governments or companies to facilitate: we can build our own resilient
 communication infrastructure if we cooperate with one another. This is
 demonstrated by several community networks in Europe, of which the
 largest has more than 35,000 users already.

 []{#anchor}Picture: A node in the [Scottish Tegola
 Network](http://www.tegola.org.uk/hebnet/).

 More than half of the global population does not have access to the
 \"worldwide\" web. Up to now, the internet is mainly an urban
 phenomenon, especially in \"developing\" countries. Telecommunication
 companies are usually reluctant to extend their network outside cities
 due to a combination of high infrastructure costs, low population
 density, limited ability to pay for services, and an unreliable or
 non-existent electricity infrastructure. Even in remote regions of
 \"developed\" countries, internet connectivity isn\'t always available.

 Internet companies such as Facebook and Google regularly make headlines
 with plans for connecting these remote regions to the internet. Facebook
 tries to achieve this with drones, while Google counts on high-altitude
 balloons. There are major technological challenges, but the main
 objection to these plans is their commercial character. Obviously,
 Google and Facebook want to connect more people to the internet because
 that would increase their revenues. Facebook especially receives lots of
 criticism because their network promotes their own site in particular,
 and blocks most other internet applications. \[1\]

 Meanwhile, several research groups and network enthusiasts have
 developed and implemented much cheaper alternative network technologies
 to solve these issues. Although these low-tech networks have proven
 their worth, they have received much less attention. Contrary to the
 projects of internet companies, they are set up by small organisations
 or by the users themselves. This guarantees an open network that
 benefits the users instead of a handful of corporations. At the same
 time, these low-tech networks are very energy efficient.

 ****WiFi-based Long Distance Networks****

 Most low-tech networks are based on WiFi, the same technology that
 allows mobile access to the internet in most western households. As we
 have seen in the previous article, [sharing these devices could provide
 free mobile access across densely populated
 cities](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/the-4g-network-thats-already-there.html).
 But the technology can be equally useful in sparsely populated areas.
 Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data
 communication (with a typical range of about 30 metres), its reach can
 be extended through modifications of the Media Access Control (MAC)
 layer in the networking protocol, and through the use of range extender
 amplifiers and directional antennas. \[2\]

 Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data
 communication, its reach can be extended to cover distances of more than
 100 kilometres.

 The longest unamplified WiFi link is a 384 km wireless point-to-point
 connection between Pico El Águila and Platillón in Venezuela,
 established a few years ago. \[3,4\] However, WiFi-based long distance
 networks usually consist of a combination of shorter point-to-point
 links, each between a few kilometres and one hundred kilometers long at
 most. These are combined to create larger, multihop networks.
 Point-to-points links, which form the backbone of a long range WiFi
 network, are combined with omnidirectional antennas that distribute the
 signal to individual households (or public institutions) of a community.

 Picture: A relay with three point-to-point links and three sectoral
 antennae.
 [Tegola](http://www.tegola.org.uk/howto/network-planning.html).

 Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \--
 in this sense, the technology resembles the [18th century optical
 telegraph](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/email-in-the-18.html).
 \[5\] If there\'s no line of sight between two points, a third relay is
 required that can see both points, and the signal is sent to the
 intermediate relay first. Depending on the terrain and particular
 obstacles, more hubs may be necessary. \[6\]

 Point-to-point links typically consist of two directional antennas, one
 focused on the next node and the other on the previous node in the
 network. Nodes can have multiple antennas with one antenna per fixed
 point-to-point link to each neighbour. \[7\] This allows mesh routing
 protocols that can dynamically select which links to choose for routing
 among the available ones. \[8\]

 Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \--
 in this sense, the technology resembles the 18th century optical
 telegraph.

 Distribution nodes usually consist of a sectoral antenna (a small
 version of the things you see on mobile phone masts) or a conventional
 WiFi-router, together with a number of receivers in the community. \[6\]
 For short distance WiFi-communication, there is no requirement for line
 of sight between the transmitter and the receiver. \[9\]

 To provide users with access to the worldwide internet, a long range
 WiFi network should be connected to the main backbone of the internet
 using at least one \"backhaul\" or \"gateway node\". This can be a
 dial-up or broadband connection (DSL, fibre or satellite). If such a
 link is not established, users would still be able to communicate with
 each other and view websites set up on local servers, but they would not
 be able to access the internet. \[10\]

 ****Advantages of Long Range WiFi****

 Long range WiFi offers high bandwidth (up to 54 Mbps) combined with very
 low capital costs. Because the WiFi standard enjoys widespread
 acceptance and has huge production volumes, off-the-shelf antennas and
 wireless cards can be bought for very little money. \[11\]
 Alternatively, components can be put together [from discarded
 materials](http://roelof.info/projects/%282014%29Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/)
 such as old routers, satellite dish antennas and laptops. Protocols like
 WiLDNet run on a 266 Mhz processor with only 128 MB memory, so an old
 computer will do the trick. \[7\]

 The WiFi-nodes are lightweight and don\'t need expensive towers \--
 further decreasing capital costs, and minimizing the impact of the
 structures to be built. \[7\] More recently, single units that combine
 antenna, wireless card and processor have become available. These are
 very convenient for installation. To build a relay, one simply connects
 such units together with ethernet cables that carry both signal and
 power. \[6\] The units can be mounted in towers or slim masts, given
 that they offer little windload. \[3\] Examples of suppliers of long
 range WiFi components are [Ubiquity](https://www.ubnt.com/),
 [Alvarion](http://www.alvarion.com/) and
 [MikroTik](http://www.mikrotik.com/), and
 [simpleWiFi](https://www.simplewifi.com/).

 Long Range WiFi makes use of unlicensed spectrum and offers high
 bandwidth, low capital costs, easy installation, and low power
 requirements.

 Long range WiFi also has low operational costs due to low power
 requirements. A typical mast installation consisting of two long
 distance links and one or two wireless cards for local distribution
 consumes around 30 watts. \[6,12\] In several low-tech networks, nodes
 are entirely powered by solar panels and batteries. Another important
 advantage of long range WiFi is that it makes use of unlicensed spectrum
 (2.4 and 5 GHz), and thus avoids negotiations with telecom operators and
 government. This adds to the cost advantage and allows basically anyone
 to start a WiFi-based long distance network. \[9\]

 ****Long Range WiFi Networks in Poor Countries****

 The first long range WiFi networks were set up ten to fifteen years ago.
 In poor countries, two main types have been built. The first is aimed at
 providing internet access to people in remote villages. An example is
 the Akshaya network in India, which covers the entire Kerala State and
 is one of the largest wireless networks in the world. The infrastructure
 is built around approximately 2,500 \"computer access centers\", which
 are open to the local population \-- direct ownership of computers is
 minimal in the region. \[13\]

 Another example, also in India, are the AirJaldi networks which provide
 internet access to approximately 20,000 users in six states, all in
 remote regions and on difficult terrain. Most nodes in this network are
 solar-powered and the distance between them can range up to 50 km or
 more. \[14\] In some African countries, local WiFi-networks distribute
 internet access from a satellite gateway. \[15,16\]

 A node in the AirJaldi network. Picture: AirJaldi.

 A second type of long distance WiFi network in poor countries is aimed
 at providing telemedicine to remote communities. In remote regions,
 health care is often provided through health posts scarcely equipped and
 attended by health technicians who are barely trained. \[17\] Long-range
 WiFi networks can connect urban hospitals with these outlying health
 posts, allowing doctors to remotely support health technicians using
 high-resolution file transfers and real-time communication tools based
 on voice and video.

 An example is the link between Cabo Pantoja and Iquitos in the Loreto
 province in Peru, which was established in 2007. The 450 km network
 consists of 17 towers which are 16 to 50 km apart. The line connects 15
 medical outposts in remote villages with the main hospital in Iquitos
 and is aimed at remote diagnosis of patients. \[17,18\] All equipment is
 powered by solar panels. \[18,19\] Other succesful examples of long
 range WiFi telemedicine networks have been built in India, Malawi and
 Ghana. \[20,21\]

 ****WiFi-Based Community Networks in Europe****

 The low-tech networks in poor countries are set up by NGO\'s,
 governments, universities or businesses. In contrast, most of the
 WiFi-based long distance networks in remote regions of rich countries
 are so-called \"community networks\": the users themselves build, own,
 power and maintain the infrastructure. Similar to the shared wireless
 approach in cities, reciprocal resource sharing forms the basis of these
 networks: participants can set up their own node and connect to the
 network (for free), as long as their node also allows traffic of other
 members. Each node acts as a WiFi routing device that provides IP
 forwarding services and a data link to all users and nodes connected to
 it. \[8,22\]

 In a community network, the users themselves build, own, power and
 maintain the infrastructure.

 Consequently, with each new user, the network becomes larger. There is
 no a-priori overall planning. A community network grows bottom-up,
 driven by the needs of its users, as nodes and links are added or
 upgraded following demand patterns. The only consideration is to connect
 a node from a new participant to an existing one. As a node is powered
 on, it discovers it neighbours, attributes itself a unique IP adress,
 and then establishes the most appropriate routes to the rest of the
 network, taking into account the quality of the links. Community
 networks are open to participation to everyone, sometimes according to
 an open peering agreement. \[8,9,19,22\]

 Wireless links in the Spanish Guifi network.
 [Credit](https://iuliinet.github.io/presentazione_ottobre_2014/img/barcellona.jpg).

