50s and 60s

People in 50s and 60s were protesting because they were worried about being turned into information and data

Two distinct movements, both which are anti-bureaucracy, anti-big tech, anti-mass culture)

  • New Left: saw political organizing as the site of social change
  • New Communalists: saw internal consciousness and the mind as the site of social change

Why were the 50’s kids so enamoured with technology?

Where is todays counterculture

  • Not the left, but actually the right
  • Concern is not big data and ML but with corporations and states
  • Place of rebellion is not at the data level but at the institution and union level (in big corporations) + legal level (ex: protection of Uber drivers)
  • There are bodies and factories and server farms → lets not forget the basis of our abstractions