Presentation and sale of the book by Christopher Pollmann, professor at the University of Lorraine, interviewed by Angélique del Rey, professor and doctoral student in philosophy, co-author in particular of Never Alone Again. The cell phone phenomenon, Bayard 2006.
Everyone has already been angry about computer faults, like the White Pages website which, by confusing first and last name, cannot find a person with a common surname. But the fascination of screens, persuasive design » designed by Brian Fogg, makes the criticism inaudible. To remedy this, Christopher Pollmann compares his experience of decades spent in front of the computer with the combined perspectives of the human sciences and philosophy.
He draws on Hannah Arendt showing that in totalitarianism, the human being is made “ superfluous “. However, this is precisely what the GPS, automatic translation, managing a network of friends on Facebook, creating the House of Cards series using statistical calculations and countless other exploits: they strip us of our human subjectivity. By mechanizing language, computing transforms society into an anthill controlled by digital pheromones.
Demanding our attention everywhere and at any time, it also exerts a total and devastating influence: the increasing submission to electric speed is ever more incompatible with our biological and psychological needs and creates a fragile human monoculture on a planetary scale. And the ambitions to automate social life lead to its algorithmic complexity and bureaucratic paralysis, in the etymological sense of the power of the office and the written word.
Details
Maison Suger, 16 rue Suger, Paris 6eSt. Michel Metro, 6 p.m.
