Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Since I’m now going to speak of a debt to the center, one extending from the originary event to the latest Quantitative Easing of the Fed, the question of data as currency can be further clarified. That humanity is constituted in debt to the center is, first of all, a consequential enough thesis to dwell on a bit. The notion of an exchange with the center has been (perhaps an understated) part of GA from the beginning, and the undeniable observation that it is an asymmetrical exchange, with the center first giving and those on the periphery then responding in kind, makes talk of debt unavoidable. Why, for that matter, should we want to avoid it, unless we’re holding on to liberal fantasies, which take an even more devastating hit from the insistence on an originary indebtedness? The debt grows as the interval in which it is issued and then discharged is prolonged, and interest is accrued as we are indebted to all the previous debtors as well. Many features of human life which often become dysfunctional and, indeed, seem to many to be dysfunctional in their “normal” forms, like guilt and unwavering devotion to individuals, principles, causes, communities and projects, become much easier to understand in terms of originary indebtedness. The originary debt can never be paid back, but we can also never leave off paying our regular installments—a genuine compulsion, which is to say, imperative, is in place here.”

— Adam Katz, Data as Currency and the Debt to the Center · Apr 04, 2023 · Bouvard Substack