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Nodes 93 to our bodies, which has triggered a heightened cultural and social anxiety about the threat of contagion. But are we not missing an important distinction in this discussion of SARS and anthrax? Is there not an important distinction between naturally occurring diseases such as SARS and those intentionally constructed and disseminated in bioterrorist acts? International organizations such as the WHO and national ones such as the CDC use the term “emerging infectious disease” for naturally occurring, active diseases that have not yet been observed or identified. A majority of emerging infectious diseases are mutations of common diseases in other species, as is the case with SARS, as well as other emerging infectious diseases (Mad Cow, West Nile, H5N1/ bird flu, among others). The description of emerging infectious diseases as “naturally occurring” is meant, among other things, to sharply distinguish them from nonnatural instances of disease—most notably in acts of bioterrorism. This division between emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism pivots on the question of agency and causality, and the implications of this division are worth considering, if only briefly. In bioterrorism there is an instrumental use of biology as a weapon—there is a subject, often motivated by ideology, using biology as a weapon. This subject is therefore accountable because there is a clear cause - and - effect relationship. In this case, the subject would then be treated legally as a criminal using a weapon to carry out an act of violence. Yet in the case of emerging infectious diseases, there is no subject. There is, of course, a sometimes hypothetical “patient zero,” which serves as the index of a cross - species migration, but there is no agential subject that intentionally “causes” the disease. This attribution of the disease to nature has both a mystifying and alienating effect, especially in the alarmism that much media reportage fosters. There is no subject, no motivation, no original act, and no ideology— only rates of infection, identification of the disease - causing agent, and detection procedures. From the point of view of causality, emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism are self - evidently different. Yet from the point of view of their effects—their network effects—they are the same.
94 Nodes That is, while emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism may have different points of origin, their resultant effects are quite similar—the processes of infection, dissemination, and propagation serve to spread both emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorist agents. For this reason, a number of earlier infectious diseases (such as smallpox or polio) have been the subject of biowarfare research. The causes may be different, but the results are the same. This should give us pause. It is not a question of mere numbers such as the number of people infected or sick—and this is not a metaphorical claim, as in the viral “meme” of anthrax. It is a point about different types of biological networks that are also more than biological. The protocol of these networks proceeds by the biological principles of epidemiology (infection rates, death and recovery rates, area of infection, etc.). But their overall organization is akin to the previous claims about computer viruses, for it is precisely the standardization of networks, along with their distributed topology, that enables an emerging infectious disease to maintain a certain level of effectiveness. The air travel industry works exceedingly well, as does the communications media network. Computer viruses and emerging infectious diseases profit from these modern conveniences. Both emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism reveal the sometimes uncanny, unsettling, and distinctly nonhuman aspect of networks. There is a defacement of enmity, but an antagonism lingers nonetheless. A single rogue may send an anthrax - tainted letter, or a single animal may be carrying a lethal virus, but one learns nothing about the network effects—and the network affect—of such diseases by focusing simply on one human subject, one viral sample, one link in the network, or the network’s supposed point of origin. Shift from or to and: it is not emerging infectious diseases or bioterrorism, but rather emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism. Like computer viruses, emerging infectious diseases are frustratingly nonhuman.