 Despite the lack of reliable statistics, community networks seem to be
 rather succesful, and there are several large ones in Europe, such as
 [Guifi.net](https://guifi.net/) (Spain), [Athens Wireless Metropolitan
 Network](http://www.awmn.gr/content.php?s=ce506a41ab245641d6934638c6f6f107)
 (Greece), [FunkFeuer](http://www.funkfeuer.at/) (Austria), and
 [Freifunk](https://freifunk.net/en/) (Germany). \[8,22,23,24\] The
 Spanish network  is the largest WiFi-based long distance network in the
 world with more than 50,000 kilometres of links, although a small part
 is based on optic fibre links. Most of it is located in the Catalan
 Pyrenees, one of the least populated areas in Spain. The network was
 initiated in 2004 and now has close to 30,000 nodes, up from 17,000 in
 2012. \[8,22\]

 Guifi.net provides internet access to individuals, companies,
 administrations and universities. In principle, the network is
 installed, powered and maintained by its users, although volunteer teams
 and even commercial installers are present to help. Some nodes and
 backbone upgrades have been succesfully crowdfunded by indirect
 beneficiaries of the network. \[8,22\]

 ****Performance of Low-tech Networks****

 So how about the performance of low-tech networks? What can you do with
 them? The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on
 the bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among
 other factors. The long-distance WiFi networks aimed at telemedicine in
 poor countries have few users and a good backhaul, resulting in high
 bandwidth (+ 40 Mbps). This gives them a similar performance to fibre
 connections in the developed world. A study of (a small part of) the
 Guifi.net community network, which has dozens of gateway nodes and
 thousands of users, showed an average throughput of 2 Mbps, which is
 comparable to a relatively slow DSL connection. Actual throughput per
 user varies from 700 kbps to 8 Mbps. \[25\]

 The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on the
 bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among other
 factors

 However, the low-tech networks that distribute internet access to a
 large user base in developing countries can have much more limited
 bandwidth per user. For example, a university campus in Kerala (India)
 uses a 750 kbps internet connection that is shared across 3,000 faculty
 members and students operating from 400 machines, where during peak
 hours nearly every machine is being used. 

 Therefore, the worst-case average bandwidth available per machine is
 approximately 1.9 kbps, which is slow even in comparison to a dial-up
 connection (56 kbps). And this can be considered a really good
 connectivity compared to typical rural settings in poor countries.
 \[26\] To make matters worse, such networks often have to deal with an
 intermittent power supply.

 Under these circumstances, even the most common internet applications
 have poor performance, or don\'t work at all. The communication model of
 the internet is based on a set of network assumptions, called the TCP/IP
 protocol suite. These include the existence of a bi-directional
 end-to-end path between the source (for example a website\'s server) and
 the destination (the user\'s computer), short round-trip delays, and low
 error rates.

 Many low-tech networks in poor countries do not comform to these
 assumptions. They are characterized by intermittent connectivity or
 \"network partitioning\" \-- the absence of an end-to-end path between
 source and destination \-- long and variable delays, and high error
 rates. \[21,27,28\]

 ****Delay-Tolerant Networks****

 Nevertheless, even in such conditions, the internet could work perfectly
 fine. The technical issues can be solved by moving away from the
 always-on model of traditional networks, and instead design networks
 based upon asynchronous communication and intermittent connectivity.
 These so-called \"delay-tolerant networks\" (DTNs) have their own
 specialized protocols overlayed on top of the lower protocols and do not
 utilize TCP. They overcome the problems of intermittent connectivity and
 long delays by using store-and-forward message switching.

 Information is forwarded from a storage place on one node to a storage
 place on another node, along a path that *eventually* reaches its
 destination. In contrast to traditional internet routers, which only
 store incoming packets for a few milliseconds on memory chips, the nodes
 of a delay-tolerant network have persistent storage (such as hard disks)
 that can hold information indefinitely. \[27,28\]

 Delay-tolerant networks combine well with renewable energy: solar panels
 or wind turbines could power network nodes only when the sun shines or
 the wind blows, eliminating the need for energy storage.

 Delay-tolerant networks don\'t require an end-to-end path between source
 and destination. Data is simply transferred from node to node. If the
 next node is unavailable because of long delays or a power outage, the
 data is stored on the hard disk until the node becomes available again.
 While it might take a long time for data to travel from source to
 destination, a delay-tolerant network ensures that it will eventually
 arrive.

 Delay-tolerant networks further decrease capital costs and energy use,
 leading to the most efficient use of scarce resources. They keep working
 with an intermittent energy supply and they combine well with renewable
 energy sources: solar panels or wind turbines could power network nodes
 only when the sun shines or the wind blows, eliminating the need for
 energy storage.

 ****Data Mules****

 Delay-tolerant networking can take surprising forms, especially when
 they take advantage of some non-traditional means of communication, such
 as \"data mules\". \[11,29\] In such networks, conventional
 transportation technologies \-- buses, cars, motorcycles, trains, boats,
 airplanes \-- are used to ferry messages from one location to another in
 a store-and-forward manner.

 Examples are DakNet and KioskNet, which use buses as data mules.
 \[30-34\] In many developing regions, rural bus routes regularly visit
 villages and towns that have no network connectivity. By equipping each
 vehicle with a computer, a storage device and a mobile WiFi-node on the
 one hand, and by installing a stationary WiFi-node in each village on
 the other hand, the local transport infrastructure can substitute for a
 wireless internet link. \[11\]

 Picture: AirJaldi.

 Outgoing data (such as sent emails or requests for webpages) is stored
 on local computers in the village until the bus comes withing range. At
 this point, the fixed WiFi-node of the local computer automatically
 transmits the data to the mobile WiFi-node of the bus. Later, when the
 bus arrives at a hub that is connected to the internet, the outgoing
 data is transmitted from the mobile WiFi-node to the gateway node, and
 then to the internet. Data sent to the village takes the opposite route.
 The bus \-- or data \-- driver doesn\'t require any special skills and
 is completely oblivious to the data transfers taking place. He or she
 does not need to do anything other than come in range of the nodes.
 \[30,31\]

 In a data mules network, the local transport infrastructure substitutes
 for a wireless internet link.

 The use of data mules offers some extra advantages over more
 \"sophisticated\" delay-tolerant networks. A \"drive-by\" WiFi network
 allows for small, low-cost and low-power radio devices to be used, which
 don\'t require line of sight and consequently no towers \-- further
 lowering capital costs and energy use compared to other low-tech
 networks. \[30,31,32\]

 The use of short-distance WiFi-links also results in a higher bandwidth
 compared to long-distance WiFi-links, which makes data mules better
 suited to transfer larger files. On average, 20 MB of data can be moved
 in each direction when a bus passes a fixed WiFi-node. \[30,32\] On the
 other hand, latency (the time interval between sending and receiving
 data) is usually higher than on long-range WiFi-links. A single bus
 passing by a village once a day gives a latency of 24 hours.

 ****Delay-Tolerant Software****

 Obviously, a delay-tolerant network (DTN) \-- whatever its form \-- also
 requires new software: applications that function without a connected
 end-to-end networking path. \[11\] Such custom applications are also
 useful for synchronous, low bandwidth networks. Email is relatively easy
 to adapt to intermittent connectivity, because it\'s an asynchronous
 communication method by itself. A DTN-enabled email client stores
 outgoing messages until a connection is available. Although emails may
 take longer to reach their destination, the user experience doesn\'t
 really change.

 A Freifunk WiFi-node is installed in Berlin, Germany. Picture:[
 Wikipedia
 Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Freifunk-Initiative_in_Berlin-Kreuzberg.jpg).

 Browsing and searching the web requires more adaptations. For example,
 most search engines optimize for speed, assuming that a user can quickly
 look through the returned links and immediately run a second modified
 search if the first result is inadequate. However, in intermittent
 networks, multiple rounds of interactive search would be impractical.
 \[26,35\] Asynchronous search engines optimize for bandwith rather than
 response time. \[26,30,31,35,36\] For example, RuralCafe desynchronizes
 the search process by performing many search tasks in an offline manner,
 refining the search request based on a database of similar searches. The
 actual retrieval of information using the network is only done when
 absolutely necessary.

 Many internet applications could be adapted to intermittent networks,
 such as webbrowsing, email, electronic form filling, interaction with
 e-commerce sites, blogsoftware, large file downloads, or social media.

 Some DTN-enabled browsers download not only the explicitly requested
 webpages but also the pages that are linked to by the requested pages.
 \[30\] Others are optimized to return low-bandwidth results, which are
 achieved by filtering, analysis, and compression on the server site. A
 similar effect can be achieved through the use of a service like
 [Loband](http://www.loband.org/loband/), which strips webpages of
 images, video, advertisements, social media buttons, and so on, merely
 presenting the textual content. \[26\]

 Browsing and searching on intermittent networks can also be improved by
 local caching (storing already downloaded pages) and prefetching
 (downloading pages that might be retrieved in the future). \[206\] Many
 other internet applications could also be adapted to intermittent
 networks, such as electronic form filling, interaction with e-commerce
 sites, blogsoftware, large file downloads, social media, and so on.
 \[11,30\] All these applications would remain possible, though at lower
 speeds.

 ****Sneakernets****

 Obviously, real-time applications such as internet telephony, media
 streaming, chatting or videoconferencing are impossible to adapt to
 intermittent networks, which provide only asynchronous communication.
 These applications are also difficult to run on synchronous networks
 that have limited bandwidth. Because these are the applications that are
 in large part responsible for the growing energy use of the internet,
 one could argue that their incompatibility with low-tech networks is
 actually a good thing (see the [previous
 article](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html)).

 Furthermore, many of these applications could be organized in different
 ways. While real-time voice or video conversations won\'t work, it\'s
 perfectly possible to send and receive voice or video messages. And
 while streaming media can\'t happen, downloading music albums and video
 remains possible. Moreover, these files could be \"transmitted\" by the
 most low-tech internet technology available: a sneakernet. In a
 sneakernet, digital data is \"wirelessly\" transmitted using a storage
 medium such as a hard disk, a USB-key, a flash card, or a CD or DVD.
 Before the arrival of the internet, all computer files were exchanged
 via a sneakernet, using tape or floppy disks as a storage medium.

 Stuffing a cargo train full of digital storage media would beat any
 digital network in terms of speed, cost and energy efficiency. Picture:
 Wikipedia Commons.

