The Contest between Information and Uncertainty

Author:

Rohde Joy

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that the Cold War-era battle between information and uncertainty is a critical origin point for contemporary social theory-informed, dataintensive projects of the US national security state. Beginning in the 1950s, international relations experts and government officials turned to digital computing to help make decisions under the unavoidable pressures of geopolitical uncertainty. By the 1970s, their data banks of political knowledge and novel statistical tools purported to forecast political unrest long before an unaided human could. These efforts sparked a new epistemology of political knowledge, one that is now common in data science, in which designers and users prioritize correlation over causality and the instrumental management of problems over scholarly understanding or explanation. Far from a historical curiosity, this history is a warning. The sensibilities of Cold War technopolitical projects are continually rematerialized in contemporary computational security projects. Left unchallenged, their durability will continue to increase in tandem with the national security state's continued investment in computational social scientific projects for geopolitical management.

Publisher

Duke University Press

Subject

Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous),Communication,Social Psychology

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3