التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
| العنوان: |
On Nonscalability: The Living World Is Not Amenable to Precision-Nested Scales. |
| المؤلفون: |
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt |
| المصدر: |
Common Knowledge; Apr2019, Vol. 25 Issue 1-3, p143-162, 20p |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: |
DESIGNERS, SCHOLARS, HEGEMONY, ECONOMIES of scale, PIRACY (Copyright) |
| مستخلص: |
Because computers zoom across magnifications, it is easy to conclude that both knowledge and things exist by nature in precision-nested scales. The technical term is "scalable," the ability to expand without distorting the framework. But it takes hard work to make knowledge and things scalable, and this article shows that ignoring nonscalable effects is a bad idea. People stumbled on scalable projects through the same historical contingencies that such projects set out to deny. They cobbled together ways to make things and data self-contained and static, and thus amenable to expansion. In European New World plantations, the natives were wiped out; coerced and alienated plants and workers came to substitute for them. Profits were made because extermination and slavery could be discounted from the books. Such historically indeterminate encounters formed models for later projects of scalability. This essay explores scalability projects from the perspective of an emergent "nonscalability theory" that pays attention to the mounting pile of ruins that scalability leaves behind. The article concludes that, if the world is still diverse and dynamic, it is because scalability never fulfills its own promises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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Copyright of Common Knowledge is the property of Duke University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) |
| قاعدة البيانات: |
Complementary Index |
