Doughnut Computing: Aiming at human and ecological well-being (Past)

Veronica Dahl (NSERC, Simon Fraser University) 

Thursday, Oct 28, 16:30 – 17:00 

Abstract: Computing Sciences evolved from social organizations with unequal power distribution, based on forced hierarchies partly justified by the dualist idea, held by philosophical tradition from Plato to Descartes, that humans are separate from and superior to “nature”. This idea was extended and leveraged by dominant élites to cheapen or degrade the “others” (nature, women, non-whites, resource-rich countries…) which enabled them to take from others much more than is given back. 

In coherence with this mindset, and despite its many socially useful results, CS has enabled governments and corporations to use data collection, statistics and algorithms as instruments to preserve and deepen an unequal status quo which is destroying the living world and pauperizing and marginalizing women, racialized people, diversities and former colonies—in short, those whose unpaid or underpaid work and resources support the dominant groups many-fold. 

We argue that CS must explicitly support the goal of enabling social and ecological well-being and we propose a CS methodology based on inferential programming, capable of helping us achieve this goal through computationally supporting the Doughnut model (K. Raworth, 2017) as a compass.