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dc.contributor.authorChu, Wesley
dc.date.accessioned2019-10-17 15:01:43 (GMT)
dc.date.available2019-10-17 15:01:43 (GMT)
dc.date.issued2019-10-17
dc.date.submitted2019-10-04
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/15207
dc.description.abstractDay by day, the rate at which we create new data increases exponentially. Our capacity to learn cannot keep up. We are tiny members of a vast universal network, incapable of discerning cause and effect. Instead, we develop simplified narratives, leaving ourselves misguided yet complacent. The information management trade of both physical and intellectual property has become more vital to global economies than ever, replacing physical resources and manufacturing. Through our deepening reliance on specialization, we forfeit agency over our own homes while accruing unprecedented debt. Housing costs have risen dramatically compared to wages, despite reportedly successful economies. Citizens were supposed to have the ability to participate in financial markets using their property as collateral. This seduced many into the ideologies of unregulated capitalism. However, by the 21st century, these systems had become unrecognizable mutilations of their intended designs. The momentum we have gathered in the past century has thrust us on an unsustainable trajectory we have little hope of predicting. We laid the foundation for Western economic dominance with technology, monetary policy, and globalization, but we did so using incentive structures that exacerbated wealth inequality. These systems integrate digital technology into both our physical and virtual spaces, operating on invisible planes that bypass our senses. The radical novelty of computers has entangled us in niche engineered concepts that few understand. They create a lack of accountability in Big Tech that policy-makers are ill-prepared for. We cannot ensure an equitable distribution of the leverage or stakes when we entrust brokers, politicians, traders, and captains of industry to make complex decisions for us without bearing the risks of their consequences. Our long-term welfare, including our future habitation on this planet, is not visceral enough to force effective reform. Both our physical and our digital spaces are designed, built, evaluated, and monitored on asymmetric principles, causing disasters that future generations and the least fortunate always pay for. How did we normalize this moral hazard? How can digital systems born out of frustration with modern policy combat these issues, without disrupting the benefits of a techno-utopia? How can they promote efficiency, security, and transparency in the spaces we call home?en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity of Waterlooen
dc.subjectdebten
dc.subjectdataen
dc.subjectdaemonen
dc.subjectneural networken
dc.subjectbig dataen
dc.subjectbitcoinen
dc.subjectblockchainen
dc.subjectphilosophyen
dc.subjectdeterminismen
dc.subjectmoneyen
dc.subjectmortgageen
dc.subjecthousing crisisen
dc.subjectglobalizationen
dc.subjecttechnologyen
dc.subjectautomationen
dc.subjectsystemsen
dc.subjectdeep learningen
dc.subjectclimate changeen
dc.subjectclimate crisisen
dc.subjectglobal warmingen
dc.subjectbondsen
dc.subjectfederal reserveen
dc.subjectbanken
dc.subjectevolutionen
dc.subjectdnaen
dc.subjectcongoen
dc.subjectcoltanen
dc.subjectcobalten
dc.subjectbig techen
dc.subjecttaxen
dc.subjectsubprimeen
dc.subjectlaunderingen
dc.subjectreal estateen
dc.subjectbrokeren
dc.subjecttraderen
dc.subjectinterneten
dc.subjectnetworken
dc.subjectfacebooken
dc.subjectgoogleen
dc.subjectbuckminster fulleren
dc.titleData, Debt & Daemons: Systemic Asymmetries on Spaceship Earthen
dc.typeMaster Thesisen
dc.pendingfalse
uws-etd.degree.departmentSchool of Architectureen
uws-etd.degree.disciplineArchitectureen
uws-etd.degree.grantorUniversity of Waterlooen
uws-etd.degreeMaster of Architectureen
uws.contributor.advisorMcKay, Donald
uws.contributor.affiliation1Faculty of Engineeringen
uws.published.cityWaterlooen
uws.published.countryCanadaen
uws.published.provinceOntarioen
uws.typeOfResourceTexten
uws.peerReviewStatusUnrevieweden
uws.scholarLevelGraduateen


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