The 1AC’s performance of sonics capitalizes on similarities between the physics of sound and metaphysics of predicative analytics to translate and govern the shift in the ontological register. Sonics uses the neoliberal episteme to translate sensory data and human experiences into capital to fuel the World Computer and decline objects of knowledge as a calculative rationality.

People use the term “symphony” to explain and put a positive spin on data analytics so frequently that it’s on the fast track to becoming a cliché. Symphony and Symphony Solutions are software companies focused on digital communication and data analytics. Symphony Health and Symphony Corporation are data analytics forms serving the healthcare industry. Symphony Retail uses artificial intelligence for retail applications like marketing and logistics. Data scientists working at these (and other) companies commonly use ideas of symphonia (συμφωνία)—the ancient Greek word for pleasing harmony—to describe the nuts and bolts of what they do. On data science form dunnhumby’s corporate blog, David Castro- Gavino’s post titled “Creating a Symphony from the Noise of Customer Data” uses the idea of symphony to explain how data scientists discover useful, meaningful relationships among individual data points: patterns in the frequency of consumer behaviors interact to form actionable information just as patterns in the frequency of sound waves interact to form pleasing resonances.1 Capitalizing on mathematical similarities between the physics of sound and the metaphysics of predictive analytics, this comparison appeals to laypeople’s musical understanding of sound to translate the complex math behind data analytics into familiar and accessible nonquantitative terms.2 As the epigraph suggests, Western culture commonly uses music to translate math into qualitative terms. But in the late twentieth and early twenty- ¢rst centuries, the neoliberal, biopolitical push to quantify every last bit of reality has elevated a specific kind of math—probabilistic statistics—from a As the epigraph suÇests, Western culture commonly uses music to trans late math into qualitative terms. But in the late twentieth and early twenty- Introduction 2 mere tool for describing things to the fundamental structure of reality and knowledge themselves. As philosopher Mary Beth Mader explains, the use of probabilistic statistics to study and govern people has led to “a radical shift in ontological register” from the social to the mathematical. Statistics do not describe relations among people but “a relation between numbers or quantities alone.”3 For example, the Centers for Disease Control reported that the suicide rate in North Carolina from 2014 to 2016 was 15.3 out of 100,000 people. …is ¢gure expresses the frequency of one average number (suicides) in relation to another average number (population); it does not represent a count of actual suicides or living people.4 In addition to showing how this statistic expresses a relation among numbers rather than people, this example highlights that probabilistic statistics reimagine the world as a speci¢c type of mathematical relationship: a frequency ratio. In the “ontological shift” from people to frequency ratios, the rules and principles behind this math come to be taken as the basic rules and principles behind reality itself. Because sound is commonly understood to be a kind of frequency, it is easy to use people’s practical knowledge and experience of music to translate that math into down- to earth terms. …ese appeals to music and sound don’t just dumb down math for nonexperts; they also capture aspects of reality mathematics cannot. As much as states, corporations, and even artistic and academic practices try to quantify everything, people will continue to experience things in qualitative ways, like with their senses or their emotions.5 And as processes of quantification surpass the grasp of both nonexperts and individual human brains, these qualitative registers of experience may be the most efficient medium in which to perform the ontological shift from people to frequencies in a way that people can easily understand and adapt to. This is where the old music/math trope comes in handy, except here sound isn’t just a metaphor for math. Metaphors draw ¢gurative, counterfactual relationships between things that aren’t actually the same. However, the introductory examples use “symphony” to translate the same structure or relationship from a quantitative medium into a qualitative one. Acoustic resonance (i.e., sound as a frequency or oscillating pattern of variable intensity) and neoliberal, biopolitical statistics are different ways of expressing relationships among frequency ratios: one quantitatively, as a rate; the other qualitatively, as resonant sound. In these cases, acoustically resonant sound and math are two different ways of expressing the same kinds of relationships, two sides of the same coin. Scholars refer to the quantitative side of this coin as a “neoliberal epis Introduction cases, acoustically resonant sound and math are two different ways of express Scholars refer to the quantitative side of this coin as a “neoliberal episteme.”6 For example, philosopher Shannon Winnubst argues that “neoliberalism repeats the themes of liberalism in a different voice”7 because it articulates liberalism’s basic commitments—such as individualism and white supremacy—in terms that are “calculative” rather than “juridical.”8 …is rearticulation sets in motion “the fundamental changes in rationality itself that come to dominate the neoliberal iteration of the modern episteme.”9 …ough it preserves classical liberalism’s fundamental values, it uses diµerent tools and techniques to act on and realize those values—calculative rather than juridical ones. …at’s why it forms a new type or subtype of episteme. Episteme is Michel Foucault’s term for a group of intellectual, economic, and political practices that are tied together by common behind- the- scenes methods, logics, and values. As he explains, “unknown to themselves,” the practitioners of a particular episteme “employed the same rules to de¢ne the objects proper to their own study, to form their concepts, to build their theories.”10 …ese “rules” are methods of abstraction, parameters for translating or compressing rich sensory data into words, numbers, images, and other kinds of information. In the neoliberal episteme, probabilistic statistics are the rules used to decline objects of knowledge, form concepts, and build theories. That’s why Winnubst describes the neoliberal episteme as a calculative rationality.