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@@ -6,11 +6,11 @@ More and more the world is seen in terms of information no matter what the reali If all is fundamentally the same, it follows that a database in one language should have the power to talk to databases of other disciplines in other languages (mediated, of course, by programmers, protocols, translators, modems, computers, networkings\ld). One might have to descend into the primal language and then, choosing the right fork in the decision tree, emerge into the proper language. If only one can design the right protocols, ones that will not only link among unlike, competitive machines with unlike, competitive architectures---IBM's, Control Datas, Apples, Crays, DEC's---but also unlike transmittal systems run by competitive companies. Languages can be united because each field and domain, each way of looking at things, should be a subset of the one, universal, primal language. Perhaps what is expressed in one domain should be considered an encryption of what is expressed in another domain. -However, not only do computers in different disciplines not translate into one another well, but different manufacturers and communicating companies (to say nothing of nations)---while proclaiming one world, one language, falling prices, one global village, and universal compatibility---fight one another tooth and nail. They erect a maze of priced mediations and product differentiation, countering speed and directness of transmission with profitable labyrinths; in different time-zones, each turn and gate tolled and tariffed, competing and maintaining secrecy, organizing those to whom they sell services on a need-to-know-and-pay basis, playing the differentials among different states of being, business and knowledge\fnote{Citicorp, for instance, computerizing and gaining speed, places its headquarters in South Dakota in order to---taking advantage of the laws---gain advantage which allows it to keep checks for a certain time and thus enjoy a float in the empyrean.} +However, not only do computers in different disciplines not translate into one another well, but different manufacturers and communicating companies (to say nothing of nations)---while proclaiming one world, one language, falling prices, one global village, and universal compatibility---fight one another tooth and nail. They erect a maze of priced mediations and product differentiation, countering speed and directness of transmission with profitable labyrinths; in different time-zones, each turn and gate tolled and tariffed, competing and maintaining secrecy, organizing those to whom they sell services on a need-to-know-and-pay basis, playing the differentials among different states of being, business and knowledge.\fnote{Citicorp, for instance, computerizing and gaining speed, places its headquarters in South Dakota in order to---taking advantage of the laws---gain advantage which allows it to keep checks for a certain time and thus enjoy a float in the empyrean.} There are certain laws to be deduced from the observation of business practice. Information management, traffic control and pricing follows the timeless strategy of railroads in the past: which is to say, given a certain limited distance, the problem becomes to increase distance by increasing price. Economies of scale are developed, need for certain volumes regardless of content, development risk to be paid for by the consumer. Tesseracts of tax shelters spring up. An incredible maze of contradictory laws emerge requiring incredible expenditures of intellectual energy and computing time. Information theorists always leave out the costs. Claude Shannon quantified information; AT\&T and IBM priced it. Shannon's theory did not develop in a vacuum; he did his work for Defense and Bell. Where did the money come from? What did the funders want and what did they not want? What other enterprises cross-subsidized these developments? What solids were melted down, who was liquidated to fund the Great Enterprise? No different than the practices of the ancient Phoenecians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Fuggers, or any other merchants in history. (In addition, of course, the amounts of energy, in terms of electricity, required to run and cool computers is staggering.) -If we take into account the human, informal, anti-organizational, shadow-organizational networks, the person-to-person contacts, those who emerge to resist this development, those who have an interest in not sharing information; we see vast, centrifugal forces at work. On the one hand, the emergence of a unified system, a sort of electronic Catholic Church; on the other, a sort of electrofeudalism. +If we take into account the human, informal, anti-org\-an\-iz\-a\-tion\-al, shadow-organizational networks, the person-to-person contacts, those who emerge to resist this development, those who have an interest in not sharing information; we see vast, centrifugal forces at work. On the one hand, the emergence of a unified system, a sort of electronic Catholic Church; on the other, a sort of electrofeudalism. Given all this potential convertibility, how can money talk to nuclear particles, pension funds speak recombinant genetics, prime numbers retrieve fictional heroes\ld ? Can we really create a translation program, which is to say a unified field theory? Or should we, not having been invited to the initial feast of reason, create a \e{disunified field theory}? |