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consensus in Stalder 2018

he
proceeds not from the idea of unity, which is threatened whenever
"others" are empowered to speak and needs to be preserved, but rather
from the irreducible multiplicity that, through laborious processes, can
be brought into temporary and limited consensus. Bhabha\'s vision of
culture is one without immutable authorities, interpretations, and
truths. In theory, everything can be brought to the table. This is not a
situation in which anything goes, yet the central meaning of
negotiation, the contextuality of consensus, and the mutability of every
frame of reference []{#Page_32 type="pagebreak" title="32"}-- none of
which can be shared equally by everyone -- are always potentially
negotiable.

Post-colonialism draws attention to the "disruptive power of the
exclude

litary, etc.)
form a constant background in everyday
life.[^66^](#c1-note-0066){#c1-note-0066a} Similarly influential,
Antonio Gramsci\'s theory of "cultural hegemony" emphasized the
condition in which the governed are manipulated to form a cultural
consensus with the ruling class; they accept the latter\'s
presuppositions (and the politics which are thus justified) even though,
by doing so, they are forced to suffer economic
disadvantages.[^67^](#c1-note-0067){#c1-note-0067a} Guy Debord and the
Situation

as soon realized, however, that every common activity and
every common decision entailed processes that were time-intensive and
communication-intensive. As soon as a group exceeded a certain size, it
became practically impossible for it to reach any consensus. As a result
of these experiences, an entire worldview emerged that propagated
"smallness" as a central []{#Page_49 type="pagebreak" title="49"}value
("small is beautiful"). It was thought that in this way society might
escape from bureaucracy with i

hem
with the central catchword for their alternative vision: community.
Though rather difficult to define, it was a powerful and positive term
that somehow promised the opposite of bureaucracy: humanity,
cooperation, horizontality, mutual trust, and consensus. Now, however,
humanity was expected to be reconfigured as a community in cooperation
with and inseparable from machines. And what was yearned for had become
a liberating symbiosis of man and machine, an idea that the author
Richard Brautigan was qui

ary,
academic, and countercultural interests -- was offered by David D.
Clark, a computer scientist who for some time coordinated the
development of technical standards for the internet: "We reject: kings,
presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running
code."[^88^](#c1-note-0088){#c1-note-0088a}

All forms of classical, formal hierarchies and their methods for
resolving conflicts -- commands (by kings and presidents) and votes --
were dismissed. Implemented in their place was a pragmatics of open
cooperation that was oriented around two guiding principles. The first
was that different views should be discussed without a single individual
being able to block any final decisions. Such was the meaning of the
expression "rough consensus." The second was that, in accordance with
the classical engineering tradition, the focus should remain on concrete
solutions that had to be measured against one []{#Page_52
type="pagebreak" title="52"}another on the basis of transparent
criteria. Suc

Clark created the so-called
Request-for-Comments documents, with which ideas could be presented to
interested members of the community and simultaneous feedback could be
collected in order to work through the ideas in question and thus reach
a rough consensus. If such a consensus could not be reached -- if, for
instance, an idea failed to resonate with anyone or was too
controversial -- then the matter would be dropped. The feedback was
organized as a form of many-to-many communication through email lists,
newsgroups, and onl

e,
would necessarily introduce hierarchical structures for the sake of
reducing complexity and communication. In other words, the foundations
were laid for larger numbers of (changing) people to organize flexibly
and with the aim of building an open consensus. For Manuel Castells,
this combination of organizational flexibility and scalability in size
is the decisive innovation that was enabled by the rise of the network
society.[^89^](#c1-note-0089){#c1-note-0089a} At the same time, however,
this meant th

reach in practice. This,
however, is not an individual decision but rather a task that can only
be approached collectively. Those places which are important and thus
near are determined by communal formations. This takes place in the form
of a rough consensus through the blogs that "one" has to read, the
exhibits that "one" has to see, the events and conferences that "one"
has to attend, the places that "one" has to visit before they are
overrun by tourists, the crises in which "the West" has to intervene

ch other\'s work. The scientific community (or
better: the sub-community of a specialized discourse) []{#Page_93
type="pagebreak" title="93"}evaluates the contributions of individual
scholars. They decide what should be considered valuable, and this
consensus can theoretically be revised at any time. It is based on a
particular catalog of criteria, on an interpretive framework that
provides lines of inquiry, methods, appraisals, and conventions of
presentation. With every article, this framework is confir

