Necropolitics In IoT.pdf

The convergence of science, technology, and centralized political and economic interests is leading to a technoscientific intensification of anti-democratic governing procedures. This convergence is international in scope and poses a challenge to democracy. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a key infrastructure in this convergence, enabling the integration of digital communication systems with living bodies and institutional power-knowledge ensembles.

The IoT is being used to deploy global and specific integrative procedures in scientific R&D and geopolitics, aiming to decode the human brain, hack biosystems, and engineer social apartheid. This is characterized as a necropolitical economy, where rights are suspended and populations are culled through state of emergency/state of siege warfare.

Cognitive warfare and biohacking are key components of this necropolitical economy. Cognitive warfare refers to the application of neuroscientific systems and neurotechnologies to non-kinetic battlefield engagements, using means such as neurotechnologies, neuroscience systems, and neuro-psychopharmacological substances. Biohacking combines tactics of cyber and cognitive warfare, using computational and algorithmic technologies combined with biophysiological knowledge and nanoscale biosensors.

The diagram of necropower, as conceptualized by Achille Mbembe, is a key framework for understanding this convergence. It metabolizes materials in a permanent state of siege, assimilating and transforming some materials and expelling others. The IoT is a critical infrastructure in this diagram, enabling the integration of cognitive and biological ecologies under the control of a necropolitical power-knowledge ensemble.

Key features of this necropolitical economy include:

The suspension of rights and the culling of populations through state of emergency/state of siege warfare
The integration of digital communication systems with living bodies and institutional power-knowledge ensembles
The use of cognitive warfare and biohacking to decode the human brain, hack biosystems, and engineer social apartheid
The deployment of global and specific integrative procedures in scientific R&D and geopolitics

Overall, the convergence of science, technology, and centralized political and economic interests is leading to a technoscientific intensification of anti-democratic governing procedures, posing a significant challenge to democracy and human rights.