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🗺️ Calculating Empires

Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualisation exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries — mapping the technological patterns of colonialism, militarisation, automation and enclosure through a systems lens, complex and hypnotic in its stark b

Danu Poyner

· 1 minute

Calculating Empires: a genealogy of technology and power since 1500
calculatingempires.net

Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualisation exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries — mapping the technological patterns of colonialism, militarisation, automation and enclosure through a systems lens, complex and hypnotic in its stark black-and-white clarity. More than a timeline: a living network of how power, technology and interconnected events ripple through history. For anyone drawn to seeing patterns unfold and tracing the invisible threads that shape societies.

Found by Simon D.

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Danu Poyner

Danu is a writer and founder of Grokkist, a learning community in the deepest sense. His work centres on coherence, curiosity, and helping people make sense of themselves in relation to ideas, experience, and one another.

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