Distinguishing next society
Dirk Baecker
Abstract
Next society differs from modern society in its use of electronic and digital media. Computers – encompassing platforms, programmes, algorithms and machine learning models – are beginning to participate in communication in a way that were previously exclusive to humans. This paper explores the concept of ‘interpenetration’, the mutual accessibility of the complexity among social systems, psychic systems and computers, to examine the distinctions that will shape this next society. Three key distinctions emerge: the distinction of communication between the local and the global, of perception between seeking irritants and protecting against them, and of the computer between predictive data and data space. Together, these distinctions define the ‘reality’ of the next society. A calculus of medium and form describes the operation that differentiates and reproduces this society: while its forms are unstable, its medium remains stable. Ultimately, the communication of digital data both constitutes and reproduces the next society. Data complement values as the two connective media of society – one operating at the normative, the other at the cognitive level.