Deleuze - Control Societies & Cybernetic Posthumanism

Deleuze contrasts his "Society of Control" with Foucault's "Disciplinary Society" in a short essay. I focus on Deleuze's posthumanist vision of the future, and explain its crossover with Cybernetics and Systems Theory using examples from education, biopolitics, and data mining.

Timecode
0:00 Intro
1:54 Machines
5:06 3 Societies
8:38 Dividuals
11:09 Examples
13:39 Cybernetics
15:33 Posthuman Futurology

Thanks to Wellison GP da Silva for the Portuguese subtitles!

[aalex]

I'm a Data Engineer and thanks to your vid I've just realised the scale of this logic of 'society of control' in modern world. Companies are pushing these cloud services and subcription-based business models thus eliminating the concept of 'owning stuff', replacing it with 'having access to stuff'. As for machine governance, there is in fact a widespread belief of 'technological solutionism' that algorithms+data is more than enough to solve any kind of problem, not just recognizing cats on pictures, but ruling entire countries, even though there are numerous evidences of algorithms (treated as black boxes) failing miserably at such crucial tasks. I'm geniunely stunned how accurately Deleuze could describe these trends back in 90s, as I previously held his works as utter gibberish.

[daniel]

I wouldn't have minded if this was 6 hours longer.

[stefantaal]

I see Pills -> I upvote -> I feed youtube algo -> I am a well-behaved digital citizen -> I am happy.
Great video!

[kerycktotebag]

I sought out labels generated by tests like Myers-Briggs, Big 5, Enneagram, figuring out what my belief systems consisted of (turns out, it is panentheism, metamodernism, emanationism, dialectical thinking), and stuff like gender and sexuality, and I deeply broke apart very granular things like how I process information and how I confront emotions through introspection and meditation techniques.

My aim was to reduce the burden of self-regulation by figuring out what "works best" for me based on things I find most unassailable and unchangeable about my body and mind. Sort of establishing the guardrails and then letting myself operate "automatically" and only interfering when I experience dissonance, using the test outcomes/labels as heuristic guides to put myself back on the track of least dissonance and go about my merry way.

I have autism, so my guess is that I didn't internalise the mechanisms of control (modulations?) from institutions—or, I did, but with a lot of dissonance due to bad fit (neurotypical people designed the modulators, so me not fitting in, and being traumatised as a result)—led me to set aside a lot of time after high school to basically build my own modulators after observing and testing my mind and body at length.

That's what this video reminds me of.

I don't know what it says about me that, after casting off all the automatic regulation processes furnished by society, I felt such a need to reprogram myself with these custom-fitted regulation strategies, rather than just become completely solipsistic and freewheeling like an egoist or something.

But, clearly, I prefer having "guardrails", particularly in having some concept of myself as a dividual, as this allowed me to talk to other people better rather than having extremely idiosyncratic speech like I did after the "casting off" phase and prior to building new regulation strategies.

Perhaps some kind of machinated regulation is what many human beings actually prefer, because I remember the period of time between me un-internalising institutional controls prior to building new strategies, and it was rough.

I developed psychosis from the stress of it. Which, unfortunately for me, completely voided my emotions out and made me practically mute and I had almost no internal dialogue.

I'm definitely happier now that I have "guardrails", but a part of me always recognises that this is probably because no human being can really function without them. An atomic "self" is unsustainable, immiserating and unstable.

I think people in power have taken advantage of this, which is how so many people can remain in the thick of all these different types of societies (discipline, control, etc) even with the excesses and indignities they create. It's a trade-off for some deep human need for regulation as opposed to unbridled perfect atomic "freedom".

But instead of focusing on the indignities, I'll look for new weapons <3 because I know people with much more power to design and implement controls are already looking for their own "weapons".

