09 / Practical Philosophy
Eco-Digital
Eco-Digital is a practical humanities that understands matter, energy, data, algorithms, sensation, relations, and responsibility as a single ecological chain within Artificial Nature, where technology has already become the human environment, and seeks to redesign that environment for coexistence.
1. Definition
Eco-Digital is a practical humanities that understands matter, energy, data, algorithms, sensation, relations, and responsibility as a single ecological chain within Artificial Nature, where technology has already become the human environment, and seeks to redesign that environment for coexistence.
If Artificial Nature asks what environment we inhabit, Eco-Digital asks how we should live within and redesign that environment.
2. Ecological transition rather than technological refusal
Eco-Digital is not anti-technological. Once Artificial Nature has become a living environment, returning outside technology cannot be the solution. The question is not whether to eliminate technology, but within what relations we are to coexist with it.
3. Scope of ecology
Ecology here does not mean environmental conservation alone. It includes the material ecology of energy and minerals consumed by data centers, but also:
- information pollution
- algorithmic bias
- automation of sensation
- distribution of attention
- severance of relations
- platform power
- homogenization of experience
These too are ecological problems of Artificial Nature.
4. From user-centered to relation-centered
Convenient user experience has long been a central criterion of digital design. Yet an experience cannot be called good if one user’s convenience transfers costs to other humans, workers, environments, communities, or future generations.
Eco-Digital demands a transition from user-centered design to relation-centered and coexistence-centered design. Coexistence experience moves design away from individual efficiency toward relational experience.
Core Structure
- USER-CENTEREDRelation-centered
- EFFICIENCYCoexistence
- TOOLEnvironment
KEY PROPOSITION
Eco-Digital is a critical and practical humanities that recognizes Artificial Nature as an ecosystem and seeks to transform efficiency-centered technological environments into relational environments capable of coexistence by considering together technology’s material costs, algorithmic arrangements, sensory effects, and relational responsibilities.
Connected Research
Related Concepts
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