“Computers enable fantasies” – On the continued relevance of Weizenbaum’s warnings
“The computer has long been a solution looking for problems—the ultimate technological fix which insulates us from having to look at problems.” – Joseph Weizenbaum (1983) Trying to keep … Continue reading
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch : Labor in Open Source Systems Implementations
This post is adapted from a presentation I gave at the Amigos Library Technology Roadmap conference earlier this month. I supervise the library systems unit at a public R1 university … Continue reading
A Luddite Library
“If the Luddites had never existed, their critics would have to invent them.” – Theodor Roszak One way of telling that controversies about technology are intensifying is to watch … Continue reading
Waiting for the Fail Whale – What Y2K can teach us about Twitter
“What we use is not ours simply because we use it.” – Erich Fromm Breakdowns have an annoying habit of not arriving on time. It often seems as if … Continue reading
Theses on the Techlash
“The problem is not to use technology but to realize that one is used by it.”- Paul Virilio Once a term gets widely adopted by the press, and earns … Continue reading
The Internet is Broken. Can We Fix It? – A Review of Ben Tarnoff’s “Internet for the People”
Can you remember the moment when you first suspected that there was something wrong with the internet? Was it when you started to get creepily specific targeted ads? Was it … Continue reading
Life’s a Glitch – what the non-apocalypse of Y2K can teach us
As families watched from home, Dick Clark stood on the steps of the town hall hosting the final New Year’s Rocking Eve of the millennium. The excited crowd chanted the … Continue reading
Where We’re Going, We’ll Probably Still Need Roads – a Review of Paris Marx’s “Road to Nowhere”
You can learn a lot about your society’s relationship to technology by looking at its streets. Are the roads filled with personal automobiles or trolley-cars, bike lanes or occupied parking … Continue reading
Singing About the Dark Times – Theses on Doomerism
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. – Brecht It sure seems like things aren’t going particularly … Continue reading
Jonah, Cassandra, and the Doom-Sayers — Reading Lewis Mumford During the Pandemic
“If we would conquer the hell that now threatens to engulf us, we must not seek merely for a little less hell, we must not content ourselves with a sort … Continue reading
Is Big Data the Message? a Review of Natasha Lushetich’s “Big Data–A new Medium?”
When discussing the digital, conversations can quickly shift towards talk of quantity. Just how many images are being uploaded every hour, how many meticulously monitored purchases are being made on … Continue reading
“Technology in the Present Tense” – Notes from a Weary Luddite
“The future is not a blank page; and neither is it an open book.” – Lewis Mumford 1. Here is a confession from a weary, self-identified Luddite: For someone … Continue reading
“I’m so sick of Y2K!” – A review of Y2K: The Movie
“I’m so sick of Y2K!” Contrary to the stereotype that every disaster movie begins with the experts being ignored, there is at least one disaster movie that begins with … Continue reading
“Things Just Go On” – More Theses on Doomscrolling
“That things just go on is the catastrophe” – Walter Benjamin. One of the risks of declaring victory is the possibility that your declaration will prove to have been premature. … Continue reading
Look Around – Yet Another Piece about “Don’t Look Up”
Truly, I live in the dark times! The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs Has simply not yet heard The terrible news. – … Continue reading
Inventing the Shipwreck
“Our societies have become arrhythmic. Or they only know one rhythm: constant acceleration. Until the crash and systemic failure.” – Paul Virilio “Conversations about technology tend to be dominated by … Continue reading
My Favorite Books from 2021
“We read books to find out who we are.” – Ursula K. Le Guin I would like to say that I spent 2021 alternating between reading related to my … Continue reading
Against Technological Inevitability – On 20th Century Critics of Technology
“The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes … Continue reading
The Magnificent Bribe
“The bargain we are being asked to ratify takes the form of a magnificent bribe.”- Lewis Mumford (1964) “Nearly 50 years ago, long before smartphones and social media, the social … Continue reading
Specters of Ludd – A Review of Gavin Mueller’s “Breaking Things at Work”
A specter is haunting technological society—the specter of Luddism. Granted, as is so often the case with hauntings, reactions to this specter are divided: there are some who are frightened, … Continue reading
Imagine the End of Facebook
“On the one hand the computer makes it possible in principle to live in a world of plenty for everyone, on the other hand we are well on our way … Continue reading
Don’t Fall for Facebook’s Trojan Horse
“What we use is not ours simply because we use it.” – Erich Fromm “With the release of its own smart glasses last week, Facebook seems to have learned from … Continue reading
Mergers, acquisitions, and my tinfoil hat
[nb: this is by your long-lost second blogger, who relocated to a large state university two years ago, rather than by the usual fellow who’s been keeping this boat afloat … Continue reading
Technological Lessons from the Pandemic
“The public be damned is the private motto of the majority of our citizens: which means that they are damning themselves; and at a serious crisis like the present one, … Continue reading
Theses on Technological Pessimism
We fly over the mountains As though there was nothing to it Great are the works of humans! But bread for all? We can’t do it. Child, ask why Can … Continue reading
Theses on Techno-Optimism
“If you fall in love with a machine there is something wrong with your love-life. If you worship a machine there is something wrong with your religion.” – Lewis Mumford … Continue reading
Burn it All – a Review of “Your Computer is on Fire”
It often feels as though contemporary discussions about computers have perfected the art of talking around, but not specifically about, computers. Almost every week there is a new story about … Continue reading
They meant well (or, why it matters who gets to be seen as a “tech critic”)
“We need technology to live, as we need food to live. But, of course, if we eat too much food, or eat food that has no nutritional value, or eat … Continue reading
Progress for the status quo – on the Chamber of Progress
“There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.” – Neil Postman A … Continue reading
Authoritarian and Democratic Technics, revisited
“The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcement of limits to power.” – Ursula Franklin I. Is technology a … Continue reading
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