#1 Arjun Appadurai, "Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance" (2015)

00:00:00: (automatically generated) What was wrong, was the idea of the individual

00:00:02: Not because I'm against that idea but it has been destroyed.

00:00:06: It is being destroyed by processes in modern capitalism and modern numerical systems And then most recently financial ones.

00:00:15: All have sliced us up

00:00:24: featuring new and classic books in anthropology with the authors who are based at Bielefeld University or guest scholars.

00:00:34: I am Lana Elmani, a student in the Faculty of Sociology

00:00:38: &

00:00:39: Producer of this podcast.

00:00:42: Our Guest Arjun Appadurai

00:00:44: is Emeritus

00:00:45: Professor of Media Culture And Communication At New York University.

00:00:51: He has also held professorial chairs at the University of Pennsylvania, The University of Chicago Yale university.

00:01:00: The new school and New York University.

00:01:04: he is the author or editor Of fifteen books And have more than a hundred and fifty articles.

00:01:13: He's widely acknowledged expert on globalization media cities and democracy.

00:01:19: He currently lives in Berlin and is the two-thousand twenty six holder of the Niklas Luhmann Visiting Chair, in Social Theory at Bielefeld University.

00:01:30: Our host Hirogyn is an anthropologist and postdoctoral research associate for The Research Project Financial Lives at the Faculty of Sociology at Bilefeld University.

00:01:44: She received her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge.

00:01:50: Her research focuses on finance, business and economic life.

00:02:14: that contributes to a broader understanding of the contract of nature, our financial products.

00:02:22: I think we should start with very brief reflection on the contents of this book and how you trace the rise in finance as a discipline And also the financial industry is a rapidly growing system That's getting independent every moment as we're talking, and how you analyse this whole change is the rights of discipline in industry.

00:02:51: As part of a cultural phenomenon for our society.

00:02:55: I think i would like to open conversation with any brief reflection on book.

00:03:00: Thank You very much Hyro!

00:03:02: Im happy be in this conversation.

00:03:06: the great honor of being at Bielefeld as the Luhmann Professor in the Sociology faculty.

00:03:16: I am delighted to return to this subject which appeared late in twenty sixteen, so it's ten years old.

00:03:28: time flies but i believe its issues remain with us and broad issues are risk debt wealth and planning, financial planning in ordinary life as well is the life of institutions.

00:03:50: So two quick words about what brought me to write this book.

00:03:58: one was that the trigger for many of us was the collapse financial collapse ordinary people but also for bankers, investors central bank heads anybody who is invested in the financial world.

00:04:21: And I was among those people who had a pension to worry about other things to worry abut and so the question was what does this collapse?

00:04:29: Will i lose everything?

00:04:30: will we loose everything?

00:04:32: So there's another personal context...and I was already in New York when this catastrophe struck.

00:04:42: At the same time, I was part of a group of friends and colleagues who felt that anthropologists and others who didn't know much about finance needed to learn so they could both understand what's happening.

00:04:56: And contribute... ...to the reduction in risk for catastrophe and behave like informed citizens In this area which is highly technical.

00:05:09: So we felt that we needed to pool our knowledge.

00:05:13: Some of us were new quite a bit about finance, some of us knew very little but we found the platform or discussion group to exchange our knowledge, exchange ideas and we produced some collective work also around twenty sixteen-twenty seventeen maybe a little later in my book as My Own Contribution in Twenty Sixteen banking on.

00:05:41: So, the summary is I was very much like a lay person trying to understand this space but using my own training and background rather than trying to become financial analyst or expert.

00:05:56: Thank you very much!

00:05:58: It's very interesting to see the problem of finance from an anthropological perspective because I think it's in the two core essays.

00:06:15: In this book, which was originally published in journal articles The Ghost and the Machine And Spirit of Calculation.

00:06:25: Those two articles offered us a very interesting ground to reflect our very foundational question Where did these beliefs in the market comes from, which you concluded as an economy based on faith.

00:06:42: The faith is something fundamentally can be built upon and believed that... ...the market would eventually solve a problem.

00:06:53: The market will eventually return back to efficiency are locating the social resources in the best way possible.