 Just like a data mules network, a sneakernet involves a vehicle, a
 messenger on foot, or an animal (such as a [carrier
 pigeon](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/02/sneakernet-beats-internet.html)).
 However, in a sneakernet there is no automatic data transfer between the
 mobile node (for instance, a vehicle) and the stationary nodes (sender
 and recipient). Instead, the data first have to be transferred from the
 sender\'s computer to a portable storage medium. Then, upon arrival, the
 data have to be transferred from the portable storage medium to the
 receiver\'s computer. \[30\] A sneakernet thus requires manual
 intervention and this makes it less convenient for many internet
 applications.

 There are exceptions, though. For example, a movie doesn\'t have to be
 transferred to the hard disk of your computer in order to watch it. You
 play it straight from a portable hard disk or slide a disc into the
 DVD-player. Moreover, a sneakernet also offers an important advantage:
 of all low-tech networks, it has the most bandwidth available. This
 makes it perfectly suited for the distribution of large files such as
 movies or computer games. In fact, when very large files are involved, a
 sneakernet even beats the fastest fibre internet connection. At lower
 internet speeds, sneakernets can be advantageous for much smaller files.

 Technological progress will not lower the advantage of a sneakernet.
 Digital storage media evolve at least as fast as internet connections
 and they both improve communication in an equal way.

 ****Resilient Networks****

 While most low-tech networks are aimed at regions where the alternative
 is often no internet connection at all, their usefulness for
 well-connected areas cannot be overlooked. The internet as we know it in
 the industrialized world is a product of an abundant energy supply, a
 robust electricity infrastructure, and sustained economic growth. This
 \"high-tech\" internet might offer some fancy advantages over the
 low-tech networks, but it cannot survive if these conditions change.
 This makes it extremely vulnerable.

 The internet as we know it in the industrialized world is a product of
 an abundant energy supply, a robust electricity infrastructure, and
 sustained economic growth. It cannot survive if these conditions change.

 Depending on their level of resilience, low-tech networks can remain in
 operation when the supply of fossil fuels is interrupted, when the
 electricity infrastructure deteriorates, when the economy grinds to a
 halt, or if other calamities should hit. Such a low-tech internet would
 allow us to surf the web, send and receive e-mails, shop online, share
 content, and so on. Meanwhile, data mules and sneakernets could serve to
 handle the distribution of large files such as videos. Stuffing a cargo
 vessel or a train full of digital storage media would beat any digital
 network in terms of speed, cost and energy efficiency. And if such a
 transport infrastructure would no longer be available, we could still
 rely on messengers on foot, [cargo
 bikes](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/05/modular-cargo-cycles.html)
 and [sailing vessels](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/sailing-ships/).

 Such a hybrid system of online and offline applications would remain a
 very powerful communication network \-- unlike anything we had even in
 the late twentieth century. Even if we envision a doom scenario in which
 the wider internet infrastructure would disintegrate, isolated low-tech
 networks would still be very useful local and regional communication
 technologies. Furthermore, they could obtain content from other remote
 networks through the exchange of portable storage media. The internet,
 it appears, can be as low-tech or high-tech as we can afford it to be.
 </div>
 Kris De Decker (edited by [Jenna
 Collett](https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jenna-collett/1a/925/b3))

 This article has been translated into
 [Spanish](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/es/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html).

 ****Sources & Notes:****

 DIY: [Wireless networking in the developing
 world](http://wndw.net/book.html#readBook) (Third Edition) is a free
 book about designing, implementing and maintaining low-cost wireless
 networks. Available in English, French, and Spanish.

 \[1\] [Connecting the unwired world with balloons, satellites, lasers &
 drones](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/09/03/214256/connecting-the-unwired-world-with-balloons-satellites-lasers-drones),
 Slashdot, 2015

 \[2\] [A QoS-aware dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme for multi-hop
 WiFi-based long distance
 networks](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2Fs13638-015-0352-z#/page-1),
 Iftekhar Hussain et al., 2015

 \[3\] [Long-distance, Low-Cost Wireless Data
 Transmission](http://www.ursi.org/files/RSBissues/RSB_339_2011_12.pdf)
 (PDF), Ermanno Pietrosemoli, 2011

 \[4\] This link could only be established thanks to the height of the
 endpoints (4,200 and 1,500 km) and the flatness of the middle ground.
 The curvature of the Earth makes longer point-to-point WiFi-links
 difficult to achieve because line of sight between two points is
 required.

 \[5\] Radio waves occupy a volume around the optical line, which must be
 unemcumbered from obstacles. This volume is known as the Fresnel
 ellipsoid and its size grows with the distance between the two end
 points and with the wavelength of the signal, which is in turn inversely
 proportional to the frequency. Thus, it is required to leave extra
 \"elbow room\" for the Fresnel zone. \[9\]

 \[6\] [A Brief History of the Tegola
 Project](http://www.tegola.org.uk/tegola-history.html), Tegola Project,
 retrieved October 2015

 \[7\] [WiLDNet: Design and Implementation of High Performance WiFi based
 Long Distance
 Networks](http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/docs/wireless/wild_multihop.pdf)
 (PDF), Rabin Patra et al., 2007

 \[8\] [Topology Patterns of a Community Network:
 Guifi.net](http://dsg.ac.upc.edu/sites/default/files/1569633605.pdf)
 (PDF), Davide Vega et al., 2012

 \[9\] [Global Access to the Internet for All, internet
 draft](https://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/irtf/trac/wiki/gaia), Internet
 Engineering Task Force (IETF), 2015

 \[10\] This is what happened to Afghanistan\'s JLINK network when
 [funding for the network\'s satellite link ran dry in
 2012](https://www.wired.com/2012/05/jlink/).

 \[11\] [The case for technology in developing
 regions](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mattkam/lab/publications/Computer2005.pdf)
 (PDF), Eric Brewer et al., 2005

 \[12\] [Beyond Pilots: Keeping Rural Wireless Networks
 Alive](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/nsdi08/tech/full_papers/surana/surana.pdf)
 (PDF), Sonesh Surana et al., 2008

 \[13\] <http://www.akshaya.kerala.gov.in/>

 \[14\] <http://main.airjaldi.com/>

 \[15\] [VillageCell: Cost Effective Cellular Connectivity in Rural
 Areas](http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pejovicv/docs/Anand12ICTD.pdf) (PDF),
 Abhinav Anand et al., 2012

 \[16\] [Deployment and Extensio of a Converged WiMAX/WiFi Network for
 Dwesa Community Area South
 Africa](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.452.7357&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
 (PDF), N. Ndlovu et al., 2009

 \[17\] \"[A telemedicine network optimized for long distances in the
 Amazonian jungle of
 Peru](http://www.ehas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Extremecomm_sig_ISBN.pdf)\"
 (PDF), Carlos Rey-Moreno, ExtremeCom \'11, September 2011

 \[18\] \"[Telemedicine networks of EHAS Foundation in Latin
 America](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197650/)\",
 Ignacio Prieto-Egido et al., in \"Frontiers in Public Health\", October
 15, 2014.

 \[19\] \"[The design of a wireless solar-powered router for rural
 environments isolated from health
 facilities](https://eciencia.urjc.es/bitstream/handle/10115/2293/THE%20DESIGN%20OF%20A%20WIRELESS%20SOLAR-POWERED-2008.pdf?sequence=1)\"
 (PDF), Francisco Javier Simo Reigadas et al., in \"IEEE Wireless
 Communications\", June 2008.

 \[20\] [On a long wireless link for rural telemedicine in
 Malawi](http://users.ictp.it/~mzennaro/Malawi.pdf) (PDF), M. Zennaro et
 al., 2008

 \[21\] [A Survey of Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networking
 Applications](http://www.jie-online.org/index.php/jie/article/view/91),
 Artemios G. Voyiatzis, 2012

 \[22\] [Supporting Cloud Deployment in the Guifi Community
 Network](https://www.sics.se/~amir/files/download/papers/guifi.pdf)
 (PDF), Roger Baig et al., 2013

 \[23\] [A Case for Research with and on Community
 Networks](http://www.sigcomm.org/sites/default/files/ccr/papers/2013/July/2500098-2500108.pdf)
 (PDF), Bart Braem et.al, 2013

 \[24\] There are smaller networks in Scotland
 ([Tegola](http://www.tegola.org.uk/)), Slovenia ([wlan
 slovenija](https://wlan-si.net/)), Belgium ([Wireless
 Antwerpen](http://www.wirelessantwerpen.be/)), and the Netherlands
 ([Wireless Leiden](https://www.wirelessleiden.nl/)), among others.
 Australia has [Melbourne Wireless](http://melbourne.wireless.org.au/).
 In Latin America, numerous examples exists, such as [Bogota
 Mesh](https://www.facebook.com/BogotaMesh) (Colombia) and [Monte Video
 Libre](http://picandocodigo.net/2008/montevideolibre-redes-libres-en-montevideo/)
 (Uruguay). Some of these networks are interconnected. This is the case
 for the Belgian and Dutch community networks, and for the Slovenian and
 Austrian networks. \[8,22,23\]

 \[25\] [Proxy performance analysis in a community wireless
 network](http://upcommons.upc.edu/handle/2099.1/19710), Pablo Pitarch
 Miguel, 2013

 \[26\] [RuralCafe: Web Search in the Rural Developing
 World](http://www.ambuehler.ethz.ch/CDstore/www2009/proc/docs/p411.pdf)
 (PDF), Jay Chen et al., 2009

 \[27\] [A Delay-Tolerant Network Architecture for Challenged
 Networks](http://www.kevinfall.com/seipage/papers/p27-fall.pdf) (PDF),
 Kevin Fall, 2003

 \[28\] [Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) \-- A Tutorial
 (version
 2.0)](http://ipnsig.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DTN_Tutorial_v2.04.pdf)
 (PDF), Forrest Warthman, 2012

