Silence is a commons

#philosophy #philosophy-of-technology #gen-ai

Source: https://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1983_silence_commons.html

Commons vs. Enclusure
Interesting link - how before we had the "common" spaces, like an oak tree was treated as such, stâna cu oi, and how enclosure (along with the rise of capitalism) changed this.

Another example: roads. From "open roads" where sales take place, kids play, elders sit and talk, to high developed roads where people are not even allowed anymore (except when they go to the station).

Same for silence - peasants talking in public spaces till someone with a loudspeaker landed:

As enclosure by the lords increased national productivity by denying the individual peasant to keep a few sheep, so the encroachment of the loudspeaker has destroyed that silence which so far had given each man and woman his or her proper and equal voice. Unless you have access to a loudspeaker, you now are silenced.

The issue which I propose for discussion should therefore be clear: how to counter the encroachment of new, electronic devices and systems upon commons that are more subtle and more intimate to our being than either grassland or roads - commons that are at least as valuable as silence. Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.

Just as the commons of space are vulnerable, and can be destroyed by the motorization of traffic, so the commons of speech are vulnerable, and can easily be destroyed by the encroachment of modem means of communication.

This is fantastic for the era of generative AI.

I oh so sure this can be linked to The Technological Society (Jacques Ellul)