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The Exploit
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The Exploit A Theory of Networks Al
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Contents On Reading This Book vii P
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On Reading This Book It is our inte
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Prolegomenon “We’re Tired of Tr
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Prolegomenon 3 opportunities that t
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Prolegomenon 5 centralized armies f
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Prolegomenon 7 the other hand, the
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Prolegomenon 9 Following Foucault,
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Prolegomenon 11 Provisional Respons
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Prolegomenon 13 comes to thinking a
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Prolegomenon 15 grams, where ultima
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Prolegomenon 17 rorism in the same
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Prolegomenon 19 has nothing to do w
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Prolegomenon 21 sovereignty. In the
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PART I Nodes The quest for “unive
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Nodes Discourse surrounding network
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Nodes 27 Benkler, and others, posit
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Nodes 29 cols such as http, FTP, an
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Nodes 31 tify the political fissure
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Nodes 33 From the perspective of gr
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Nodes 35 Indeed, one of the argumen
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Nodes 37 works. Would it be enough
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Nodes 39 and “rule” lies. The n
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Nodes 41 modulating, in flux, alive
Page 52 and 53: Nodes 43 ning of the data object. F
Page 54 and 55: Nodes 45 number of top - level name
Page 56 and 57: Nodes 47 This process may be partia
Page 58 and 59: Nodes 49 Biotechnologies today have
Page 60 and 61: Nodes 51 be it in the living cell,
Page 62 and 63: Nodes 53 DNA computing demonstrates
Page 64 and 65: Nodes 55 greater the number of insi
Page 66 and 67: Nodes 57 more accurate or successfu
Page 68 and 69: Nodes 59 takes on new forms in the
Page 70 and 71: Nodes 61 and at all scales. Perhaps
Page 72 and 73: Nodes 63 many current network - bas
Page 74 and 75: Nodes 65 face because enmity is alw
Page 76 and 77: Nodes 67 As a concept, swarming der
Page 78 and 79: Nodes 69 Places where faces shouldn
Page 80 and 81: Nodes 71 at which “life itself
Page 82 and 83: Nodes 73 A crucial challenge is to
Page 84 and 85: Nodes 75 concern is not safety anym
Page 86 and 87: Nodes 77 is central in the developm
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Page 90 and 91: Nodes 81 Perhaps what is most instr
Page 92 and 93: Nodes 83 ever, the language of biol
Page 94 and 95: Nodes 85 computer’s normal MBR. E
Page 96 and 97: Nodes 87 amples of computer and bio
Page 98 and 99: Nodes 89 identify Lyme disease, the
Page 100 and 101: Nodes 91 Web sites, databases, and
Page 104 and 105: Nodes 95 True, in extreme cases suc
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Page 108 and 109: Nodes 99 guarded condition, it will
Page 110 and 111: Nodes 101 Societies of Control . .
Page 112 and 113: PART II Edges —Well there it is.
Page 114 and 115: Edges The Datum of Cura I Imagine a
Page 116 and 117: Edges 107 In these visions of healt
Page 118 and 119: Edges 109 control it seeks to estab
Page 120 and 121: Edges 111 treatise: Machiavelli’s
Page 122 and 123: Edges 113 Joseph - Marie Jacquard h
Page 124 and 125: Edges 115 but that, in the guise of
Page 126 and 127: Edges 117 tension, duration, and in
Page 128 and 129: Edges 119 abstract, mathematical pr
Page 130 and 131: Edges 121 Consider current developm
Page 132 and 133: Edges 123 simply mean symmetrical c
Page 134 and 135: Edges 125 focuses on code in isolat
Page 136 and 137: Edges 127 player online games, and
Page 138 and 139: Edges 129 role of medicine is to re
Page 140 and 141: Edges 131 of the supernatural, a di
Page 142 and 143: Edges 133 proteins, processes that
Page 144 and 145: Edges 135 muted into quality,” wr
Page 146 and 147: Edges 137 which cannot be cast into
Page 148 and 149: Edges 139 the thing, a particular f
Page 150 and 151: Edges 141 If Latour gives us a para
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Edges 143 tion. Nondistinction effa
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Edges 145 from the technological ve
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Edges 147 spellings, grammatical er
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Coda: Bits and Atoms Networks are a
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Coda 151 robustness that centralize
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Coda 153 tributed network form, jus
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Coda 155 The point here is not that
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Coda 157 ignored, and the network i
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Appendix Notes for a Liberated Comp
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Appendix 161 infinity palimpsest po
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Appendix 163 singular unordered vit
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lose DEVICE mutate SEQUENCE narcole
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Notes Prolegomenon 1. For more on t
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Notes 169 7. Gilles Deleuze, Negoti
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Notes 171 clude GM foods, chemical
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Notes 173 bodies, the new nondiscip
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Notes 175 61. For a popular overvie
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Notes 177 22. On December 1, 2003
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Notes 179 6. Ibid., 2. 7. Ibid., 20
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Electronic Mediations Katherine Hay
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Index abandonment, 110- 11, 136 Abu
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Index 185 body politic, 109- 11 Boe
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Index 187 distributed network. See
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Index 189 Health and Human Services
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Index 191 Metzger, Gustav, 108 Mich
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Index 193 poltergeist, 161 populati
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Index 195 TCP/ IP. See Internet pro
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Alexander R. Galloway is assistant
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