Presented at
A New HOPE (2022),
July 24, 2022, 3 p.m.
(50 minutes)
Living systems reuse everything. From metabolic pathways, to DNA and amino acids, to nutrient cycles - modularity, extensibility, and re-use are fundamental to the evolution and sustenance of complex life. Living systems are robust and adaptable precisely because of their ability to reconfigure without needing to "re-invent."
Many social systems are quite the opposite. They are oriented around forms of power (e.g. property, secrecy, inequality) that stifle and prevent the relations that characterize life. If we look at the world through this lens, we might call social/economic/legal/political systems that enable repairability, interoperability, and maintainability (i.e., hackability) systems of life - and those that prohibit hackability systems of death.
This session will explore a hacker ethos that envisions freedom as something more complex and entangled than individual autonomy - i.e., beyond the right to reuse code or repair devices as a matter of individual rights and toward a vision of a hackable world. It will start with a brief exploration of the dynamics of systems of life, and then discuss some examples of hacking as a living process and some conceptual tools for applying this view while focusing on some of the major impediments.
Presenters:
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Dr. Isaac Overcast
**Isaac Overcast** (**@isaacovercast**) is a computational biologist interested in unifying models of ecological and evolutionary processes to better understand how biodiversity is generated and maintained. From 2019 to 2021 he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Morlon group at Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, where he developed theory and models of island biodiversity genomics, in association with the EU funded iBioGen project. Isaac is currently a postdoc in the EcoEvoMatics lab at the University of Maine working on the Rules of Life Engine (the RoLE model), a continuation of his theoretical unification approach.
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Abi Hassen
**Abi Hassen** (**@abihassen**) is a lawyer, hardware hacker, and aspiring political philosopher. He is a partner at O'Neill and Hassen LLP, a law practice focused on indigent criminal defense, and co-founder of Black Movement Law Project, a legal support rapid response group that grew out of the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. Formerly, he was mass defense coordinator at the National Lawyers Guild. Abi has also worked as a political strategist, union organizer, and community organizer. He is interested in exploring the nature and potentials of movement organizing and the interface of political organizations and social movements with other complex systems such as the law, capitalism, and climate. Abi has a J.D. from NYU School of Law and an M.A. in political philosophy from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.
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