00:07:05: So I think, this narrative was mostly based on US-centered financial system which expanded to other countries because of the hedge money position that the dollar system holds.

00:07:25: To know your opinion about how this idea of the faith in market might also spread or transform to societies who didn't have a long history of developing based on market exchanges, like a market-centered economy.

00:07:45: What what about society when this modern financial system was enforced?

00:07:53: First and then society tried to catch up with its rhythm.

00:07:58: Yeah, thank you Harro for that excellent question about the comparative features of the financial system let's say even in the last twenty years or so but also the circulating features.

00:08:14: what moves?

00:08:15: What doesn't move?

00:08:21: order of things.

00:08:22: Not everything moves with the same speed and not, everything is taken up either by states or by ordinary citizens in the same way in different parts of world such as India China Africa Middle East outside the Euro-American World.

00:08:40: how does that happen?

00:08:43: So a very general observation which guided me who in his time was also asking, how does capitalism move around?

00:08:58: What shape does it take in India and China and Islam in Africa.

00:09:03: In a way I'm sitting on his shoulders asking that same question again except this time about financial markets.

00:09:12: he also had another huge influence of me which i think is quite evident in the book Which Is To Put The Question Of Religion At The Center of the question of market or economics, entrepreneurship.

00:09:25: All these he had his very big answer which is has to do with Protestant ethic and it's part most famous work that I have read many times just for benefit larger audience.

00:09:40: remind people book articles became a famous book in the spirit of capitalism.

00:09:50: That book, which was written around nineteen oh four essentially said that capitalism today is the current crystallization of a very different impulse.

00:10:04: Which is not economic calculative or profit based originally?

00:10:10: That originally it had to do with a sense of being a virtuous individual and appearing so a Protestant God who had already decided whether you were one of the saved or not.

00:10:27: So, people in that system have a terrible problem.

00:10:30: if they are determined then what's their point?

00:10:33: The answer was by behaving with the way that God would like at least celebrate him even though he is trying to manipulate his decision, which was made already.

00:10:48: So there are some paradoxes here and a lot of debate but the simple current value of Weber's thought is that when you see very big system economic actions ideas ideologies values always ask what is longer or deeper cultural or specifically religious environment, and you will always find something.

00:11:19: You won't find a zero.

00:11:21: so those are I would say the contextual thoughts.

00:11:26: finally as far as circulation goes i'm still not so knowledgeable except based on work of others.

00:11:35: what happens in places like India China Middle East?

00:11:39: there are actually huge gaps.

00:11:42: Even today, if you say for example that somebody in Saudi Arabia is a derivative straighter he has something looks like a Bloomberg terminal and doing some thing but his mindset been formed different way.

00:11:59: what do we know about it?

00:12:01: And the screen makes him just like his counterpart on Wall Street or Beijing or Shanghai?

00:12:09: I don't think so, but it's very subtle because the technical common language of financial trading etc.

00:12:17: is Very strong.

00:12:18: But it doesn't mean everybody brings a same thing to it.

00:12:21: So i think that Is one path towards comparative question?

00:12:26: I would like to pick up this topic and To maybe for us to further discuss what might be The difference Of people are thinking when they're trading.

00:12:37: For example I think you did a very brilliant job in the book, analysing how financial products and trading was fundamentally future-oriented.

00:12:50: So it considers whether a future promise would be continued or broken which kind of reflects to the broader society as future has been one of the biggest word at stake.

00:13:04: You might have noticed but like protest from younger generations, they use this slogan of taking back the future a lot in those kind of movements.

00:13:18: As if the future has already been taken away or determined.

00:13:22: The Younger People's Future Has Been Taken Away might as well be understood some sort of broken promise for their future And I think this has largely many things to do with the financialization process that put our present most largely already in arrangement of trading, future derivatives.

00:13:47: Everything is being insured.

00:13:49: Yes!

00:13:50: That's a very important and interesting observation about the future feeling for younger generations, and perhaps even others in different societies as somehow stolen.

00:14:06: Somehow expropriated in advance or colonized.

00:14:12: It's interesting because I think In areas like climate it is very clear what these younger climate activists are saying that you have taken our future, our planetary future And wasted it ruined.

00:14:28: Actually, when it comes to the economy and finance that view is more nuanced.

