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
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
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
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
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
Technology and the society we want to build – a review of the second edition of Langdon Winner’s “The Whale and the Reactor”
The announcement that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan would be donating $300 million to help address some of the challenges COVID-19 poses for the 2020 elections was met with a … Continue reading
Hashtags Lean to the Right – a Review of Jen Schradie’s “The Revolution that Wasn’t”
Despite the oft-repeated, and rather questionable, trope that social media is biased against conservatives; and beyond the attention that has been lavished on tech-savvy left-aligned movements (such as Occupy!) in … Continue reading
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Machine – a review of Aaron Bastani’s “Fully Automated Luxury Communism”
Flung back in time, to the year 2063, Captain Jean Luc Picard finds himself escorting a 21st century woman, Lily, through the starship Enterprise. As the year 2063 sees humanity … Continue reading
“No one wants to see disaster coming, but those who look, do.” – A Review of “The Uninhabitable Earth”
“Don’t be a coward. Have the courage to be afraid. Force yourself to produce that amount of fear that corresponds to the magnitude of the apocalyptic danger.” – Günther Anders … Continue reading
The Courage to be Afraid – a review of Roy Scranton’s “We’re Doomed. Now What?”
“If people are not aware of the direction in which they are going, they will awaken when it is too late and when their fate has been irrevocably sealed.” – … Continue reading
All watched over by machines – a review of Yasha Levine’s “Surveillance Valley”
There is something rather precious about Google employees, and Internet users, who earnestly believe the “don’t be evil” line. Though those three words have often been taken to represent a … Continue reading
The Shackles of Digital Freedom – a review of Jack Lichuan Qui’s “Goodbye iSlave”
With bright pink hair and a rainbow horn, the disembodied head of a unicorn bobs back and forth to the opening beats of Big Boi’s “All Night.” Moments later, a … Continue reading
Living well in the technosocial world – a review of Shannon Vallor’s Technology and the Virtues
When new technologies are unveiled the conversation is usually dominated by excited comments regarding all of the things for which these newfangled devices or platforms will be good. This new … Continue reading
It’s time to fix things – a review of “Move Fast and Break Things”
When the topic of monopoly is raised the first person that many people will think of is Rich Uncle Pennybags – that icon of monopolistic wealth accumulation – with his … Continue reading
Rocks or ticker-tape? A review of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Rushkoff
Digital technologies are often touted for their transformative potential. The Internet has made a massive amount of information easily accessible to its users, social media provides new ways of connecting, … Continue reading
Mars is still very far away – a review of McKenzie Wark’s book Molecular Red
There are some games where a single player wins, games where a group of players wins, and then there are games where all of the players can share equally in … Continue reading
AI and Drones and Bio-engineering, oh my! – A Review of A Dangerous Master by Wendell Wallach
Popular culture is lousy with tales of techno-science escaping human control. And as these stories — involving rebelling robots, murderous artificial intelligence systems, and genetically modified chimeras on a warpath … Continue reading
Broadcasting Resistance – a review of Low Power to the People by Christina Dunbar-Hester
In trying to build a different tomorrow, activists find themselves using the tools of today. And quite often the tools of yesterday as well. The choice of which tools to … Continue reading
The Ground Beneath the Screens – A Review of Jussi Parikka’s A Geology of Media and The Anthrobscene
Despite the aura of ethereality that clings to the Internet, today’s technologies have not shed their material aspects. Digging into the materiality of such devices does much to trouble the … Continue reading
The Social Construction of Acceleration – A review of Judy Wajcman’s book Pressed for Time
Patience seems anachronistic in an age of high speed downloads, same day deliveries, and on-demand assistants who can be summoned by tapping a button. Though some waiting may still occur … Continue reading
There’s an Apparatus for That – Reflections on Vilém Flusser’s book Post-History
Critiquing this or that aspect of society can be an invigorating experience. One simply selects a specific topic and sets about excoriating it, methodically ripping it apart with a mixture … Continue reading
The Robots are Coming! – A Review of Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford
Armies of metallic soldiers attacking fleeing humans, monotone machines refusing to open air lock doors, malfunctioning androids on murderous rampages – popular culture has done much to disseminate anxiety inducing … Continue reading
Between the Scythe & the Reaper Drone – A review of Nicholas Carr’s “The Glass Cage”
Here is a thought experiment: reflect back on the last forty-eight hours of your life, how often did you find yourself relying on computerized technology for performing a function that … Continue reading
Program and Be Programmed – A Review of Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s Programmed Visions
Type a letter on a keyboard and the letter appears on the screen, double-click on a program’s icon and it opens, use the mouse in an art program to draw … Continue reading
“The attempt to keep conscience alive” – Reflections on the book Burning Conscience
The threatening shape hanging above the horizon these days does not resemble a mushroom cloud. This is not to suggest that the potential threat of nuclear weapons has completely receded; … Continue reading
You’re Caught in the Net! – A review of Julia Angwin’s “Dragnet Nation”
A few decades ago if somebody told you “you’re being watched!” You might have dismissed them as paranoid, mildly unhinged, or perhaps you would have entertained the possibility that you … Continue reading
Hey! Slow Down! – A review of Doug Hill’s “Not So Fast”
For much of human history there has existed a conflict between people and their tools. From the alphabet to the clock to industrialization to the early computer to the smart-phone … Continue reading
Capitalism vs. the Internet – A review of Digital Disconnect by Robert McChesney
For many people the Internet seems to hold nothing but promise. This envisioned promise varies from one bunch to the next, yet across groups there seems to exist a certain … Continue reading
To Save Everything Click Here — by Evgeny Morozov — A Book Review
The modern day evangelicals of technology rarely miss an opportunity to proclaim the ways in which a new device or app will solve all of our problems. Such people stand … Continue reading
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