Computerization always promotes centralization even as it promotes decentralization

Abstract

David Golumbia presents four reasons why he considers “hacker” groups such as Anonymous right-wing activism, states that in the regime of computation today the mathematical rationalism of Leibnitz has prevailed Voltaire’s critical rationalism, and proposes a FDA for computer technology. He doesn’t see the Internet as Habermasian “public sphere,” considers Digital Humanities a ‘perfect cyberlibertarian construct,’ bemoans the capitulation of universities to new media corporations, and calls for a balance of both modes of thinking, the hedgehog and the fox, in the digital age.