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EricBono
@EricBono@sfba.social  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks ago

Fingerspitzengefühl: IP vs process knowledge.

' But here's the thing: while "IP" can be bought and sold by the capital classes, process knowledge is inseparably vested in the minds and muscle-memory of their workers. '

' The exaltation of "IP" over process knowledge is part of the ancient practice of bosses denigrating their workers' contribution to the bottom line. It's key to the myth that workers can be replaced by AI: an AI can consume all the "IP" produced by workers, but it doesn't have their process knowledge. It can't, because process knowledge is embodied and enmeshed, it is relational and physical. It doesn't appear in training data. '

From Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/08/process-knowledge/#dance-monkey-dance

' Fingerspitzengefühl [ˈfɪŋɐˌʃpɪtsənɡəˌfyːl] is a German term, literally meaning "finger tips feeling" and meaning intuitive flair or instinct.** It describes a great situational awareness**... '
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl

@dna #Architecture#Design#Techne#Theory

Fingerspitzengefühl (permalink)

This was the plan: America would stop making things and instead make recipes, the "IP" that could be sent to other countries to turn into actual stuff, in distant lands without the pesky environmental and labor rules that forced businesses accept reduced profits because they weren't allowed to maim their workers and poison the land, air and water.
Fingerspitzengefühl (permalink) This was the plan: America would stop making things and instead make recipes, the "IP" that could be sent to other countries to turn into actual stuff, in distant lands without the pesky environmental and labor rules that forced businesses accept reduced profits because they weren't allowed to maim their workers and poison the land, air and water.
Fingerspitzengefühl (permalink) This was the plan: America would stop making things and instead make recipes, the "IP" that could be sent to other countries to turn into actual stuff, in distant lands without the pesky environmental and labor rules that forced businesses accept reduced profits because they weren't allowed to maim their workers and poison the land, air and water.
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Guitarsophist
@jredlund@social.linux.pizza replied  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks ago
@EricBono @pluralistic In Neil Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, L. Bob Rife, the villain who wants to take over the world by infecting the people with a virus that makes them susceptible to being controlled by commands in ancient Sumerian (and that is only one of the crazy plots), justifies 24 hour surveillance of all of his employees with the argument that all of the knowledge in their brains is HIS, so he has to make sure they aren't giving it to anyone.

Vonnegut's _Player Piano_ also seems relevant. The company chooses their very best factory workers, records their movements, then uses the recordings to program the robots, after which they fire all the humans.

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Hey Gus
@elebertus@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks ago
@jredlund @EricBono @pluralistic in the early 2000s I worked for an e-commerce company that survived the bubble long enough to start outsource all their infra.

I was asked to do exactly what happens in player piano (run books, teaching about automation). Needless to say I left because.. no.

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Flipper 🐬
@flipper@mastodonapp.uk replied  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks ago
@jredlund @EricBono @pluralistic This is the essence of Taylorism - something that Vonnegut was consciously satirizing - where the process for making something is centralized so skilled workers can be replaced by cheaper, unskilled manual labour or by automation.
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TurnipCannon
@TurnipCannon@mstdn.ca replied  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks ago
@jredlund @EricBono @pluralistic similarly, Snow Crash gets REAL obsessed with the... concept of spreading one's seed for a bit. Elon has a similar fixation.
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