 \[29\] [Healthcare Supported by Data Mule Networks in Remote Communities
 of the Amazon
 Region](http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2014/730760/), Mauro
 Margalho Coutinho et al., 2014

 \[30\] [First Mile Solutions\' Daknet Takes Rural Communities
 Online](http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/documents/FMS_Case_Study.pdf)
 (PDF), Carol Chyau and Jean-Francois Raymond, 2005

 \[31\] [DakNet: A Road to Universal Broadband
 Connectivity](http://courses.media.mit.edu/2003fall/de/DakNet-Case.pdf)
 (PDF), Amir Alexander Hasson et al., 2003

 \[32\] [DakNet: Architecture and Connectivity in Developing
 Nations](http://ijpret.com/publishedarticle/2015/4/IJPRET%20-%20ECN%20115.pdf)
 (PDF), Madhuri Bhole, 2015

 \[33\] [Delay Tolerant Networks and Their
 Applications](http://www.citeulike.org/user/tnhh/article/13517347),
 Longxiang Gao et al., 2015

 \[34\] [Low-cost communication for rural internet kiosks using
 mechanical
 backhaul](https://people.csail.mit.edu/matei/papers/2006/mobicom_kiosks.pdf),
 A. Seth et al., 2006

 \[35\] [Searching the World Wide Web in Low-Connectivity
 Communities](http://tek.sourceforge.net/papers/tek-www02.pdf) (PDF),
 William Thies et al., 2002

 \[36\] [Slow Search: Information Retrieval without Time
 Constraints](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~yubink/hcir2013.pdf) (PDF), Jaime
 Teevan, 2013

 \[37\] [Potential for Collaborative Caching and Prefetching in
 Largely-Disconnected
 Villages](http://mrmgroup.cs.princeton.edu/papers/isaacman-winsdr503.pdf)
 (PDF), Sibren Isaacman et al., 2008

  --
  --

 Posted on October 26, 2015 at 12:26 AM in [Access to
 information](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/copyright_and_access_to_information/),
 [Communications](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/communications/),
 [Cover story](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/cover-story/),
 [DIY](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/diy/),
 [Internet](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/internet/), [Wireless
 technology](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/wireless_technology/) \|
 [Permalink](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html)
--- a/content/Essays/Mel-Hogan_Pandemics-Dark-Cloud.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Mel-Hogan_Pandemics-Dark-Cloud.md
@ -1,131 +1,85 @@
 Title: The Pandemic's Dark Cloud
 Author: Mél Hogan
 <p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
 <div class="colophon">
 <p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
 <p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
 <p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
 </p>

 <p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
 <p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
 </p></div>

 <div class="first-page">
 <div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
 <div id="title">The Pandemic's Dark Cloud</div>

 <div id="author"> by Mél Hogan</div>
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 </div>
 <header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
 <header id="pageheader-theme">The Pandemic's Dark Cloud</header>

 <div class="essay_content">

 <p><pre id="first_letter_mel">
 Date: 7 January 2021

 <pre id="first_letter_mel">
 █████╗
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 </pre>s the pandemic settled into consciousness across the globe, humans devolved. People in countries where the response to COVID-19 was most mismanaged started to snack a lot.^[^1]^ Pre-sliced packaged charcuterie. Ritz crackers. Oreo cookies. In their growing helplessness, people also sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, especially women in the US.^[^2]^ For some it was drugs. Those lucky enough to keep their job doubled down on work, staying at their stations or desks for longer hours – part avoidance and part stuckness into systems that could offer no other plan.</p>
 </pre>s the pandemic settled into consciousness across the globe, humans devolved. People in countries where the response to COVID-19 was most mismanaged started to snack a lot.[^1] Pre-sliced packaged charcuterie. Ritz crackers. Oreo cookies. In their growing helplessness, people also sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, especially women in the US.[^2] For some it was drugs. Those lucky enough to keep their job doubled down on work, staying at their stations or desks for longer hours – part avoidance and part stuckness into systems that could offer no other plan.

 The dread by now is cumulative. Pick your pain: covid19, white supremacy, climate catastrophe. People are reaching new levels of “doomscrolling” on social media, playing online video games, and “binge-watching” Netflix as ways to pass the time, waiting on the virus to run its course, or for politicians to make a plan. As things shut down, Zoom quickly took over as the way to communicate at a safe social distance. Education quickly became clicking at screens. No more shopping in person meant ordering by way of interfaces. All of these screens more or less allowed things to continue, if not as normal, as a viable alternative in the meantime. It remains to be seen if this online world we’ve adopted so quickly is the new normal, and here to stay, or if it’ll reflect to us the inefficiencies of how we lived before and save us from ourselves. Or, maybe it will call into question the terrible inequities that are only made more evident by this pandemic.

 By April, the news media were already reporting that lockdowns had meant cleaner air and clearer water.[^3] Satellite images showed less pollution over China and the US. Animals were found roaming freely in different parts of India.[^4]  “Nature is healing” became a popular meme celebrating the lessening of human impact and nature’s recovery.[^5] But were the effects of lockdown, or quarantine, of humans being trapped in their homes, and of doing everything online, truly a more sustainable way of going about life? Had the turn to “the cloud” proven to be the weightless way forward? Social isolation and disinformation propagation problems aside, could the internet become a tool to inadvertently save the environment?

 In thinking of the internet and the many devices connected to it, these account for approximately 2-4% of global greenhouse emissions, which only promise to double by 2025.[^6] Data centres and vast server farms (where data is stored and transmitted) draw more than 80% of their energy from fossil fuel power stations. Online video alone – porn, Netflix, YouTube, Zoom – generated 60% of the world’s total data flows before covid19 hit. A Google search uses as much energy as cooking an egg or boiling water in an electric kettle.[^7] Yearly emails for work (and not accounting for spam) have been calculated to be equal in terms of CO2 emissions to driving 320 kilometres.[^8] These numbers have likely gone up considerably since the pandemic.[^9] This way of living wasn’t sustainable then, and it certainly isn’t now.

 <p>
 The dread by now is cumulative. Pick your pain: covid19, white supremacy, climate catastrophe. People are reaching new levels of “doomscrolling” on social media, playing online video games, and “binge-watching” Netflix as ways to pass the time, waiting on the virus to run its course, or for politicians to make a plan. As things shut down, Zoom quickly took over as the way to communicate at a safe social distance. Education quickly became clicking at screens. No more shopping in person meant ordering by way of interfaces. All of these screens more or less allowed things to continue, if not as normal, as a viable alternative in the meantime. It remains to be seen if this online world we’ve adopted so quickly is the new normal, and here to stay, or if it’ll reflect to us the inefficiencies of how we lived before and save us from ourselves. Or, maybe it will call into question the terrible inequities that are only made more evident by this pandemic.</p>
 <p>
 By April, the news media were already reporting that lockdowns had meant cleaner air and clearer water.^[^3]^ Satellite images showed less pollution over China and the US. Animals were found roaming freely in different parts of India.^[^4]^  “Nature is healing” became a popular meme celebrating the lessening of human impact and nature’s recovery.^[^5]^ But were the effects of lockdown, or quarantine, of humans being trapped in their homes, and of doing everything online, truly a more sustainable way of going about life? Had the turn to “the cloud” proven to be the weightless way forward? Social isolation and disinformation propagation problems aside, could the internet become a tool to inadvertently save the environment?</p>
 <p>
 In thinking of the internet and the many devices connected to it, these account for approximately 2-4% of global greenhouse emissions, which only promise to double by 2025.^[^6]^ Data centres and vast server farms (where data is stored and transmitted) draw more than 80% of their energy from fossil fuel power stations. Online video alone – porn, Netflix, YouTube, Zoom – generated 60% of the world’s total data flows before covid19 hit. A Google search uses as much energy as cooking an egg or boiling water in an electric kettle.^[^7]^ Yearly emails for work (and not accounting for spam) have been calculated to be equal in terms of CO2 emissions to driving 320 kilometres.^[^8]^ These numbers have likely gone up considerably since the pandemic.^[^9]^ This way of living wasn’t sustainable then, and it certainly isn’t now.</p>
 <p>
 There are search engines (eg. Ecosia^[^10]^) and add-ons (eg. Carbonalyser by The Shift Project,^[^11]^ green-algorithms.org^[^12]^) that help measure user impacts on the environment, but these miss addressing the bigger questions – such as moving away from confronting personal use to the systemic, material, and ideological issues baked into the internet. Why is the internet like this? The question is more political than it is purely technological. It’s more emotional, even, than it is political. Because we’ve drifted so far away from understanding nature as inherent to human and non-human wellbeing alike, towards unrelenting and exploitative capitalism and extractivism, it means we now have these massively entangled systems that reinforce one another, generate profit for the very few, but in the end benefit nothing and nobody.^[^13]^ These systems are harder to abolish or undo, so instead we turn to solutions that lessen their impacts, and we consider the rest inevitable – or worse, natural. We might, for example, shift data centers to cooler climates to save on cooling costs, we might develop more efficient software, we might offer carbon offsetting and plant trees, but none of these technofixes reach the heart of the our current predicament: our solutions and our problems originate from the same short-sighted, greed-driven, competitive, and market-driven agendas that caused this global deadly pandemic in the first place.</p>
 <p>
 In 2020, we are generating 50 million tons worldwide of electronic waste, with an annual growth of 5%.^[^14]^ This means that we produce e-waste at three times the rate that humans reproduce. Much e-waste is toxic and severely impacts land, water, plants, animals, and humans. This damage is permanent. At the other end of the supply chain, fields of wheat and corn have become lakes of toxic sludge to accommodate the rare earth mining industry.^[^15]^ From Mongolia to China to the Congo, people labour in dangerous conditions, mining through the ore-laden mud to find rare minerals to power our devices. Elsewhere, people work endless shifts to assemble computers, phones, tablets. It should be no surprise then that the internet that connects this all is toxic too, evidenced by both the work of content moderators who filter the internet, and the shady tactics used by Big Tech to evade taxes to get filthy rich off the backs of this global human-powered machine. As Ron Deibert put it recently in his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, “If we continue on this path of unbridled consumption and planned obsolescence, we are doomed.”^[^16]^</p>
 <p>
 So we can either become extinct from the repercussions of our centuries old destructive neoliberal colonial institutions, as the planet pushes back with more pandemics, storms, and violence, or we can get together and admit to our failures as colonisers. These failures tap into something profound, deeply broken, about what settlers have historically valued and continue to enact. We are living largely in the dark fantasies of ghosts – and these old, settler ideas haunt and break us. We can imagine better. We can make other decisions. We can tune our emotions to move from awareness to anxiety to action. We return public lands to Indigenous peoples. We defund police and dismantle white supremacy. We transform ourselves, and our communication systems will follow.</p>
 There are search engines (eg. Ecosia[^10]) and add-ons (eg. Carbonalyser by The Shift Project,[^11] green-algorithms.org[^12]) that help measure user impacts on the environment, but these miss addressing the bigger questions – such as moving away from confronting personal use to the systemic, material, and ideological issues baked into the internet. Why is the internet like this? The question is more political than it is purely technological. It’s more emotional, even, than it is political. Because we’ve drifted so far away from understanding nature as inherent to human and non-human wellbeing alike, towards unrelenting and exploitative capitalism and extractivism, it means we now have these massively entangled systems that reinforce one another, generate profit for the very few, but in the end benefit nothing and nobody.[^13] These systems are harder to abolish or undo, so instead we turn to solutions that lessen their impacts, and we consider the rest inevitable – or worse, natural. We might, for example, shift data centers to cooler climates to save on cooling costs, we might develop more efficient software, we might offer carbon offsetting and plant trees, but none of these technofixes reach the heart of the our current predicament: our solutions and our problems originate from the same short-sighted, greed-driven, competitive, and market-driven agendas that caused this global deadly pandemic in the first place.