00:14:38: It's not so clear-cut.

00:14:41: but I think there also a worry about shaping of future by major financial instruments or their protocols has preempted or removed, or compelled choices we may not really want to make.

00:15:04: So I take a simple example here in Germany.

00:15:07: from the time i arrived here... ...I noticed that Germans as whole obviously there are differences but typically don't like debt.

00:15:18: so if you don't liked debt why would you get a mortgage?

00:15:22: That must be sold to you is good thing!

00:15:26: China or India.

00:15:28: We are talking of Germany, the heart of the Euro-American economic world where people for example don't like credit cards very much.

00:15:36: so I'm in The grocery store every day.

00:15:38: everybody's taking out a penny by penny not just cash big coins Like I use.

00:15:44: they bring all the little ones and People have any patient?

00:15:48: Cashiers and so on.

00:15:49: it's understood that this is as opposed to getting irritated while you're bringing.

00:15:55: So that's all part of her debt issue, so I bring up to say when it comes the future as relevant in financial markets there is a double quality.

00:16:08: The coin has two sides.

00:16:10: one side says we are going make the future potential source for profit by making risk profitable.

00:16:20: And as I say in the book, that is a revolution of modern finance.

00:16:23: It's saying risk is not just something you handle to make profits somewhere else.

00:16:27: it is at your take bets on risk itself.

00:16:30: So my view was kind of revolution.

00:16:34: That is the move from economics to finance In the early seventies more or less in US and then off course moves around results.

00:16:45: So, that is a very tempting thing to say.

00:16:48: Now you can not only make money on what do know today about the present or past.

00:16:54: we have way of model whats going happen and also more body.

00:16:58: so it looks like its expanding frame but actually it's kind narrowing.

00:17:06: It is telling you that the way to take care of your money, a way to invest.

00:17:09: The way to plan and secure your future through this or this.

00:17:14: but there may be completely other ways they are taken away.

00:17:17: so it's like stealing in the future not literally stealing but narrowing as if this was going to go.

00:17:30: everybody should invest in stocks, invest in this or the huge topic which all of us have acted by insurance.

00:17:39: A

00:17:40: hundred percent about a future and how to be safe and that mean well I look at my own premiums these days.

00:17:48: it's like hardly worth it.

00:17:50: you know when i pay this much In order get a tiny extra if...I get sick Or If I pass away.

00:18:00: but cost-benefit ratio is becoming very small, you know.

00:18:04: So these are I think the ambiguities or contradictions in what finance does to our idea of a future.

00:18:13: it claims to expand but actually

00:18:16: contracts and also insurance companies need to make profits.

00:18:22: they profit from this kind of narrow down options where your money goes.

00:18:26: In

00:18:27: fact if i may just comment that insurance key historically and I would say socially to the whole financial market business that it is a precursor.

00:18:39: It is where uncertainty is monetized.

00:18:43: over last five hundred years, you know loins and so on there were old history before derivatives.

00:18:48: Before anything they was saying well if you want to send your goods from the UK To Singapore or to Southeast Asia we will give you insurance policy but It will cost you this, etc.

00:19:02: Yeah and This is where the risk has been priced And somehow people are pushed into this kind of anxiety Of even if you had cash your cash might depreciate in the future.

00:19:19: So you have to do something with your money To maximize The utility of your money to put it In a financial system.

00:19:27: And I think a very concerning new development of this phenomenon is the development, a lot of aridism motivated or AI driven tools to manage the trading of these actually public funded derivative and intro like the insurance capital market.

00:19:52: To the point that it's no longer human trader who were trying to borrow your words from the book.

00:20:01: The rituals, to affirm that future promise will continue.

00:20:07: Now it was taken up by machine.

00:20:09: I wonder how do you understand this kind of phenomenon?

00:20:13: Another major question not only for us in social sciences but also people in financial industries or doing finance PhDs Or who are ordinary citizens using chat GPT to do this and that.

00:20:32: We know everybody is playing around with the stuff, but I believe everyone's on a level-playing field because every body equally ignorant of what AI could or might do will damage or restrict or may offer.

00:20:50: But no one in my view Is it a strong position to say, look if you do this.

00:20:57: This will happen.

