(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
What happens when systems don't work? They become visible. Just one hour of an unavailable bank can stop millions of transactions. The smallest mistakes can bring huge economic, digital and industrial infrastructures to a standstill. Georgina Voss is concerned with the way we can gain a better understanding of systems by noticing them when they are not working as they should.
Voss' main point is that we are governed by these 'systems', but we do not understand them. Understanding the systems we are governed by is important for governing The system (som i «fight the system») – the uncontrollable capitalist machinery or apparatus we live in, which reproduces unjust structures. It is not until we learn how the smallest errors in these systems can lead to enormous social problems, that we can hatch strategies to finally crush the system, Voss believes.
The systems show their weaknesses when you observe the cases where they are not enough. The French thinker Paul Virilio has said that every time you invent a new type of technology, you also invent a new disaster. Voss observes how these disasters unfold in relation to cars, architectural programs, cargo ships or military vessels. Each time she shows that systems that usually operate behind the scenes of society are actually very vulnerable infrastructural complexes.
Dieselgate and Volkswagen
Apart from the banks, other examples of such disasters are related to cars. And no: It's not about Formula 1 cars that drive fast, crash and explode. Nor is it about cars that are set on fire or destroyed. The example of Voss is the emissions scandal Volkswagen in 2008 -15 – also called dieselgate – which required millions of cars to be returned to the manufacturer.
Volkswagen had installed a program in the cars that was able to cheat on the emissions measurements.
Here we are talking about a disaster that was literally built into the production. Dieselgate assumed that Volkswagen had sold more than 11 million cars internationally that polluted 20-35 times more than what the manufacturers claimed in the product information. This was particularly disastrous since these were diesel cars, which emit particularly toxic gases, more specifically nitrogen oxide (NOx). When nitric oxide mixes with other organic gases, ground-level ozone (O3), a gas that can cause serious respiratory problems.
Volkswagen had installed a program in the cars that was able to cheat on the emissions measurements. It was done in that the program Volkswagen had created was able to change the amount emitted based on the temperature of the car. The emissions testing used to take place indoors, which meant that the temperature meter switched on a 'climate-friendly mode'. But when the cars were outside, the car changed mode again in line with the temperature that was recorded.
Through his book, Voss not only challenges our perception of the collapse of technological systems, but delves into the underlying essence of technologyone that permeates our societies. She paints a portrait of a reality where the line between technology and disaster blurs, arguing that the dark shadow side of technological advances is as integral as their apparent benefits.
Voss stakes out a path through what she calls a fundamental dissidence, and reveals how our modern society is often trapped by an ideological belief in technology. She argues that our obsession with technological solutions has a dangerous consequence: It encourages an apolitical way of thinking, where complex phenomena and problem areas are reduced to abstract systems.
But Voss goes further than just pointing out problems. She insists that not everything can be reduced to systems thinking without sacrificing important aspects of our human experience. This applies not only to our understanding of society, but also to our relationship with living nature. She challenges the idea that everything can be solved through technological progress alone, and claims that there are processes and tasks that resist mechanization.
Cybernetic thinking
The system ideology that Voss criticizes can be traced back not least to thinkers such as Newton, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Humboldt. The ideal of reducing reality to a system was thus something that came long before modern technologies embodied this way of thinking.
A specific branch of thought is also cybernetic thinking and its influence on biology in the 1930s, where Voss wants to show the uniqueness of biological life. She does not believe that cybernetics' view of systems that are regulated based on feedback is representative of biological life. While machines can operate independently of their surroundings, biological beings are inextricably bound for and communicates actively w/ them. The basic communication between us and our surroundings means that both humans and plants are something other than robots. Voss believes that this makes biological life resistant to being reduced to simple mechanisms.
The complex
Let's touch on the title of the release: Systems Ultra. What does ultra mean in this context? Voss writes that it means exceeding and transcending the system. Although the societal, technological and ideological systems in society are constantly presented as immovable mountains, Voss insists on looking beyond them, on exploring the hidden paths that lead to freedom from the seemingly invincible.
Voss challenges us to recognize the complexity of our relationship with the world around us and to reject the exaggerated belief in technological determinism. She reminds us that not everything can, or should, be systematized, and that there are certain aspects of our reality that resist simple solutions. Through an elegant balance between philosophical insight and critical analysis, Voss insists on the necessity of preserving the human and the complex in a world that constantly strives for simplification and automation.
