It’s Not What You Think: On Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell’s “The Smartness Mandate”

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May 30, 2023 • By Evan Selinger

The Smartness Mandate

Robert Mitchell

We have thus sought, at various points, to open up smartness to traditional understandings of history, memory, and historical trauma. In some cases this was via an appeal to alternate understandings of natural evolution: for example, Simard's understanding of the smartness of forests as in part a function of their capacity for extended memory. In other cases we emphasized the long lineages of trauma of those deemed "losers" by a market-oriented vision of smartness […] In addition, we excavated alternative visions of computation and living, such as the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki's City in the Air project, which was like, yet differed significantly from, Negroponte's vision of soft architecture. Had these past experiments been embraced, they would have led smartness in different directions. They are in this sense especially important to our project, for they underscore that the smartness mandate was not inevitable but instead resulted from contingent connections and alliances.

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Evan Selinger

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