The Collapse of Distance in Real Time Computing

Mireille Hildebrandt, Erasmus University of Rotterdam

Abstract

In this paper I want to present a problem that – I must admit – boggles my mind. The problem can be summarized as follows. Some of the crucial protections provided by modern law, notably privacy, non-discrimination and due process, are an affordance of the socio-technical infrastructure of the printing press. This is related to the fourfold distantiation that is inherent in the script as will be explained in section 2. The reinforcement of this distantiation, brought about by the printing press evoked the need for interpretation, which in turn generated hesitation and created a space and time for the contestation of dominant frames of interpretation (section 3). The shift from the script and the printing press to the digital era, provokes an epistemic shift that magnifies the virtualisation already enabled by the printing press, but paradoxically tends to collapse the distantiations it afforded. The mind of digital natives is not equivalent with the linear-sequential mind of the bookish digital immigrant: some authors speak of a cognitive structure geared to instant parallel processing and multitasking, favouring speed and immediately detectable pertinence rather than the hesitation and delay of the printing press era. The scrutiny of digital natives is impressive, but based on parallel processing and wary of cumbersome linear though processes; it does not equate with the critical thinking typical for the bookish mind. The collapse of distance, described in section 4, is then further elaborated in section 5, and related to the emergence of a new sense of time-space that is often called ‘real time’, conflating distance in time and space to a new kind of synchronisation, afforded by the new technological infrastructure (global communication and mobility across different time zones, immediate access to unprecedented amounts of machine readable content). The problem is that the condensation of space-time inherent in real time communications and interactions renders invisible that communication and interaction is always a matter of interpretation, a fact that is apparent when using ‘slow’ technologies like the script or the printing press. As interpretation becomes less visible or invisible, the scope for reflection and contestation is diminished if not annulled, thus favouring the dominant or customised frames of interpretation supplied by the digital environment. The question – to which I have only the beginnings of an anwer - is how can we sustain the legal protections based on the technologies of the script and the printing press, in the face of an epistemic shift towards a digital age that collapses the distance needed for the contestation of the way we are being profiled and treated.