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Students are expected not to be intimidated by technospeak. Any interest in hardware, software, app development is a plus.
The course will focus on technical and economic aspects of the Internet: from its origin, through relationship to modalities of software production, emergence of networked business models, to the current tipping (possibly) point where distributed becomes centralized, neutral becomes opinionated and transparency means massive surveillance.
1. Introduction (theory and some facts)
2. Struggles (some facts and some theory)
(The mid-term is here)
3. Futures (stories and discussions)
(Final exam is open book, circa 500 words essay related to discussions)
To create (or strengthen) doubts about the future of the Internet as an open, enabling network. To show some potential remedies. To be more aware when using the Internet and software.
Lectures and seminars.
Written mid-term exam (test/essay 30%) and final written exam (essay - 60%). Attendance and participation (10%).
Readings/ Schedule:
(NOT A COMPLETE LIST, WILL BE UPDATED WEEKLY FOR THE SECOND PART OF THE COURSE)
0. Introduction
Hardin, Tragedy of the Commons:
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
Coase, The Problem of Social Cost:
Please log in and scroll down to course resources.
Public Domain comic book http://www.thepublicdomain.org/comic/
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Small-world_network (Definition and Background)
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/mattioli/mattioli.html#tth_sEc9
Log in to see the Midterm Study Guide (Course Resources at the bottom of the page).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/07/why-poets-a...
http://qz.com/311217/poem-theres-an-uber-for-x/
https://www.edge.org/conversation/stephen_wolfram-ai-the-future-of-civil...
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2504325
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2402972
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-j...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-great-forgetting...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/berlin-borrowing-shop-benef...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/can-we-crowdfund-...
http://qz.com/67323/how-the-internet-made-us-poor/
https://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-cv/
Textbooks:
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page#Read_the_book
Lawrence Lessig, Remix. Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy
http://www.gs.uni.wroc.pl/files/Remix.pdf
Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future
Nick Carr, The Shallows. What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist
Other papers, blog posts and data sources will be specified during class.
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture. The Nature and Future of Creativity
Steven Weber, The Success of Open Source
Jaron Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget. A Manifesto
Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: The New Science of Networks
James Boyle, Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society (quite old for this topic, but still interesting)