Reading 5: Hacking the cis-tem
This assignment is due on Sunday, April 27 at 11:59pm.
Exercise 1. Watch the following video from 11m50s to 24m00s. (The automatically generated captions might help.)
“anyways, it’s always absurd when computer folk yearn for a space to do technical work ‘without politics.’
my sweet summer child, you studied a tool that inherently amplifies force. you have unlocked hard mode”
Exercise 2. Read the article “Hacking the cis-tem: transgender citizens and the early digital state” by Hicks. Focus on how different computations described by Hicks enforce different social norms.
Exercise 3. Find one sentence in the article where Hicks describes a computation.
A computation is a process whose inputs and outputs are clearly defined, as if you could write its signature, purpose, and examples. A computation might also have methods and formulas that are precisely specified, as if you could write its template and definition.
Remember that computations are different from computers: calculating grades, recording names, and searching for photos are all computations, whether performed by humans, computers, or both. However, it is not a computation to recover from sickness, to get a job, to participate in democracy, to unpack fictions, or to resist power.
Exercise 4. Find one sentence in the article where Hicks describes a social norm.
A social norm is something in society that usually happens, or people think it usually happens, or people think it should usually happen.