 </div>
 In 2020, we are generating 50 million tons worldwide of electronic waste, with an annual growth of 5%.[^14] This means that we produce e-waste at three times the rate that humans reproduce. Much e-waste is toxic and severely impacts land, water, plants, animals, and humans. This damage is permanent. At the other end of the supply chain, fields of wheat and corn have become lakes of toxic sludge to accommodate the rare earth mining industry.[^15] From Mongolia to China to the Congo, people labour in dangerous conditions, mining through the ore-laden mud to find rare minerals to power our devices. Elsewhere, people work endless shifts to assemble computers, phones, tablets. It should be no surprise then that the internet that connects this all is toxic too, evidenced by both the work of content moderators who filter the internet, and the shady tactics used by Big Tech to evade taxes to get filthy rich off the backs of this global human-powered machine. As Ron Deibert put it recently in his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, “If we continue on this path of unbridled consumption and planned obsolescence, we are doomed.”[^16]

 <div class="references">
 [^1]: [[*https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic\_Marketing*]{.underline}](https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic_Marketing)
    [[*https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/*]{.underline}](https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/)
    [[*https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic*]{.underline}](https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic)
 So we can either become extinct from the repercussions of our centuries old destructive neoliberal colonial institutions, as the planet pushes back with more pandemics, storms, and violence, or we can get together and admit to our failures as colonisers. These failures tap into something profound, deeply broken, about what settlers have historically valued and continue to enact. We are living largely in the dark fantasies of ghosts – and these old, settler ideas haunt and break us. We can imagine better. We can make other decisions. We can tune our emotions to move from awareness to anxiety to action. We return public lands to Indigenous peoples. We defund police and dismantle white supremacy. We transform ourselves, and our communication systems will follow.

 [^2]: [[*https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/*]{.underline}](https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/)
    [[*https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/*]{.underline}](https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/)
 [^1]: [https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic\_Marketing](https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic_Marketing)
    [https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/](https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/)
    [https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic](https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic)

 [^3]: [[*https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921*]{.underline}](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921)
 [^2]: [https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/](https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/)
    [https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/](https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/)

 [^4]: [[*https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/*]{.underline}](https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/)
 [^3]: [https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921)

 [^5]: [[*https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus*]{.underline}](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus)
 [^4]: [https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/](https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/)

 [^6]: [[*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
 [^5]: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus)

 [^7]: [[*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google*]{.underline}](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google)
 [^6]: [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)

 [^8]: [[*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
 [^7]: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google)

 [^8]: [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
    and
    [[*https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423)
    [https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423](https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423)

 [^9]: [https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/)

 [^9]: [[*https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/*]{.underline}](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/)
 [^10]: [https://www.ecosia.org/](https://www.ecosia.org/)

 [^10]: [[*https://www.ecosia.org/*]{.underline}](https://www.ecosia.org/)
 [^11]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/)

 [^11]: [[*https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/*]{.underline}](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/)
 [^12]: [http://www.green-algorithms.org/](http://www.green-algorithms.org/)

 [^12]: [[*http://www.green-algorithms.org/*]{.underline}](http://www.green-algorithms.org/)
 [^13]: [https://landback.org/manifesto/](https://landback.org/manifesto/)

 [^13]: [[*https://landback.org/manifesto/*]{.underline}](https://landback.org/manifesto/)
 [^14]: [https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189)

 [^14]: [[*https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189*]{.underline}](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189)
 [^15]: [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html)

 [^15]: [[*https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html*]{.underline}](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html)
 [^16]: [https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert](https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert)

 [^16]: [[*https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert*]{.underline}](https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert)
 -------------------------------

 </div>
 <p id="summary"> The Pandemic's Dark Cloud was written in November 2020 as a
 *The Pandemic's Dark Cloud* was written in November 2020 as a
 reflection on the relationship between the pandemic and environmental
 media, with a focus on "the cloud" and its undergirding networked
 infrastructure. The central idea of this piece is to demonstrate the
 interconnectedness of all things -- covid, care, community, nature,
 ewaste, racism, greed -- in both the making and undoing of our modern
 communication systems.
 <br><br>

 This piece is intended as a provocation, so your thoughts and feelings
 are very welcomed! </p>
 are very welcomed! 

 <div class="bio-mel">
 --------------------------------

 *Mél Hogan is the Director of the [[Environmental Media Lab
 (EML)]{.underline}](https://www.environmentalmedialab.com/)* and [[Associate
 Professor]{.underline}](https://www.melhogan.com/) at the University of Calgary,
 **Mél Hogan** is the Director of the [Environmental Media Lab
 (EML)](https://www.environmentalmedialab.com/) and [Associate
 Professor](https://www.melhogan.com/) at the University of Calgary,
 Canada. She is also an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of
 Communication. Career highlights so far include keynoting the 2020
 McLuhan lecture at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, and giving a plenary
 at transmediale 2020.\
 \@mel\_hogan / melhogan.com / mhogan\@ucalgary.ca* </div>
 at transmediale 2020.

@mel_hogan, melhogan.com, mhogan@ucalgary.ca
--- a/content/Essays/Re-Centralization-of-AI.md
+++ b/content/Essays/Re-Centralization-of-AI.md
@ -1,51 +1,8 @@
 Title: Re-Centralization of AI focusing on Social Justice
 Author: Adnan Hadzi, Denis Roio
 Date: 18 January 2021

 <p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
 <div class="colophon">
 <p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
 <p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
 <p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
 </p>

 <p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
 <p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
 </p></div>


 <div class="first-page">
 <div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
 <div id="title">Re-Centralization of AI focusing on Social Justice</div>

 <div id="author"> by Adnan Hadzi, Dennis Roio</div>
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 ---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k -----------------------------
 </pre>

 </div>
 <header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
 <header id="pageheader-theme">Re-Centralization of AI <br> focusing on Social Justice</header>
 <div class="essay_content">
 <p><pre id="first_letter_mel">
 <pre id="first_letter_mel">
 ██╗
 ██║
 ██║
@ -55,31 +12,30 @@ Author: Adnan Hadzi, Denis Roio
 n order to lay the foundations for a discussion around
 the argument that the adoption of artificial
 intelligence (AI) technologies benefits the powerful
 few,^[^1]^ focusing on their own existential concerns,^[^2]^ we
 few,[^1] focusing on their own existential concerns,[^2] we
 decided to narrow down our analysis of the argument
 to social justice (i.e. restorative justice). This paper
 signifies an edited version of Adnan Hadzi’s text on
 Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence,^[^3]^ exploring the
 notion of humanised artificial intelligence^[^4]^ in order to
 Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence,[^3] exploring the
 notion of humanised artificial intelligence[^4] in order to
 discuss potential challenges society might face in the
 future. The paper does not discuss current forms and
 applications of artificial intelligence, as, so far, there
 is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-
 aware, being able to deal with emotional and social
 intelligence.^[^5]^ It is a discussion around AI as a speculative
 is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-aware, being able to deal with emotional and social
 intelligence.[^5] It is a discussion around AI as a speculative
 hypothetical entity. One could then ask, if such a speculative
 self-conscious hardware/software system were created, at what
 point could one talk of personhood? And what criteria could
 there be in order to say an AI system was capable of
 committing AI crimes?</p>
 <p>
 committing AI crimes?