[anjankatta]

Most underrated YouTuber, legitimately made philosophy entertaining and insightful

[EJFerny]

Bear in mind Foucault & Deleuze did this work in the 70s/80s mostly... this is the social philosophy of the present and these 2 saw it happening at its very germination

[mylesjeffers]

The future we're being steered towards is one which creates the conditions where humans will spend the most money. That seems to be conditions of anxiety, distrust, fear, loneliness etc. Basically the opposite of a content happy human life.

[paulhanson]

This is well done. I am using it in my university classes. Students told me they dug it for a bunch of reasons, but most liked the visuals diagram of historical periods, precise descriptions of images, quotes from primary sources that are easily read, easily noted by hand for student as it video plays. You got just the right chill tone on your presentation. Excellent. Can you do more on art and Deleuze. I teach two theory classes at an art institute and two philosophy classes at another university. You are spot on my friend.

[ioshinigami]

As a student of Deleuze, gotta say this was a good take on this important essay in 20th century philosophy. Thanks!

[martinignaciofeldman]

man you nailed a pretty dark vibe to this video, kinda creeped me out a little bit. nice video i enjoyed it

[Noellecoleman]

I'm going to watch this when I have time to schedule in a post-pill-existential-crisis.

[LeonTagleLB]

I‘m almost done binging all of your videos and I just wanna say bravo. It is unbelievable the quality of this videos, in all aspects, from the research to the presentation to just the way the videos are edited. Hope you continue for a long time!

[dmr]

I didn’t know Norbert Wiener coined the term “cybernetics.” I study pure math, and he’s an incredibly big deal in stochastic analysis. He’s also the source of both some of the best math terms (tight Wiener space, for example) as well as a whole genre of math jokes making fun of his famously extreme absent-mindedness.

[maze-le]

Hey Pills. Thanks to you I've just read the "Societies of Control" paper of Deleuze. He is scarily accurate in his description. This one has particularly stuck with me during the current pandemic:

> For the hospital system: the new medicine "without doctor or patient" that singles out potentially sick people and subjects at risk, which in no way attests to individuation -- as they say -- but substitutes for the individual or numerical body the code of a "dividual" material to be controlled.

Damn! It is almost as he has predicted various forms of social control that were implemented by some states in the form of quarantine control&restriction-apps. I find it utterly fascinating that he was able to envision those transformations in our societies in the early 90ies. I mean sure, some of it was already occurring during his time but most tendencies have only just begun to gain traction.

[paulgrunden]

Old Deleuze AND Guattari guy is overjoyed to see this kind of work.

[webspecific]

I like the moving dots in the background.

[edmontoraptor]

It seems like the YouTube algorithm is a cybernetic machine analyzing our viewing patterns and showing us more content that will increase our time on the site and maximize ad revenue

[Fryguystudios]

Really getting that deleuze idea where you always approach from the middle, and only through expanding and returning over and over do you actually carve out an understanding. Because that's literally my experience with deleuze and posthumanism; metaphorically bashing my head against the text until somehow out of nowhere everything starts to click as you watch/read the same thing for the thousandth time. All this is to say, I love the your content, man. You both expose me to knew forms of thought and are a helpful supplement when digging deeper into said thought - - I still rewatch the humanism series even as I dig into core texts on the subject.

Anyways, can you expand on that deleuze quote at the end, and what he means by it? I have some idea simply due to my limited understanding of his work, but I'd like to hear your understanding of it.

[kaylacaves]

Thank you so much for this video. Each video you put out opens up my world a little bit more. I've seen lots of YouTubers attempt to explain these same concepts, but you are the best at explaining complex literature in a simple and easy-to-understand way. Your illustrations/animations not only make your videos extremely entertaining and keep my attention (which is nice because I struggle with attention problems), but they also help me totally understand things quickly.

Thank you for making these videos. I have watched all of your videos, I share them with my friends, and I look forward to any new videos.

Also, I'm bewildered that you're not way bigger than some other YouTubers I watch, frankly. In due time, I suppose!

[lbjvg]

Markov chains are the mathematical implementation used heavily in AI (esp. self driving cars and robots that need to update their location) of the continual updating of flows of information.