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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
I went into this book expecting a lot: I have strong feelings about data rights and privacy. Frankly, we don't do enough to protect people. however I'm also tech savvy and I don't like books being completely off the rails histrionic presenting such a fun house mirror to reality that I find myself repulsed. Shosana Zuboff's book is off the rails. This feels like one of those chem trails authors or why wifi is bad authors. "The Age" makes connections that are that out there. Which is sad because surveillance technology/capitalism is a real problem. It's something we need to understand and change.
According to Zuboff, everything is terrible, there are no solutions except to fight back (but how? ignore tech? She doesn't really say but there is a strong "get off my lawn vibe"). She talks about ETL, gets caught up that the E in ETL stands for extract, and then spends many words on why that's symbolic of all the evil done by tech. 500 pages of arguments similar to that one are presented. And they are particularly targeted to Google (which isn't completely fair).
Tech has a lot of issues, tech does overreach (a lot - thus why I read this book) but the writing style of this book is beyond sensationalism: this book veers into the yellow journalism scares of the US in the early 20th century. It's not helpful.
If you want to read a book on what to do: Alex Pentland's written several books on data rights. Support data rights and expansions of California's data laws (still too weak) and GDPR. That's one of the ways to get real change. Spending 500+ pages misrepresenting tech, or maybe it's better to say not understanding tech, when writing about such a critical topic, is not the way.
According to Zuboff, everything is terrible, there are no solutions except to fight back (but how? ignore tech? She doesn't really say but there is a strong "get off my lawn vibe"). She talks about ETL, gets caught up that the E in ETL stands for extract, and then spends many words on why that's symbolic of all the evil done by tech. 500 pages of arguments similar to that one are presented. And they are particularly targeted to Google (which isn't completely fair).
Tech has a lot of issues, tech does overreach (a lot - thus why I read this book) but the writing style of this book is beyond sensationalism: this book veers into the yellow journalism scares of the US in the early 20th century. It's not helpful.
If you want to read a book on what to do: Alex Pentland's written several books on data rights. Support data rights and expansions of California's data laws (still too weak) and GDPR. That's one of the ways to get real change. Spending 500+ pages misrepresenting tech, or maybe it's better to say not understanding tech, when writing about such a critical topic, is not the way.
I couldn't finish it. It didn't grip me. Interesting premise though.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Hands down, one of the most important books of our time.
An important message well delivered from a structural standpoint. My drawback with this book is that it is may be too lofty and academic to be widely accessible. Other than that and some unnecessary repetition, it was a fantastic read and as prevalent as ever to our current state of being.
Audiobook
This book should be a drinking game. Every time she uses the word "unprecedented", take a shot.
I'm conflicted about this book. She really grasps the issues at play here, and paints a dismal picture of how we've sold ourselves out. I, however, am wholly a product of surveillance capitalism and cannot, will not, turn my course. I pledged my allegiance to our Googley Overlord a long time ago.
She has a lot of super clever names for concepts. You can tell she's really proud of ideas like "Big Other" (Big Brother) and The Shadow Book etc. It gets annoying, how pleased she is with herself.
Also, MY GOD this is a needlessly long book. I KNOW she's delved deep in to philosophy and history to grok the patterns, but this book is long enough without those endless eddies and whorls away from the salient topic.
I'm just so glad it's over.
This book should be a drinking game. Every time she uses the word "unprecedented", take a shot.
I'm conflicted about this book. She really grasps the issues at play here, and paints a dismal picture of how we've sold ourselves out. I, however, am wholly a product of surveillance capitalism and cannot, will not, turn my course. I pledged my allegiance to our Googley Overlord a long time ago.
She has a lot of super clever names for concepts. You can tell she's really proud of ideas like "Big Other" (Big Brother) and The Shadow Book etc. It gets annoying, how pleased she is with herself.
Also, MY GOD this is a needlessly long book. I KNOW she's delved deep in to philosophy and history to grok the patterns, but this book is long enough without those endless eddies and whorls away from the salient topic.
I'm just so glad it's over.
As every other review has stated, this book is insanely well researched, detailed, thorough, and probably 30% too long.
It's absolutely chilling and has made me rethink a lot of what I use on the internet on a daily basis, how I contextualize the data I'm feeding to the machine, and what products and services will get my dollars going forward.
It's also a pretty helpless feeling, knowing this is just sort of how we live now, everything is used to sell and sell and sell. My livelihood is also dependent on this economy, being in digital marketing.
It's absolutely chilling and has made me rethink a lot of what I use on the internet on a daily basis, how I contextualize the data I'm feeding to the machine, and what products and services will get my dollars going forward.
It's also a pretty helpless feeling, knowing this is just sort of how we live now, everything is used to sell and sell and sell. My livelihood is also dependent on this economy, being in digital marketing.
This book is unsettling. I almost wish I hadn't read it
“The amateur doesn't appreciate the need for experimentation. He wants his experts to know.”
“What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.”
“Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated-- but not in politics... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer.”
B.F.S.
“What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.”
“Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated-- but not in politics... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer.”
B.F.S.