 Concerning what constitutes AI crimes the paper uses the
 criteria given in Thomas King et al.’s paper Artificial
 Intelligence Crime: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Foreseeable
 Threats and Solutions,^[^6]^ where King et al. coin the term “AI
 Threats and Solutions,[^6] where King et al. coin the term “AI
 crime”. We discuss the construction of the legal system through
 the lens of political involvement of what one may want to
 consider to be ‘powerful elites’^[^7]^. In doing so we will be
 consider to be ‘powerful elites’[^7]. In doing so we will be
 demonstrating that it is difficult to prove that the adoption of AI
 technologies is undertaken in a way, which mainly serves a
 powerful class in society. Nevertheless, analysing the culture
@ -88,76 +44,75 @@ philosophical and sociological focus enables us to demonstrate
 a utilitarian and authoritarian trend in the adoption of AI
 technologies. Mason argues that “virtue ethics is the only
 ethics fit for the task of imposing collective human control on
 thinking machines”^[^8]^ and AI. We will apply virtue ethics to our
 discourse around artificial intelligence and ethics. </p>
 <p>
 thinking machines”[^8] and AI. We will apply virtue ethics to our
 discourse around artificial intelligence and ethics. 

 As expert in AI safety Steve Omonhundro believes that AI is
 “likely to behave in antisocial and harmful ways unless they are
 very carefully designed.”^[^9]^ It is through virtue ethics that this
 very carefully designed”.[^9] It is through virtue ethics that this
 paper will propose for such a design to be centred around
 restorative justice in order to take control over AI and thinking
 machines, following Mason’s radical defense of the human and
 his critique of current thoughts within trans- and post-
 humanism as a submission to machine logic.</p>
 <p>
 humanism as a submission to machine logic.

 The paper will conclude by proposing an alternative
 practically unattainable, approach to the current legal system
 by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes,^[^10]^ and how the
 by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes,[^10] and how the
 ethics of care could be applied to AI technologies. In conclusion
 the paper will discuss affect^[^11]^ and humanised artificial
 the paper will discuss affect[^11] and humanised artificial
 intelligence with regards to the emotion of shame, when
 dealing with AI crimes. In this paper we will aim at re-centralizing AI ethics through social justice, with focus on restorative justice, allowing for an advanced jurisprudence, where human and machine can work in symbiosis on reaching virtue ethics, rather than being in conflict with each other.</p>
 dealing with AI crimes. In this paper we will aim at re-centralizing AI ethics through social justice, with focus on restorative justice, allowing for an advanced jurisprudence, where human and machine can work in symbiosis on reaching virtue ethics, rather than being in conflict with each other.

 <p>
 In order to discuss AI in relation to personhood this paper
 follows the descriptive psychology method^[^12]^ of the paradigm
 case formulation^[^13]^ developed by Peter Ossorio.^[^14]^ Similar to how
 follows the descriptive psychology method[^12] of the paradigm
 case formulation[^13] developed by Peter Ossorio.[^14] Similar to how
 some animal rights activists call for certain animals to be
 recognised as non-human persons,^[^15]^ this paper speculates on
 recognised as non-human persons,[^15] this paper speculates on
 the notion of AI as a non-human person being able to reflect on
 ethical concerns.^[^16]^ Here Wynn Schwartz argues that “it is
 ethical concerns.[^16] Here Wynn Schwartz argues that “it is
 reasonable to include non-humans as persons and to have
 legitimate grounds for disagreeing where the line is properly
 drawn. In good faith, competent judges using this formulation
 can clearly point to where and why they agree or disagree on
 what is to be included in the category of persons.”^[^17]^
 what is to be included in the category of persons”.[^17]
 In the case of AI technologies we ask whether the current
 vision for the adoption of AI technologies, a vision which is
 mainly supporting the military-industrial complex through vast
 investments in army AI,^[^18]^ is a vision that benefits mainly
 powerful elites. </p>
 <p>In order to discuss these questions, one has to
 investments in army AI,[^18] is a vision that benefits mainly
 powerful elites. 

 In order to discuss these questions, one has to
 analyse the history of AI technologies leading to the kind of
 ‘humanised’ AI system this paper posits. The old-fashioned
 approach,^[^19]^ some may still say contemporary approach, was to
 primarily research into ‘mind-only’^[^20]^ AI technologies/systems.
 approach,[^19] some may still say contemporary approach, was to
 primarily research into ‘mind-only’[^20] AI technologies/systems.
 Through high level reasoning, researchers were optimistic that
 AI technology would quickly become a reality.</p>
 AI technology would quickly become a reality.
 Those early AI technologies were a disembodied approach
 using high level logical and abstract symbols. By the end of the
 80s researchers found that the disembodied approach was not
 even achieving low level tasks humans could easily perform.^[^21]^
 even achieving low level tasks humans could easily perform.[^21]
 During that period many researchers stopped working on AI
 technologies and systems, and the period is often referred to as
 the “AI winter”.^[^22]^ Rodney Brooks then came forward with the proposition of
 “Nouvelle AI”,^[^23]^ arguing that the old-fashioned approach did
 the “AI winter”.[^22] Rodney Brooks then came forward with the proposition of
 “Nouvelle AI”,[^23] arguing that the old-fashioned approach did
 not take into consideration motor skills and neural networks.
 Only by the end of the 90s did researchers develop statistical
 AI systems without the need for any high-level logical
 reasoning;^[^24]^ instead AI systems were ‘guessing’ through
 reasoning;[^24] instead AI systems were ‘guessing’ through
 algorithms and machine learning. This signalled a first step
 towards humanistic artificial intelligence, as this resembles
 how humans make intuitive decisions;^[^25]^ here researchers
 suggest that embodiment improves cognition.^[^26]^
 how humans make intuitive decisions;[^25] here researchers
 suggest that embodiment improves cognition.[^26]
 With embodiment theory Brooks argued that AI systems
 would operate best when computing only the data that was
 absolutely necessary.^[^27]^ Further in Developing Embodied
 absolutely necessary.[^27] Further in Developing Embodied
 Multisensory Dialogue Agents Michal Paradowski argues that
 without considering embodiment, e.g. the physics of the brain,
 it is not possible to create AI technologies/systems capable of
 comprehension. </p>
 comprehension. 

 <p>
 Foucault’s theories are especially helpful in discussing how
 the “rule of truth” has disciplined civilisation, allowing for an
 adoption of AI technologies which seem to benefit mainly the
@ -165,9 +120,9 @@ upper-class. But then should we think of a notion of ‘deep-truth’
 as the unwieldy product of deep learning AI algorithms?
 Discussions around truth, Foucault states, form legislation into
 something that “decides, transmits and itself extends upon the
 effects of power”^[^28]^. Foucault’s theories help to explain how
 effects of power”[^28]. Foucault’s theories help to explain how
 legislation, as an institution, is rolled out throughout society
 with very little resistance, or “proletarian counter-justice”^[^29]^.
 with very little resistance, or “proletarian counter-justice”[^29].
 Foucault explains that this has made the justice system and
 legislation a for-profit system. With this understanding of
 legislation, and social justice, one does need to reflect further
@ -176,66 +131,66 @@ its distributed nature in the modern state. Namely one has to
 analyse the distributed nature of those AI technologies,
 especially through networks and protocols, so that the link can
 now be made to AI technologies becoming ‘legally’ more
 profitable, in the hands of the upper-class.</p>
 <p>
 profitable, in the hands of the upper-class.

 In Protocol, Alexander Galloway describes how these
 protocols changed the notion of power and how “control exists
 after decentralization”^[^30]^. Galloway argues that protocol has a
 after decentralization”[^30]. Galloway argues that protocol has a
 close connection to both Deleuze’s concept of control and
 Foucault’s concept of biopolitics^[^31]^ by claiming that the key to
 Foucault’s concept of biopolitics[^31] by claiming that the key to
 perceiving protocol as power is to acknowledge that “protocol
 is an affective, aesthetic force that has control over life itself.”^[^32]^
 is an affective, aesthetic force that has control over life itself”.[^32]
 Galloway suggests that it is important to discuss more than the
 technologies, and to look into the structures of control within
 technological systems, which also include underlying codes and
 protocols, in order to distinguish between methods that can
 support collective production, e.g. sharing of AI technologies
 within society, and those that put the AI technologies in the
 hands of the powerful few.^[^33]^ Galloway’s argument in the
 hands of the powerful few.[^33] Galloway’s argument in the
 chapter Hacking is that the existence of protocols “not only
 installs control into a terrain that on its surface appears
 actively to resist it”^[^34]^, but goes on to create the highly
 actively to resist it”[^34], but goes on to create the highly
 controlled network environment. For Galloway hacking is “an
 index of protocological transformations taking place in the
 broader world of techno-culture.”^[^35]^ </p>
 <p>
 broader world of techno-culture”.[^35] 

 Having said this, the prospect could be raised that
 restorative justice might offer “a solution that could deliver
 more meaningful justice”^[^36]^. With respect to AI technologies,
 more meaningful justice”[^36]. With respect to AI technologies,
 and the potential inherent in them for AI crimes, instead of
 following a retributive legislative approach, an ethical
 discourse,^[^37]^ with a deeper consideration for the sufferers of AI
 crimes should be adopted.^[^38]^ We ask: could restorative justice
 discourse,[^37] with a deeper consideration for the sufferers of AI
 crimes should be adopted.[^38] We ask: could restorative justice
 offer an alternative way of dealing with the occurrence of AI
 crimes?^[^39]^ </p>
 crimes?[^39] 


 <p>
 Dale Millar and Neil Vidmar described two psychological
 perceptions of justice.^[^40]^ One is behavioural control, following
 perceptions of justice.[^40] One is behavioural control, following
 the legal code as strictly as possible, punishing any
 wrongdoer,^[^41]^ and second the restorative justice system, which
 wrongdoer,[^41] and second the restorative justice system, which
 focuses on restoration where harm was done. Thus an
 alternative approach for the ethical implementation of AI
 technologies, with respect to legislation, might be to follow
 restorative justice principles. Restorative justice would allow
 for AI technologies to learn how to care about ethics.^[^42]^ Julia
 for AI technologies to learn how to care about ethics.[^42] Julia
 Fionda describes restorative justice as a conciliation between
 victim and offender, during which the offence is deliberated
 upon.^[^43]^ Both parties try to come to an agreement on how to
 upon.[^43] Both parties try to come to an agreement on how to
 achieve restoration for the damage done, to the situation
 before the crime (here an AI crime) happened. Restorative
 justice advocates compassion for the victim and offender, and a
 consciousness on the part of the offenders as to the
 repercussion of their crimes. The victims of AI crimes would
 not only be placed in front of a court, but also be offered
 engagement in the process of seeking justice and restoration.^[^44]^ </p>
 <p>
 engagement in the process of seeking justice and restoration.[^44] 

