THE CYBER PUZZLE: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF CYBERSPACE

Abstract

Cyberspace, notably through information and communications technology, veers toward ubiquity and intersects with every significant area of life. Although it informs numerous futures, both harmful and empowering to individuals, it is primarily deemed consequential only when kinetic events, data exfiltration, or economic impacts occur. This dissertation critiques and problematizes an ecosystem of people and technology to identify hidden costs that are often omitted from expert discourse. By examining Meta’s “Terms and Conditions,” Apple Vision Pro, Synchron’s brain-computer interface, GamerGate, and the false missile alert in Hawai‘i, four central claims are produced. First, power and control have mutated their forms alongside cyberspace and are fueled by a fear of missing out, coercive models of user “consent,” and cyberspace access being made a prerequisite to obtaining human needs and desires. Second, cyberspace has caused a hyper-acceleration of the augmented subject, producing a soft yet novel formation of power and a distinct apparatus of horror as part of the undying project to optimize people and things. Third, there is no true digital-kinetic or digital-physical divide; instead, assemblages of avatars, memes, people, echo chambers, social connections, posts, and other objects produce a terrain of affects that inherently emerges across multiple spaces. Fourth, people are hyper-mediated by cyberspace in a manner that amplifies unpredictable, chaotic, and complex violence. Ultimately, this dissertation attempts to enrich discourse that camouflages the underlying sociotechnical operations of cyberspace.