The overthrow of the dictatorship of no alternatives requires a different way of thinking about structural change and structural alternatives, especially in the technical, specialized disciplines, beginning with those closest to power—economics and law—a way of thinking that affirms the primacy of structural vision but rejects the illusions of false necessity.

Another way to widen the pool of stakeholders is for government regulators to get into the game, indirectly representing the will of a larger electorate through their interventions.

an “empowering game” aimed at 8-14 year old children to support behavioural change leading to achieve energy reduction in social housing

The role of governance in organizing cooperation 

Preventing cheating during remote test-taking:https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/17/proctorio-v-linkletter/#proctorioSpying on work-from-home employees:https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#bosswareSpying on students and their families:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_DistrictRepossessing Teslas:https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/Disabling cars after a missed payment:https://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/17/aa.bills.shut.engine.down/index.htmlForcing you to buy official printer ink:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printerSpying on people who lease laptops:https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/09/ftc-halts-computer-spyingBricking gear the manufacturer doesn’t want to support anymore:https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/05/google-reaches-into-customers-homes-and-bricks-their-gadgets/

Technological solutions to social problems seem quicker, cheaper, and simpler to implement than larger social changes.

Current approaches to improving digital well-being also promote tech solutionism, or the presumption that technology can fix social, cultural, and structural problems.

I chose to go to Compton and Watts for a specific reason, which offers a way forward. Harvard economist Raj Chetty recently led a study that showed that though these two neighborhoods are demographically similar and only 2.3 miles apart, 44 percent of the black men who grew up in Watts were incarcerated on April 1, 2010, compared with only 6.2 percent of the black men who grew up in families with similar incomes in Central Compton. Similarly, social mobility was much lower in Watts than in Compton.Why are some neighborhoods, including some in Compton, able to give their kids better chances in life despite so many disadvantages? Chetty points to several factors: better schools, more fathers present in the neighborhoods and more cohesive community organizations.I found all those things in my reporting in Compton — and something else. Watts is part of Los Angeles. Compton is its own city with its own mayor. I met a lot of great people in Watts, but Compton has more civic infrastructure — community groups and locally controlled government agencies. Compton has a lot of homegrown civic reformers, like Rafer Owens, who is a deputy Los Angeles County sheriff and pastor at a Baptist church. There’s also a mentality: We have faith in our ability to take care of ourselves; only people in the neighborhood really know what’s going on.

Citizens were asked to take over responsibilities that were previously handled by the state, and participants would “recognize problems only insofar as technology can operationalize and solve them.”

I think a lot of faculty are still at the point where they need a stack of papers and red pen.

Many movements have become somewhat unsta-ble and decentralized. This instability allows for fluidity and moments where cultures become complicit in neoliberalism and globalization. This complicit exploitation is espe-cially visible when we consider the relationship between maker publics and technolo-gies. In buying, creating, and re-purposing technologies, hacker and maker groups engage capitalist enterprises that span the globe.

To put Giddens in conversation with Morozov, the threat of civic hackers is not that they naively employ “solution-ism.” Quite to the contrary, they debate ethics of technology design, seek collabora-tions with local organizations, and attempt to re-think how government services might be more sensitive to resident needs.

company sinking its hooks into the U.S. school system

“It’s more complicated than that.” No kidding. You could nail a list of caveats to any sentence in this essay. But the complexity of these problems is no excuse for inaction. It’s an invitation to read more, learn more, come to understand the situation, figure out what you can build, and go build it. That’s why this essay has 400 hyperlinks. It’s meant as a jumping-off point. Jump off it. There’s one overarching caveat. This essay employed the rhetoric of “problem-solving” throughout. I was trained as an engineer; engineers solve problems. But, at least for the next century, the “problem” of climate change will not be “solved” — it can only be “managed”. This is a long game. One more reason to be thinking about tools, infrastructure, and foundations. The next generation has some hard work ahead of them.

This is exactly the sort of solution-in-search-of-a-problem problem that leads us down the road to horror shows like “robot tutors in the sky that can semi-read your mind.”

A PANACEA FOR EDUCATION’S IRON TRIANGLE

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Many school systems rely on short-term solutions, such as bond financing and foundation investments, to cover the costs of new digital initiatives

Artificial Intelligence will eventually revolutionize this practice.

If it’s the only tool, that is a HUGE problem.

technical solutions

Tool is to task as repertoires of tools are to learning

Brenda has shifted her approach from providing turnkey solutions to the teachers that come to her for help. Instead she focuses on accompanying them on their journey, and wants to know what research they have done prior to coming to see her.

Caliper could potentially provide them with better tools for richer integration in a more elegant way.

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