 Restorative justice might support victims of AI crimes better
 than the punitive legal system, as it allows for the sufferers of
 AI crimes to be heard in a personalised way, which could be
 adopted to the needs of the victims (and offenders). As victims
 and offenders represent themselves in restorative conferencing
 sessions, these become much more affordable,^[^45]^ meaning that the barrier to seeking justice due to the financial costs would
 sessions, these become much more affordable,[^45] meaning that the barrier to seeking justice due to the financial costs would
 be partly eliminated, allowing for poor parties to be able to
 contribute to the process of justice. This would benefit wider
 society and AI technologies would not only be defined by a
@ -243,30 +198,26 @@ powerful elite. Restorative justice could hold the potential not
 only to discuss the AI crimes themselves, but also to get to the
 root of the problem and discuss the cause of an AI crime. For
 John Braithwaite restorative justice makes re-offending
 harder.^[^46]^</p>
 harder.[^46]

 <p>
 In such a scenario, a future AI system capable of committing
 AI crimes would need to have knowledge of ethics around the
 particular discourse of restorative justice. The implementation
 of AI technologies will lead to a discourse around who is
 responsible for actions taken by AI technologies. Even when
 considering clearly defined ethical guidelines, these might be
 difficult to implement,^[^47]^ due to the pressure of competition AI
 difficult to implement,[^47] due to the pressure of competition AI
 systems find themselves in. That said, this speculation is
 restricted to humanised artificial intelligence systems. The
 main hindrance for AI technologies to be part of a restorative
 justice system might be that of the very human emotion of
 shame. Without a clear understanding of shame it will be
 impossible to resolve AI crimes in a restorative manner.^[^48]^ </p>
 impossible to resolve AI crimes in a restorative manner.[^48] 

 <p>
 Furthering this perspective, we suggest that reflections brought by new materialism should also be taken into account: not only as a critical perspective on the engendering and anthropomorphic representation of AI, but also to broaden the spectrum of what we consider to be justice in relation to all the living world.  Without this new perspective the sort of idealized AI image of a non-living intelligence that deals with enormous amounts of information risks to serve the abstraction of anthropocentric views into a computationalist acceleration, with deafening results. Rather than such an implosive perspective, the application of law and jurisprudence may take advantage of AI’s computational and sensorial enhanced capabilities by including all information gathered from the environment, also that produced by plants, animals and soil. Thus one might want to think about a humanised symbiosis
 between humans and technology,^[^49]^ along the lines of Garry
 Kasparov’s advanced chess,^[^50]^ as in advanced jurisprudence.^[^51]^ A
 legal system where human and machine work together on
 restoring justice, for social justice. </p>
 </div>
 between humans and technology,[^49] along the lines of Garry
 Kasparov’s advanced chess,[^50] as in advanced jurisprudence.[^51] A legal system where human and machine work together on
 restoring justice, for social justice. 

 [^1]: Cp. G. Chaslot, “YouTube’s A.I. was divisive in the US presidential election”, Medium, November 27, 2016. Available at: https://medium.com/the-graph/youtubes-ai-is-neutral-towards-clicks-but-is-biased-towards-people-and-ideas-3a2f643dea9a#.tjuusil7d [accessed February 25, 2018]; E. Morozov, “The Geopolitics Of Artificial Intelligence”, FutureFest, London, 2018. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0hx9LPBq8 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^2]: Cp. M. Busby, “Use of ‘Killer Robots’ in Wars Would Breach Law, Say Campaigners”, The Guardian, August 21, 2018. Available at : https://web.archive.org/web/20181203074423/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/21/use-of-killer-robots-in-wars-would-breach-law-say-campaigners [accessed October 25, 2019].
@ -292,103 +243,38 @@ restoring justice, for social justice. </p>
 [^22]: Cp. D. Crevier, AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence, New York, Basic Books, 1993; H.P. Newquist, The Brain Makers, Indianapolis, Ind: Sams., 1994.
 [^23]: Cp. R. Brooks, “A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot”, IEEE Journal on Robotics and Automation, 2 (1), 1986, pp. 14–23. Available at: https://doi.org/510.1109/JRA.1986.1087032 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^24]: Cp. Brooks, Cambrian Intelligence.
 [^25]:Cp. R. Pfeifer, “Embodied Artificial Intelligence”, presented at the
 International Interdisciplinary Seminar on New Robotics, Evolution and Embodied Cognition,
 Lisbon, November, 2002. Available at: https://www.informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/
 publications/embrob/pfeifer.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^26]: Cp. T. Renzenbrink, “Embodiment of Artificial Intelligence Improves Cognition”, Elektormagazine, February 9, 2012. Available at: https://www.elektormagazine.com/articles/embodiment-of-artificial-intelligence-improves-cognition
 [accessed January 10, 2019]; G. Zarkadakis, “Artificial Intelligence & Embodiment:
 Does Alexa Have a Body?”, Medium, May 6, 2018. Available at:
 https://medium.com/@georgezarkadakis
 /artificial-intelligence-embodiment-does-alexa-have-a-body-d5b97521a201
 [accessed January 10, 2019].
 [^27]: Cp. L. Steels and R. Brooks, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial
 Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents, London/New York, Taylor
 & Francis, 1995.
 [^28]: M. Foucault, “Disciplinary Power and Subjection”, in S. Lukes (ed.),
 Power, New York, NYU Press, 1986, pp. 229–242, here: p. 230.
 [^29]: M. Foucault, Power, edited by C. Gordon, London, Penguin, 1980,
 p. 34.6
 [^30]: A.R. Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization,
 Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004, p. 81.
 [^31]: Cp. M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
 Collège de France, 1978–1979, London, Pan Macmillan, 2008.
 [^25]:Cp. R. Pfeifer, “Embodied Artificial Intelligence”, presented at the International Interdisciplinary Seminar on New Robotics, Evolution and Embodied Cognition, Lisbon, November, 2002. Available at: https://www.informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/ publications/embrob/pfeifer.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^26]: Cp. T. Renzenbrink, “Embodiment of Artificial Intelligence Improves Cognition”, Elektormagazine, February 9, 2012. Available at: https://www.elektormagazine.com/articles/embodiment-of-artificial-intelligence-improves-cognition [accessed January 10, 2019]; G. Zarkadakis, “Artificial Intelligence & Embodiment: Does Alexa Have a Body?”, Medium, May 6, 2018. Available at: https://medium.com/@georgezarkadakis /artificial-intelligence-embodiment-does-alexa-have-a-body-d5b97521a201 [accessed January 10, 2019].
 [^27]: Cp. L. Steels and R. Brooks, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents, London/New York, Taylor & Francis, 1995.
 [^28]: M. Foucault, “Disciplinary Power and Subjection”, in S. Lukes (ed.), Power, New York, NYU Press, 1986, pp. 229–242, here: p. 230.
 [^29]: M. Foucault, Power, edited by C. Gordon, London, Penguin, 1980, p. 34.6
 [^30]: A.R. Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004, p. 81.
 [^31]: Cp. M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, London, Pan Macmillan, 2008.
 [^32]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 81.
 [^33]: Cp. Galloway, Protocol, p. 147.
 [^34]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 146.
 [^35]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 157.
 [^36]: Crook, Comparative Media Law and Ethics, p. 310.7
 [^37]: Cp. R. Courtland, “Bias Detectives: The Researchers Striving to
 Make Algorithms Fair”, Nature, 558, 2018, pp. 357–360. Available at:
 https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05469-3 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^38]: Cp. H. Fry, “We Hold People With Power to Account. Why Not
 Algorithms?” The Guardian, September 17, 2018. Available at:
 https://web.archive.org/web/201901021
 94739/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power-
 algorithms-technology-regulate [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^39]: Cp. O. Etzioni, “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence”, The New
 York
 Times,
 January
 20,
 2018.
 Available
 at:
 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/artificial-intelligence-
 regulations-rules.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; A. Goel, “Ethics and
 Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, December 22, 2017. Available
 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/artificial-intelligence.html
 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^40]: Cp. N. Vidmar and D.T. Miller, “Socialpsychological Processes
 Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment”, Law and Society Review,
 1980, pp. 565–602.
 [^41]: Cp. M. Wenzel and T.G. Okimoto, “How Acts of Forgiveness Restore
 a Sense of Justice: Addressing Status/Power and Value Concerns Raised by
 Transgressions”, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40 (3), 2010, pp.
 401–417.
 [^42]: Cp. N. Bostrom and E. Yudkowsky, “The Ethics of Artificial
 Intelligence”, in K. Frankish and W.M. Ramsey (ed.), The Cambridge
 Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
 2014, pp. 316–334; Frankish and Ramsey, The Cambridge Handbook of
 Artificial Intelligence.
 [^43]: Cp. J. Fionda, Devils and Angels: Youth Policy and Crime, London,
 Hart, 2005.8
 [^37]: Cp. R. Courtland, “Bias Detectives: The Researchers Striving to Make Algorithms Fair”, Nature, 558, 2018, pp. 357–360. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05469-3 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^38]: Cp. H. Fry, “We Hold People With Power to Account. Why Not Algorithms?” The Guardian, September 17, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/201901021 94739/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power- algorithms-technology-regulate [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^39]: Cp. O. Etzioni, “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, January 20, 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/artificial-intelligence- regulations-rules.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; A. Goel, “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, December 22, 2017. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/artificial-intelligence.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^40]: Cp. N. Vidmar and D.T. Miller, “Socialpsychological Processes Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment”, Law and Society Review, 1980, pp. 565–602.
 [^41]: Cp. M. Wenzel and T.G. Okimoto, “How Acts of Forgiveness Restore a Sense of Justice: Addressing Status/Power and Value Concerns Raised by Transgressions”, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40 (3), 2010, pp. 401–417.
 [^42]: Cp. N. Bostrom and E. Yudkowsky, “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”, in K. Frankish and W.M. Ramsey (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 316–334; Frankish and Ramsey, The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence.
 [^43]: Cp. J. Fionda, Devils and Angels: Youth Policy and Crime, London, Hart, 2005.8
 [^44]: Cp. Nils Christie, “Conflicts as Property”, The British Journal of Criminology, 17 (1), 1977, pp. 1–15.
 [^45]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and a Better Future”, in E. McLaughlin and G. Hughes (eds.), Restorative Justice: Critical Issues, London, SAGE, 2003, pp. 54–67.
 [^46]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
 [^47]: Cp. A. Conn, “Podcast: Law and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”, Future of Life, March 31, 2017. Available at: https://futureoflife.org/2017/03/31/podcast-law-ethics-artificial-intelligence/ [accessed September, 22 2018].
 [^48]: Cp. A. Rawnsley, “Madeleine Albright: ‘The Things that are Happening are Genuinely, Seriously Bad’”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20190106193657/https://www.theguardian.com9/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^49]: Cp. D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Socialist Review, 15 (2), 1985. Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; C. Thompson, “The Cyborg Advantage”, Wired, March 22, 2010. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2010/03/st-thompson- cyborgs/ [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^50]: Cp. J. Hipp et al., “Computer Aided Diagnostic Tools Aim to Empower Rather than Replace Pathologists: Lessons Learned from Computational Chess”, Journal of Pathology Informatics, 2, 2011. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4103/2153-3539.82050 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^51]: Cp. J. Baggini, “Memo to Those Seeking to Live for Ever: Eternal Life Would be Deathly Dull”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20181225111455/https://www.theguardian.com /commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality [accessed October 25, 2019].