rules, and patterns of behavior
on all levels. Thus, they provide a degree of cultural homogeneity, a
set of commonalities that lend these new formations their communal
nature. Viewed from the outside, these formations therefore seem
inclined toward consensus and uniformity, for their members have already
accepted and internalized certain aspects in common -- the protocols
that enable exchange itself -- whereas everyone on the outside has not
done so. When everyone is speaking in English, the conversation

d by charismatic
figures without a formal mandate. They are "benevolent" because their
pos­ition of authority is based on the fact that a critical mass of
participating producers has voluntarily subordinated itself for its own
self-interest. If the consensus breaks over whose contributions have
been carrying the most weight, then the formation will be at risk of
losing its internal structure and splitting apart ("forking," in the
jargon of free software).
:::
:::

::: {.section}
Algorithmicity {#c2-sec-0

that oscillates between paternalism and
authoritarianism. Issues that concern the common good have been
delegated to "autonomous IT systems" and removed from public debate. By
now, the exercise of power, which shapes society, is based less on basic
consensus and cultural hegemony than it is on the technocratic argument
that "there is no alternative" and that the (informational) environment
in which people have to orient themselves should be optimized through
comprehensive control and manipulation -- whet

t their activity neither according to price
signals (markets) nor according to instructions or commands
(hierarchies), social communication among the members is the most
important means of self-organization. This communication is intended to
achieve consensus and the voluntary acceptance of negotiated rules, for
only in such a way is it possible to maintain the voluntary nature of
the arrangement and to keep internal controls at a minimum. Voting,
which is meant to legitimize the preferences of a majority, is thus
somewhat rare, and when it does happen, it is only of subordinate
significance. The main issue is to build consensus, and this is usually
a complex process requiring intensive communication. One of the reasons
why the very old practice of the commons is now being readopted and
widely discussed is because communication-intensive and horizontal
processes can be organ

in in the group. This is in the interest of all
participants, and thus the authority of the most active members is
seldom called into question. This does not mean, however, that there are
no differences of opinion within commons. Here, too, reaching consensus
can be a time-consuming process. Among the most important
characteristics of all commons are thus mechanisms for decision-making
that involve members in a variety of ways. The rules that govern the
commons are established by the members themselves. T

he license) to the end of May 2009, when the voting period
concluded. All told, 17,462 votes were cast, of which only 10.5 percent
rejected the proposed changes. More important than the result, however,
was the way it had come about: through a long, consensus-building
process of discussion, for which the final vote served above all to make
the achieved consensus unambiguously
clear.[^85^](#c3-note-0085){#c3-note-0085a} All other decisions that
concern the project as a whole were and continue to be reached in a
similar way. Here, too, input legitimation is at least on an equal
footing with output legitimation

the
encyclopedia, it would be possible to finance the project, which accrued
costs of around 45 million dollars during the 2013--14 fiscal year,
through advertising (in the same manner, that is, as commercial mass
media). Yet there has always been a consensus against this. Instead,
Wikipedia is financed through donations. In 2013--14, the website was
able to raise \$51 million, 37 million of []{#Page_164 type="pagebreak"
title="164"}which came from approximately 2.5 million contributors, each
of whom dona

tle="165"}is significant objection to your plan --
and even minorities may be significant! -- then change it or drop it
altogether."[^88^](#c3-note-0088){#c3-note-0088a} Here, again, there is
the typical objection to voting and a focus on building a consensus that
does not have to be perfect but simply good enough for the overwhelming
majority of the community to acknowledge it (a "rough consensus").
Today, the coverage and quality of the maps that can be generated from
these data are so good for so many areas that they now represent serious
competition to commercial digital alternatives. OSM data are used not
only by Wikipedia and other non-c

e 2009/72/EC, which stipulates
that, by the year 2020, 80 percent of all households in the EU will have
to be equipped with an intelligent metering system.[]{#Page_200
type="pagebreak" title="200"}

[52](#c3-note-0052a){#c3-note-0052}  There is no consensus about how or
whether smart meters will contribute to the more efficient use of
energy. On the contrary, one study commissioned by the German Federal
Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy concluded that the
comprehensive implementation of smart met

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