Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data - Brossura

Wyly, Elvin

 
9781949199093: Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data

Sinossi

Do you have a smartphone? Billions of people on the planet now navigate their daily lives with the kind of advanced Global Positioning System capabilities once reserved for the most secretive elements of America&;s military-industrial complex. But when so many people have access to the most powerful technologies humanity has ever devised for the precise determination of geographical coordinates, do we still need a specialized field of knowledge called geography?

Just as big data and artificial intelligence promise to automate occupations ranging from customer service and truck driving to stock trading and financial analysis, our age of algorithmic efficiency seems to eliminate the need for humans who call themselves geographers&;at the precise moment when engaging with information about the peoples, places, and environments of a diverse world is more popular than ever before. How did we get here? This book traces the recent history of geography, information, and technology through the biography of Edward A. Ackerman, an important but forgotten figure in geography&;s &;quantitative revolution.&; It argues that Ackerman&;s work helped encode the hidden logics of a distorted philosophical heritage&;a dangerous, cybernetic form of thought known as militant neo-Kantianism&;into the network architectures of today&;s pervasive worlds of surveillance capitalism.

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Informazioni sull?autore

Elvin Wyly is a professor of geography and chair of the Urban Studies Coordinating Committee at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and former editor in chief of the journal Urban Geography.

Dalla quarta di copertina

Do you have a smartphone? Billions of people on the planet now navigate their daily lives with the kind of advanced Global Positioning System capabilities once reserved for the most secretive elements of America&;s military-industrial complex. But when so many people have access to the most powerful technologies humanity has ever devised for the precise determination of geographical coordinates, do we still need a specialized field of knowledge called geography?

Just as big data and artificial intelligence promise to automate occupations ranging from customer service and truck driving to stock trading and financial analysis, our age of algorithmic efficiency seems to eliminate the need for humans who call themselves geographers&;at the precise moment when engaging with information about the peoples, places, and environments of a diverse world is more popular than ever before. How did we get here? This book traces the recent history of geography, information, and technology through the biography of Edward A. Ackerman, an important but forgotten figure in geography&;s &;quantitative revolution.&; It argues that Ackerman&;s work helped encode the hidden logics of a distorted philosophical heritage&;a dangerous, cybernetic form of thought known as militant neo-Kantianism&;into the network architectures of today&;s pervasive worlds of surveillance capitalism.

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Altre edizioni note dello stesso titolo

9781949199086: Geography's Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data

Edizione in evidenza

ISBN 10:  1949199088 ISBN 13:  9781949199086
Casa editrice: West Virginia Univ Pr, 2019
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