00:20:58: If we do that It's all guessing games.

00:21:01: so the claims of expertise about AI are exaggerated.

00:21:07: Of course human beings need to have some control So they will try to decide.

00:21:12: You know what is good?

00:21:13: About for example using these either apps or platforms Or even the general results from companies like Deepseek, for example.

00:21:28: Which is already today having less hype compared to before.

00:21:35: but this is inevitable.

00:21:36: they'll be up there will be down.

00:21:38: This one has got that answer.

00:21:41: so I think it's a very unstable environment.

00:21:44: But also i always liked us repeat what my recently deceased economic anthropologist, Kuli Keith Hart.

00:21:56: Keith said I think in some informal way or even a book.

00:22:01: he was talking about the digital world not finance we just talk on the internet and you know which is very interesting.

00:22:08: And he said trying to give a final answer what digitality will mean for democracy etc.

00:22:15: He's little bit like people at first ten years of the agricultural revolution trying to predict all the effects of the plow.

00:22:24: It's difficult, it just come!

00:22:27: So that I'm...I also support.

00:22:32: but i also believe we have to make decisions.

00:22:34: We can't wait and say let's wait hundred years till AI shows its good-and-bad qualities.

00:22:40: then will decide.

00:22:41: well a lot people would decide before you decided.

00:22:44: so You Have To Have A Position.

00:22:46: think it's a tricky space.

00:22:48: We can't avoid, but we need to be aware that is very young and new And its potentials both good and bad are poorly understood But they're massive.

00:23:01: That part is true.

00:23:03: Even if you take large language models They have fast moving Very remarkable in their technical capacity.

00:23:12: So I'll conclude this response only by saying I think the whole question of the role of machines and machine-derived tools, algorithms with large databases etc.

00:23:30: is to me... The big challenge that i see Is That while we are constantly looking for machines which will be more like us That is that they have feelings and do this, so there are not just cognitive machines.

00:23:48: This the great search but meanwhile making us more like a machine.

00:23:53: So I need to know right prompt which means i become better machine To help the machine becomes me.

00:24:01: Who is becoming more?

00:24:02: Which is tail or dog?

00:24:04: That's my personal view of dilemma.

00:24:07: How can we discuss about humans & Machines which is clear-headed about what are we trying to make, like what?

00:24:17: If A is going to be like B or if it's B then it will have a lot of effects.

00:24:25: This reminded me quite interesting the major thing that this kind of machine based transforming transformation might do.

00:24:39: It's something around the old terrain of anthropology, magics witchcrafts as if I think in like this structure that even Spitzchart maps is like The witchcraft doesn't really change the way That things already happen.

00:25:00: but it gives an explanation and shifts accountability which I found greatly similarities from what you just analysed about the AI and machines.

00:25:16: There are some similar shifts in this, does that mean it becomes sort of magical or a new religion?

00:25:28: shift the way we understand a world or how society works.

00:25:33: because, for you no longer don't really know exactly what the machine gave us as result but we know that it was produced by the machine and those shifts of compatibility might actually change the position of machine driven or other systems.

00:25:53: their position in society and how they change the way we understand things.

00:25:57: Yes,

00:25:59: again a very interesting reminder why it is worth writing books like this even if there are debated contested or whatever.

00:26:10: to bring an anthropological point of view.

00:26:14: do what looks like the opposite because it's so high-tech, its so abstract and contemporary we hardly have encountered.

00:26:25: And now you are saying let us go to New Guinea or here or there?

00:26:28: It seems frivolous but I think not.

00:26:34: first of all the very old basic idea of someone like Marcel Mosse that objects always carry something of a person handling them.

00:26:46: Yes.

00:26:46: So the how, as he called it and that argument of Moses in his great short book on The Gift was because he was trying to understand the spirit behind the contract.

00:27:01: see so He had a brilliant idea about... ...the contract actually coming out of the gift.

00:27:09: And yet they look like the opposite.

00:27:10: but today As I say in the book the contract is still very important.

00:27:15: And that part of the contract, which is promissory... ...is what has become dangerously expanded in the financial world.

00:27:25: So contracts are important because they're a foundation for modern life.

00:27:29: so unless we have completely different society.. ..we have to have agreements and whether their written or unwritten and deliver on them!

