Every technological invention is also an invention of an accident, writes the philosopher Paolo Virno, using the car and the car crash as an example. But what is the accident that has accompanied the invention of the internet?

From mass surveillance to disinformation and the rise of Big Tech, the effects of the internet are global, diffuse and play out across scales. This talk will however focus on the accident that plays out in the intimate sphere of the self. The internet is an information technology and as such is an externalisation of shared cognitive processes and projections. These externalised cognitive processes become vulnerable to calculation, profiling, targeting and exploitation. But what if we render cognitive processes, behaviours and relationships incalculable?

Entropy is a measure of randomness and as such denotes a space of the incalculable. This talk will discuss the role of entropy in privacy enhancing technologies from cryptography to noise generating networks and argue that the incalculable is essential for preserving the integrity and freedom of one's mental sphere. Drawing on the philosophers Paolo Virno, Byung-Chul Han and psychotherapist Nuar Alsadir.