Individual homogenization in large-scale systems: on the politics of computer and social architectures

The paper interrogates how modern systems—both social and technical—exercise power over large, diverse populations by homogenizing individuals to meet system-level objectives. Situated in critiques of modernity by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, the study examines how technologies embed politics and how the digital computer manifests modern thought and its homogenizing tendencies. It asks whether the organizational principles governing social institutions (discipline, surveillance, normalization, synchronization) also structure purely technical systems such as computer architectures. The purpose is twofold: (1) broaden the notion of politics to include purely technical systems by reinterpreting Foucault’s disciplines and political anatomy for computer architecture; and (2) generalize from social and technical cases to an abstract class of organization—Large-Scale Systems Composed of Homogeneous Individuals (LSSCHI). This matters because recognizing shared enframing across systems can reveal constraints that marginalize plurality, thereby motivating alternative organizational forms (“organizations to come”) beyond modernity’s emphasis on order, quantification, and control.

The paper situates its argument within scholarship on technology and politics. Winner (1980) argues artifacts embed politics and enforce power through socio-technical systems; Feenberg (2008, 2018) analyzes the technical code and the relations among technology, modernity, and democracy; Akrich (1997) articulates scripts inscribed in artifacts; Pinch and Bijker (1984) show social shaping of technology; and Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 1999, 2005) frames technologies and humans as co-constitutive actants. Historically, McCartney (1999) notes the ENIAC’s military origins, suggesting political interests in early computer design. Tedre et al. (2006) and Eglash (1999, 2007) critique the dominance of northwestern binary logic and its cultural exclusions. The paper also draws on Foucault (1977, 2005) for disciplines and political anatomy; Heidegger (1981) on enframing; and Derrida (2002a, 2002b, 2005) on democracy, law, and autoimmunity. Technical references include Hennessy and Patterson (2011) for architecture abstractions; Friedman (2001) on clock power; Jonas and Kording (2017) on transistor-level analyses; and emerging alternatives in neuromorphic (Benjamin et al., 2014; Davies et al., 2018), asynchronous (Sutherland and Ebergen, 2002; Sutherland, 2012), and heterogeneous architectures (Kumar et al., 2006; Augonnet et al., 2011).

The study employs an archeological-genealogical approach inspired by Foucault to reinterpret social disciplinary mechanisms in the context of computer architecture. It performs a deliberate vocabulary mapping (e.g., individual/body → transistor; supervision → control; tactics → design; labor → computation; profit → information) to analyze how disciplinary practices (spatial partitioning, temporal control, normalization, and synchronization) materialize in digital architectures. This interpretive analysis is complemented by an engineering perspective that examines the transistor as a functionally reduced, homogenized switching element governed by a global clock, discussing implications such as energy costs, spatial fragmentation, and communication bottlenecks. Philosophically, the paper integrates Heidegger’s notion of enframing to argue for a shared essence shaping technical and social organization, and employs Derrida’s “democracy to come” to reconceptualize potential alternative organizational forms as “organizations to come.” The synthesis culminates in proposing the LSSCHI framework, abstracting from social and technical cases to theorize relations among individuals, structure, activity, and power in large-scale systems.

- Computer architectures and modern social institutions share organizing principles described by Foucault’s disciplines and political anatomy: fine-grained individual control, spatial partitioning, temporal serialization/synchronization, normalization, and functional reduction toward system objectives. - In computers, the transistor is rendered a ‘docile’ element via binary functional reduction (ON/OFF), eliminating interpretive ambiguity from analog variability and enabling large-scale integration. This homogenization parallels social normalization of individuals. - Centralized temporal control (global clock) enforces synchronized activity across more than a billion transistors, prioritizing exhaustive use of time; clock distribution infrastructure can consume over 25% of total energy (Friedman, 2001), evidencing the energetic and structural cost of control. - Spatial and functional fragmentation (e.g., separated control, memory, ALU) necessitates heavy internal data mobility, yielding limits such as the von Neumann bottleneck—analogous to mobility demands in globally fragmented production systems. - A ‘political anatomy’ is identifiable within computer architecture: command structures and modular flows that subject individual transistors to system-level aims, demonstrating that purely technical systems can embody politics. - Alternative design paradigms suggest different political principles: neuromorphic systems (Neurogrid, Loihi) distribute processing and tolerate heterogeneity; asynchronous designs remove global clocks; heterogeneous architectures tailor subsystems to tasks—each reframing control, synchronization, and individuality but introducing new translation/coordination challenges. - The LSSCHI framework generalizes these insights, highlighting tensions among homogenizing system goals and individual heterogeneity, and offering a basis to analyze power relations and control mechanisms across technical and social systems.

The findings address the central question by showing that the mechanisms structuring large-scale social organization also structure computer architectures, implying a shared enframing that privileges order, quantification, and control through the homogenization of individuals. Recognizing a political anatomy in purely technical systems extends the concept of politics beyond socio-technical interaction to intra-technical organization, reframing how design decisions enact power. The energetic and structural costs of synchronization and homogenization (e.g., binary reduction, global clocks) further illuminate trade-offs inherent to modern organization. By integrating Heidegger’s enframing, the analysis suggests these similarities reflect a common essence of large-scale system design, while Derrida’s ‘democracy to come’ motivates envisioning alternative organizations that preserve plurality and reconfigure power relations. The proposed LSSCHI framework provides a transferable lens for examining individuals, structure, activity, and power across domains, enabling critiques of current architectures and guiding exploration of architectures (technical and social) that reduce coercive homogenization.

The paper contributes by: (1) broadening the notion of politics to include the internal organization of purely technical systems, demonstrating a political anatomy within computer architectures; (2) synthesizing Foucauldian, Heideggerian, and Derridean insights with engineering analysis to reveal a shared enframing that drives individual homogenization for system objectives; and (3) proposing the LSSCHI framework to generalize relations among individuals, structure, activity, and power in large-scale systems. It highlights the costs and limitations of modern organizational modes (e.g., energy overheads, fragmentation, bottlenecks) and points to alternative paradigms (neuromorphic, asynchronous, heterogeneous) as partial embodiments of ‘organizations to come.’ Future research could develop formal criteria for distinguishing modes of organization within LSSCHI, empirically assess trade-offs between control and heterogeneity, and explore design principles that sustain plurality while enabling scalable coordination in both technical and social systems.

The reinterpretation of Foucault for computer architecture is deliberately metaphorical and unconventional, acknowledged as inviting skepticism. Some analogies (e.g., observing, comparing, classifying transistors) require caution since transistor homogenization precedes integration, unlike human normalization. The work is primarily conceptual and philosophical rather than empirical, limiting generalizability and causal claims. Proposed alternatives (neuromorphic, asynchronous, heterogeneous architectures) face technical constraints (e.g., non-general-purpose suitability, scaling challenges, coordination/translation overheads). The framework does not systematically analyze natural LSSCHI manifestations (e.g., ant colonies), and quantitative evaluations of trade-offs between control, energy, and heterogeneity are not provided.