 -----------------------

 **Adnan Hadzi** is currently working as resident researcher at the University of Malta. Adnan has been a regular at Deckspace Media Lab, for the last decade, a period over which he has developed his research at Goldsmiths, University of London, based on his work with Deptford. TV/Deckspace.TV. It is through Free and Open Source Software and technologies this research has a social impact. Currently Adnan is a participant researcher in the MAZI/CreekNet research collaboration with the boattr project.

 Adnan is co-editing and producing the after.video video book, exploring video as theory, reflecting upon networked video, as it profoundly re-shapes medial patterns (Youtube, citizen journalism, video surveillance etc.). Adnan’s documentary film work tracks artist pranksters The Yes Men and net provocatours Bitnik Collective. Bitnik’s practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms, formulating fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues. <http://dek.spc.org>, <http://bitnik.org>, <http://deptford.tv>

 [^44]: Cp. Nils Christie, “Conflicts as Property”, The British Journal of
 Criminology, 17 (1), 1977, pp. 1–15.
 [^45]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and a Better Future”, in E.
 McLaughlin and G. Hughes (eds.), Restorative Justice: Critical Issues,
 London, SAGE, 2003, pp. 54–67.
 [^46]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge,
 Cambridge University Press, 1989.
 [^47]: Cp. A. Conn, “Podcast: Law and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”,
 Future
 of
 Life,
 March
 31,
 2017.
 Available
 at:
 https://futureoflife.org/2017/03/31/podcast-law-ethics-artificial-intelligence/
 [accessed September, 22 2018].
 [^48]: Cp. A. Rawnsley, “Madeleine Albright: ‘The Things that are
 Happening are Genuinely, Seriously Bad’”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018.
 Available
 at:
 https://web.archive.org/web/20190106193657/https://www.theguardian.com9/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^49]: Cp. D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Socialist Review, 15 (2), 1985.
 Available at:
 http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
 [accessed October 25, 2019]; C. Thompson, “The Cyborg Advantage”, Wired,
 March 22, 2010. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2010/03/st-thompson-
 cyborgs/ [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^50]: Cp. J. Hipp et al., “Computer Aided Diagnostic Tools Aim to
 Empower Rather than Replace Pathologists: Lessons Learned from
 Computational Chess”, Journal of Pathology Informatics, 2, 2011. Available
 at: https://doi.org/10.4103/2153-3539.82050 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 [^51]: Cp. J. Baggini, “Memo to Those Seeking to Live for Ever: Eternal
 Life Would be Deathly Dull”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at:
 https://web.archive.org/web/20181225111455/https://www.theguardian.com
 /commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality
 [accessed October 25, 2019].
 **Denis Roio**, better known by the hacker name Jaromil, is CTO and co~founder of the Dyne.org software house and think&do tank based in Amsterdam, developers of free and open source software with a strong focus on peer to peer networks, social values, cryptography, disintermediation and sustainability. Jaromil holds a Ph.D on “Algorithmic Sovereignty” and received the Vilém Flusser Award at transmediale (Berlin, 2009) while leading for 6 years the R&D department of the Netherlands Media art Institute (Montevideo/TBA). He is the leading technical architect of DECODE, an EU funded project on blockchain technologies and data ownership, involving pilots in cooperation with the municipalities of Barcelona and Amsterdam.
--- a/content/Essays/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors.md
+++ b/content/Essays/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors.md
@ -1,53 +1,8 @@
 Title: Infrastructure mega corridors: a way out (or in) to the crisis?
 Author: Recommon.org
 Date: 11 January 2021

 *"Infrastructure mega corridors: a way out (or in) to the crisis?"*
 <p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
 <div class="colophon">
 <p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
 <p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
 <p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
 </p>

 <p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
 <p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
 </p></div>

 <div class="first-page">
 <div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
 <div id="title">Infrastructure mega corridors: <br>a way out (or in) to the crisis?</div>

 <div id="author"> by Recommon.org</div>
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 </div>
 <header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
 <header id="pageheader-theme">Infrastructure mega corridors</header>

 <div class="essay_content">
 <p><pre id="first_letter">
 <pre id="first_letter">
 ██╗
 ██║
 ██║
@ -58,8 +13,8 @@ In the last few months our lives have changed dramatically. Many of us
 lost their jobs while many others continued working under extreme
 conditions. Inequality and social injustices have become increasingly
 visible features of the economic system and the society in which we
 live. </p>
 <p>
 live. 

 The pandemic might have impacted everyone's life, but it has not
 affected everyone in the same way. Among the sectors that did not
 suffer, but rather benefited from the crisis, are online platforms such
@ -74,8 +29,8 @@ not contingent to the health crisis, but are instead key factors in the
 reorganization of "the extractivist society". A society that enables a
 few elites to extract more and more material and financial wealth from
 the territories and local communities that inhabit them, effectively
 expropriating them from the power to decide upon their own lives. </p>
 <p>
 expropriating them from the power to decide upon their own lives. 

 While most ongoing conversations center around the health crisis and the
 resulting recession, we want to bring attention to the systemic
 reorganization that is taking place as we speak. We are talking about a
@ -90,8 +45,8 @@ terminals, data centres and power stations, as well as new logistics
 centres covering hundreds of hectares. All this implies a radical and
 irreversible transformation of territories for the benefit of large
 private capital, where ports and production areas identified as "free
 trade", or "Special Economic Zones" (SEZs), all become interconnected. </p>
 <p>
 trade", or "Special Economic Zones" (SEZs), all become interconnected. 

 What are the manifestations in Italy and Europe of this global capital
 agenda? How will it change the social, economic and productive structure
 of our country and the continent? What impact will it have on the
@ -101,16 +56,16 @@ rhetorical: it is difficult to imagine a "globalization 2.0" which will
 accelerate production, transport and consumption of goods at an
 unprecedented speed while at the same time profoundly reduce the
 systemic impact on the environment and climate, an impact that goes far
 beyond proposed calculations of direct and indirect emissions generated.</p>
 <p>
 beyond proposed calculations of direct and indirect emissions generated.

 Will the major infrastructure mega-corridors plan be challenged in the
 post-pandemic economic crisis or will the current crisis be an excuse to
 accelerate it? Will its overall impact be properly assessed? This
 remains doubtful since harmful impacts of the global infrastructure
 agenda are so far considered as the least of their problems by investors
 and policy makers dazzled by forecasts and data about the production,
 logistics and global trade that is starting again. </p>
 <p>
 logistics and global trade that is starting again. 

 How does this infrastructure masterplan meet the needs of the millions
 of people who are already paying the highest costs of a profit-driven
 model at all costs? How does it meet the needs of communities that will
@ -118,17 +73,12 @@ be removed from their lands to make way for new mega infrastructure? How
 will it make our societies more resilient to the great droughts,
 typhoons, and increasingly heavy rains? How will it counteract the
 increasing cementing of the most densely populated areas and how will it
 enable everyone to have a roof over their heads?</p>
 <p>
 enable everyone to have a roof over their heads?

 We believe that it is high time to open up to such far-reaching
 questions.</p>
 </div>
 <div id="summary">
 *Translated from an original blogpost in Italian by Elena Gerebizza and
 Filippo Taglieri from Re:Common introducing their new report: [["The
 great illusion. Special economic zones and infrastructure
 mega-corridors, the way to
 go?"]{.underline}(https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/)*
 The original article and link to the report can be found
 [[here]{.underline}](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/).
 </div>
 questions.

 -----------------------

 *Translated from an original blogpost in Italian by Elena Gerebizza and Filippo Taglieri from Re:Common introducing their new report: ["The great illusion. Special economic zones and infrastructure mega-corridors, the way to go?"](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/)* The original article and link to the report can be found [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/).

--- a/content/Essays/zabala_warning.md
+++ b/content/Essays/zabala_warning.md
@ -1,54 +1,8 @@