Will Core Post 5

This weeks readings highlight the physical costs of manufacturing and distributing the digital. Hogan and Ensmenger both underscore the dependence of digital technologies on the environment. They both highlight the immense energy requirements even maintain technological infrastructure such as Bitcoin and Facebook. Moreover, Ensmenger details how the geographic distribution of seemingly immaterial 'cloud' technologies are directly tethered to the proximities of other infrastructures such as the power grid and the railroad. This analysis underscores the flows of resources such as material goods and energy that make cloud technologies possible. While the cloud metaphor may imply "ubiquity and etheriality", Hogan and Ensmenger highlight that it is anything but. 'The cloud' is instead immensely dependent upon and its physical environment, and affects its final burial place. Ensmenger highlights the immense electronic waste that primarily ends up in landfills of India, China, and Africa. With only 10% of illegal waste recycled, these artifacts contaminate the soil and water supply. The migration paths of waste (from global north such as USA to global south contexts such as Ghana) illustrate the material dimensions of technological imperialism.  

Indeed, technological waste can be toxic. The media natures articles that I read illustrated that common technologies such as laptops contain rare and harmful chemicals. Bridgen and Santillo disassemble five different laptops from different manufacturers and use xray analysis to identify the presence of harmful chemicals. All sampled laptops had at least some presence of chromium in some of their components, a known cause of lung, sinus and nasal cancer when inhaled. Moreover, bromine was identified in roughly a quarter of components tested, across all laptop brands. Of most concern to users, bromine was found on all trackpads and in fans - components that may lead to increased user exposure. These chemicals can be deadly. Clapp (2006) highlight that rates of deaths sute to specific cancers are significantly elevated amongst technology manufacturing workers than the rest of the population. This is most likely due to exposure to harmful chemicals and solvants. These death and illness rates highlight the physical cost of user technologies. While capitalism requires new iterations to be designed, manufactured and released each year to fulfill buyers' demands, these products come at the costs of workers lives and livelihoods. Taken together, these articles reveal the necropolitical dynamics of technological manufacturing that values profit accumulation over its workers' health.

I also want to draw attention to Phone Story, the game presented in medianatures: http://www.phonestory.org/ Which follow the mining, manufacturing, sales and recycling of a phone (best played on android, can be played on a computer). Controlling the guards of a mine, it is the users job to make sure that miners (slaves?) are reaching their productivity quota by threatening them when they are tired. Furthermore, in the next phase, the player controls a suicide mat to try and save workers jumping from the factory. These episodes not only highlight the invisibility of manufacturing labor, but also the direct role that users (consumers) have in it.