00:27:36: We know that contract is based upon more than society.

00:27:40: but where did this come from?

00:27:43: So he wrote that brilliant book as his answer, the gift.

00:27:47: The point though is that contract now has taken this other form which seems risky and dangerous because it's about future possibilities which may or might not happen.

00:28:03: And instruments involve derivatives particularly allow you to move them without facing the consequence of your promise.

00:28:12: So somebody else has to live with a promise and that person then sells it, yet somebody else.

00:28:17: so that is their dynamic I'm trying to capture here but i do want go back through main thrust in question which is link between these kinds of technological devices threatening to overwhelm us.

00:28:37: The relation to machines and tools, technologies in very simple societies also.

00:28:43: Which is where the issue of magic ritual come up.

00:28:47: And my main observation there Is that long before digital revolution I used teach for years when i first began teaching In subject which these days would be considered too unexcited Canonic anthropology of religion because these days everybody has some specialized things.

00:29:11: We did religion, family kinship like that.

00:29:15: So I had to teach that for many years and i have talk about magic in there.

00:29:20: explain to students what is this business Of magic why we say it's not religion?

00:29:25: It something else.

00:29:26: primitive people believe in magic etc.

00:29:29: And I said well look at our room do here This light goes on or I put something and it doesn't come on.

00:29:39: But, I don't immediately say that I need a PhD in electronics... ...I said if there is anything broken down then somebody will fix the problem.

00:29:48: In short- I understand nothing!

00:29:50: Yes..

00:29:51: but i assume take for granted If I speak into this do you know anything about mic's acoustics?

00:29:58: Zero So, in short ninety percent of our world long before digitality depends on technologies of which we have zero understanding.

00:30:11: And once you think about it this way, I open the tap.

00:30:14: Wow!

00:30:15: Water or worse no water.

00:30:19: So i have to explain both Or fancier examples are like nuclear disasters.

00:30:25: Do I understand anything about Fukushima?

00:30:28: Zero But I know something serious has happened.

00:30:31: so in short what am saying is actually our modern relationships to machinic technologies are always largely based on assumptions which have some kind of accumulated expertise, but not in our hands.

00:30:52: I believe that the electricians know and people from engineering department don't need it at all!

00:31:03: So like the people who handle the technology are The witches and wizards

00:31:09: Correct.

00:31:10: They also you might say they're experts there actually.

00:31:12: so today if I want to invest my pension, I go To the exports in the bank or?

00:31:18: Go through i have a back yeah And then I realize that Bank is not earning enough for me.

00:31:23: of course I don't understand why because I know nothing about all these ways of investing money, so then when Merrill Lynch writes to me saying please give us all your money we will do better for you I might go not because i know anything but because among the experts one person is more persuasive yes.

00:31:41: But the fact is I understand nothing.

00:31:44: but it's no different than...I don't understand electricity..I don' t understand anything.

00:31:48: So We are surrounded with things which means We are not that different from people in small scale, low-tech or primitive societies who also see a world of things they don't fully understand.

00:32:02: Or effects which they want to control.

00:32:06: That is where the technology comes into play.

00:32:08: If I do this and then these crops will be better.

00:32:14: And when it does not go well They like us Do not question the whole cosmology.

00:32:22: They say, I rubbed the sticks wrong or my uncle wished it ill.

00:32:25: you know that switch?

00:32:26: yeah.

00:32:26: so they also don't like us.

00:32:30: Like all human beings when they are faced with something problematic?

00:32:34: They won't change their entire world view and say oh The whole thing is wrong there's no God There just some small things and get some help from some expert.

00:32:44: Just the ritual was wrong?

00:32:46: Exactly!

00:32:47: I made a mistake, somebody made a mistakes or in context... The wrong people were present.

00:32:52: This is all what the great philosopher whom i mentioned Austin called Felicity.

00:32:58: The conditions are not right.

00:33:00: this supposed to happen only with skin group but that stranger also there you shouldn't have allowed him.

00:33:06: That's why it didn't work etc.

00:33:10: but was present.

00:33:11: Exactly, exactly!

00:33:14: But nobody questions their worldview unless the evidence is overwhelming and repeated that something simply not working...but they won't do it quickly and say oh something must be wrong with our theory of the world.

