"The speakers in the endnotes are two time-travelling scholars writing from an unspecified far future, at a time when other beings rule the planet. They are using references from STS scholarship and SF that are more familiar, from our own time, in order to speak to us, even if the necessity to traverse multiple temporalities through simple language to express the Ant Network Theory (ANT) on occasion produces spatiotemporal anomalies." (25)
"Appendix XII: The ANT manifesto
The following are the recovered principles of ANT
1. That there is no Nature-Culture (NC) divide
a. C exists as a system of interpretations of N
b. The technological is simultaneously N and C
i. We have always been cyborg
ii. We have always been many
c. Assisted Evolution is not a movement from N->C, but N->N
2. All evolution is assisted evolution
a. Evolution is not internal to the organism itself, but is a planetary phenomenon
b. Evolution is hybridization consisting of the differentiation and production of networks
3. Hybridity is central in the understanding of networks
a. A multispecies approach is step 1 in the understanding of hybridity
b. A network approach is step 1 in the understanding of distributed collective intelligence
4. Distributed Collective Intelligence is the Ant Network
a. The Ant Network provides the basis for planetarity
b. Since we are planetary the rights of the non-living must be considered
c. Traces of the non-living and the not-yet-living are the pheromone trail for Ant Network Theory" (34–35)
"In our story, an Advaita-inspired thought experiment, we work with the coevolution of multiple species but also technological forms, trying to imagine co-futurity rather than single evolutions of any species such as Transhumanism tries to do, such that any vestige of dualist thought (being-non-being, human-nonhuman, life-non-life, nature-culture) can be discarded. (36)
"There is some debate over what this period was labeled. Traces remain of three different words, anthraxocene, antopocene, and anthropocene. Trail-keepers such as Intominne feel certain that this time period was called “antopocene,” given that this was the time when ants took over the planet and engaged in numerous geoengineering projects. Other hybrids, such as the Sritees, prefer anthraxocene, because geospheric records show the widespread use of coal in the same period. The third is generally considered a typo. However, those less concerned with the recovery of traces call the obsession with these traces “obscene,” which has become the generally accepted name." (43)
"What would be planetary thought? In Death of a Discipline, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2003) coins the term “planetarity” to refer to a new kind of relationship to the planet. In this relationship, the planet is something that both houses us and exceeds our control. Planetarity thus invokes the problem of scale in our relationship to the planet: we live on the planet but the planet does not belong to us. This is opposed to the Enlightenment rationale behind globalization, where the globe belongs to us and is subject to our control as rational agents. Planetarity has been evoked in other discussions, including of the Anthropocene and climate change, where such a new relationship is being registered and conceptualized." (45)
"Our planet itself is constantly being “terraformed” in order to support its processes. Terraforming is what all life does from archaea onwards but we tend to see the lithosphere as relatively constant, not created. Except when we have the hubris to say humans alone can do it, a common human exceptionalism designated by terms such as the Anthropocene." (46)
