The Stack: On Software And Sovereignty

A comprehensive political and design theory of planetary-scale computation proposing that The Stack -- an accidental megastructure -- is both a technological apparatus and a model for a new geopolitical architectureWhat has planetary-scale computation done to our geopolitical realities? It takes different forms at different scales -- from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self -- quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors algorithms and robots Together how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image?In The Stack Benjamin Bratton proposes that
these different genres of computation -- smart grids cloud platforms mobile apps smart cities the Internet of Things automation -- can be seen not as so many species evolving on their own but as forming a coherent whole an accidental megastructure called The Stack that is both a computational apparatus and a new governing architecture We are inside The Stack and it is inside of us In an account that is both theoretical and technical drawing on political philosophy architectural theory and software studies Bratton explores six layers of The Stack Earth Cloud City Address Interface User Each is mapped on its own terms and understood as a component within the larger whole built from hard and soft systems intermingling -- not only computational forms but also social human and physical forces
This model informed by the logic of the multilayered structure of protocol "stacks" in which network technologies operate within a modular and vertical order offers a comprehensive image of our emerging infrastructure and a platform for its ongoing reinvention The Stack is an interdisciplinary design brief for a new geopolitics that works with and for planetary-scale computation Interweaving the continental urban and perceptual scales it shows how we can better build dwell within communicate with and govern our worldsthestackorg