00:33:27: who does?

00:33:28: And then this through this very wonderful explanation.

00:33:33: I think its also very interesting to see the opposite.

00:33:39: The banks, the bankers...the institutions are also trying to understand people in a similar fashion.

00:33:48: They see your pension amount.

00:33:50: they say you're insurance is your monthly income In order to decide what kind of interest rate it might give you?

00:33:59: What kind of products produce and in some worst cases, not only the CU.

00:34:06: they see you as a household.

00:34:08: that's part of the kingship networks to decide your creditworthiness.

00:34:12: And in this system through our observation we come up with concept of divigilisation because we are evaluated... As individuals kept in this system.

00:34:32: And you suggested that, instead of fighting as individuals which is a very progressive and empowering argument And I do would like to invite you, to elaborate a bit on that.

00:35:01: How do we change the world?

00:35:04: Change this system as individuals?

00:35:07: Well... That is one of biggest challenges.

00:35:10: my own thinking brought me too.

00:35:14: So i came looking at it but could not fully address it But did see in direction and that what was wrong, it's the idea of an individual.

00:35:25: And I said not because i'm against their ideas but because they've been destroyed by the processes of modern capitalism and modern numerical systems then most recently financial ones.

00:35:39: But all them have sliced us up.

00:35:44: So putting Humpty Dumpty together again is not so easy especially if you want Humpty to look like the individual that was there in the beginning.

00:35:53: That's taking hundreds of pieces and then saying which blender will make them whole again?

00:35:58: There is no blender, blenders only cut things up or they're these vegetable shopping machines.

00:36:04: Therefore... The divisional idea.

00:36:07: for me just for the benefit of wider audiences we have become an assemblage profiles which are scored.

00:36:19: So there's also a numerical element, it is not just qualitative in fact its usually NOT quality ,it s the FICO score and I just mentioned on this side because you're interested how these systems move to different societies that about ten years ago i had friends who were trying entrepreneurial push in India by competing to be the credit rating agencies which are supported by the Reserve Bank, The Central Bank of India.

00:36:57: So there was a whole set of businessmen saying we can do credits scoring for you.

00:37:02: now India is a tricky place because their data bases are very uneven.

00:37:06: so some data is great from censuses etc.

00:37:10: other data's almost zero About family ties marriage this that poverty diet.

00:37:17: Nobody knows anything.

00:37:18: so to do credit scores Required some fancy footwork and of course Everything was relative.

00:37:27: you have a product, but this man's product is looks better.

00:37:31: So now credit scoring is Regular in India But it still are very Young business.

00:37:38: I give these examples here there as a very specific thing reliable technologies

00:37:44: for its scoring,

00:37:45: fifteen years ago zero.

00:37:48: Banksters did the individual thing.

00:37:50: oh you're like this.

00:37:51: so Did You Borrow Before?

00:37:53: Now there is heavy data intensive aggregated profile but in every area.

00:38:02: This Is What I Don't Even Say Enough.

00:38:04: Here There Is No Such Thing As Me.

00:38:08: It's me The Professor Me The Pensioner Be The Borrower automobile owner, me the sick or healthy person.

00:38:17: That's all added up to me but there is no adding.

00:38:22: that's a joke.

00:38:23: so I am a sum of these things which are every day growing.

00:38:28: So they're not fixed.

00:38:29: like we will score this.

00:38:30: we scored this.

00:38:31: now We have total score.

00:38:32: No because tomorrow you'll score something else Like what were your smoking habits when you went high school?

00:38:38: Let's compare that with whole population and what they smoked in high school.

00:38:42: Say think of a place like China, how many people would be under that?

00:38:45: How do you see the large data there, the patterns on how to fit this person inside?

00:38:50: it is endless game.

00:38:52: so just give shape for that comment or I will say question becomes can we produce solidarity group interests, like we used to talk about class and all.

00:39:11: And I say in the book that all of them rested on architecture with individual.

00:39:14: but if an individual has been chopped and sliced what do you give up?

00:39:18: No!

00:39:19: We could not let all credit score people get together.

00:39:24: Let all the people who are getting less than five hundred in a credit score will never be able to borrow Get together.

