The Cyberpunk Genre as Social and Technological Analysis
While the 4 C’s are useful for genre analysis, they can also be helpful categories for socio-technical analysis. The typologies provide classification systems according to structural features that assist distinctions and interpretations. These have been used to examine the iconography of cyberpunk media, such as character types in graphic novels or set designs in films, to determine its adherance to the genre. But they can also help analyze the socio-technical aspects of manufactured products and processes. These include digitally-based services such as search engines or AI. The 4Cs provide convenient analytical categories for examining modern societies by providing conceptual tools on Computers/Cyberspace, Corporations, Criminality, and Corporeality.
THE EXPERIMENT, Part I: NEW ZEALAND AS THE WORLD MODEL FOR DIGITAL MONETARISM
Starting “Down Under” One of the first “guinea pigs” for the global system of digital monetarism was New Zealand. A one-time leader in developing the “welfare state,” the small two-island nation-state in the deep Pacific Ocean had run into economic problems by the early 1980s. It had borrowed heavily during the previous decade, and its […]
Characteristics of Economic Goods and their Social Implications
Market theory is based a standard model where products are brought to market and are bought and consumed by an individual buyer, whether an individual or a more corporate environment. But some products are misbehaving economic goods. A variety of goods do not fit this economic model and as a result present a number of problems for economic theory, technological innovation, and public policy.
Assessing Digital Payment Systems
In digitally-mediated environments, new forms of currency and payment systems continue to gain public acceptance. Changes in technology, contactless options, and the ease of electronic payments make cash less desirable. While credit cards remain the most popular form of payment with some 70% of the market, other systems are emerging. PayPal, for example, is used […]
Digital Spreadsheets – The Time-Space Power of Accounting, Part 1
The digital spreadsheet was designed as an electronic document in which data was arranged in the rows and columns of a matrix and could be manipulated and used in calculations. It combined listing, tabling, and other formulaic calculations to create a new imaginative technology that transformed modern finance and the management of organizations. While the spreadsheet handles various types of information, accounting information is some of the most effective and its power is accelerated by an organization’s information technology.
Origins of Currency Futures and other Digital Derivatives
Thus, it was fitting that Chicago emerged as the Risk Management Capital of the World—particularly since the 1972 introduction of financial futures at the International Monetary Market, the IMM, of the CME. – Leo Melamed to the Council of Foreign Relations, June 2004 International currency exchange rates began to float in the post-Bretton Woods environment […]
Those Media Products are Misbehaving Economic Goods
Bad, bad media. Or so economists would have us believe. Media and information products just don’t fit the mold, or should I say, model. Most economic thinking is based on models that make simple assumptions about the types of goods and services that are produced and purchased. Economists like their tight little models and the […]
TPP and the Role of Intellectual Property in the US Export Economy
With the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal under discussion, it’s useful to look at some of the changes in the world economy, and specifically the US export economy and the increasing role of intellectual property (IP). As it stands, I’m not for the trade deal, but I feel it’s important to parse through the details […]
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