00:39:30: why did they get five hundred?

00:39:31: Who decided?

00:39:33: That comes from banks.

00:39:36: who is using these instruments.

00:39:41: So it's the banks, insurance companies and often its also hospitals.

00:39:47: so actual impulses.

00:39:51: everywhere people are using large data to assess where you fit

00:39:55: etc.,

00:39:56: so banks.

00:39:57: a part of that.

00:39:59: there's history which has been written about by several not me Which shows over say in the u.s.. Over a century What began as anecdotal information?

00:40:12: Oh, yeah You are coming here but your uncle gave you money for your first loan.

00:40:16: now nobody asks The score is there And of course other parts to credit history.

00:40:24: and if they want more They can always dig deeper here and then do know all these other sites like I don't know, rocket reach this one that when you pay a little.

00:40:32: You can get everybody's jail imprisonment record divorces settlements, alimony is I mean it's endless.

00:40:39: therefore i think banks.

00:40:43: there are two things i would say about banks and other complex financial institutions.

00:40:48: on the one hand they are the active agents of this profiling process.

00:40:53: On the other hand They live in a shared world of understandings with their customers that if you have bad credit, it's your bad credit.

00:41:00: Bad fact.

00:41:01: they agree and everybody agrees but twenty years ago there was no such score.

00:41:07: how did the agreement happen?

00:41:09: That is a social scientist question.

00:41:11: How does something that didn't exist become normalized?

00:41:15: As an individual we somehow became numbers become the data being collected into a system and the system produce some sort of calculation, or way to compute our... compute us as data.

00:41:33: And then reproduce a result To another set of data other sets of numbers As a representation of US.

00:41:43: So like it's very important to pay large attention what was missing, when human become numbers and then reproduce as numbers.

00:41:55: And come back having human conditions being decided again by those partial numbers I think it's very important to understand produced in this whole process, which I think is one of the most important contribution that you put into your book.

00:42:20: And thank-you very

00:42:21: much!

00:42:38: which go back also to earlier work, like Ulrich Beck on the Rick Society.

00:42:43: These are all important for me contributions but their most abstract way to put it is how there's a new set of equations between quality and quantity so that number part somehow is extracted from something qualitative then brought back as an individual, but meanwhile you have been cut chopped sliced data fired represented crunched in the back office by ten guys who know how to do the crunching.

00:43:19: Then they tell the sale or the quants tells somebody in a management Who then tells the guy at the front of his who's talking to you?

00:43:28: Yes So and it looks like an individual response where he would say well alas we can't do this because But At that point quantity is re-translated into quality, but it's a kind of fake translation because you're being processed and processed in the numerical machine.

00:43:45: So I think that is our dilemma how to reclaim if you like quality not only as old idea for an individual but somehow new relational world where we can say yes i'm also scored ,you are also scored.

00:44:07: join forces.

00:44:07: So Occupy Wall Street, which I'm generally critical of and don't think it was a very successful idea.

00:44:15: had that good idea.

00:44:17: You're a debtor you can get together with other debtors And as it were protest the banking order.

00:44:28: We also pass on those reflections and questions to our audience and the future generations of social scientists, we hope this conversation can help to a broader perspective.

00:44:43: To push on these very pressing important issues that you pointed framed out in researchers of different regions and also for the audience every day life to reflect on their specific contacts, looking for grounds to build solidarity together.

00:45:05: To change this system.

00:45:08: Thank you very much for giving us your inspirations.

00:45:11: It's my pleasure today

00:45:15: And to the team, our colleagues here for making this such a smooth and happy process... ...for me.

00:45:24: A very fruitful one in terms of revisiting my own ideas because it has time passes You know you see things bit differently or same thing but from different angle.

00:45:36: So thank-you.

00:45:37: Thank-you very much Professor Padurai.

00:45:39: We end today's episode with quote picked by your host Hirotin In the world of contemporary finance, this discontinuity between our atomized selves over time is not seen as a profound ethical problem.

00:45:55: Rather it's treated as massive opportunity for reassembling these divided bits into various forms of financial subject tractable to making of financial profit.

00:46:14: by Arjun Apatore.

00:46:16: Thank you for listening!