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mireillerb's review against another edition
3.0
We live in a new dark age, where too much information clouds our understanding. With this premise, the author seeks to unravel a path, but being inside the dark cloud instead manages a lose narrative.
There are interesting topics, but I feel a general lack of argumentative power. Rather, this book feels like a “show and tell” compilation of our complex relationships with technology, and other author’s perspectives.
There are interesting topics, but I feel a general lack of argumentative power. Rather, this book feels like a “show and tell” compilation of our complex relationships with technology, and other author’s perspectives.
strategineer's review against another edition
5.0
A bleak but compelling investigation on a variety of world ending issues we're facing currently.
You have to be in the right mood for this text but if you are, you're likely to learn something.
You have to be in the right mood for this text but if you are, you're likely to learn something.
joshholder's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Argues for a world view that I haven't quite seen articulated anywhere else, but that I think all of us feel deep down - that our society is awash in data and algorithmic content, that we don't know what to do about it, and that paradoxically this increase in information is also making it far harder to get any real information.
The writing was pretty hard to parse at some points and some of the examples seemed like a stretch to fit into the overarching theme, but still an interesting read.
The writing was pretty hard to parse at some points and some of the examples seemed like a stretch to fit into the overarching theme, but still an interesting read.
gordin's review against another edition
5.0
I can't say it's a good book, but "New Dark Age" raises questions so important and I enjoyed it so much that I feel necessary to rate it highly. Just like its subject – the interconnected cloud/network – it sprawls in multiple directions at once and doesn't present an easily discernible narrative for a moderately educated person like me, but reads more like a collection of thoughts and approaches inspired by a common underlying philosophy.
Because of this, the book will probably seem too basic for advanced techno-philosophical readers and for a completely unprepared person it will be too alarming to process and is likely to be rejected altogether.
But I personally enjoyed it, found a lot of areas and questions worth investigating and reading on further and can recommend it to anyone who considered themselves a technological optimist, but is ready to question that notion.
Because of this, the book will probably seem too basic for advanced techno-philosophical readers and for a completely unprepared person it will be too alarming to process and is likely to be rejected altogether.
But I personally enjoyed it, found a lot of areas and questions worth investigating and reading on further and can recommend it to anyone who considered themselves a technological optimist, but is ready to question that notion.
hieronymusbotched's review against another edition
5.0
Frightening and immediate - quite likely the most important book I’ll read all year, if not the best.
Bridle covers everything from climate change to bot-generated YouTube channels and basically I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. There’s so much in here that will shock and horrify - like the fact that data centers around the world constitute approximately the same level of carbon emissions as the airline industry, which means the same ‘egalitarian’ industry we assume will save us from ourselves is also a rapidly growing risk to every living creature on the planet.
And that’s without even considering the psychological calamity the internet germinates daily.
The world he paints - our world, one we’re increasingly lost in - is a nightmare of obfuscation and distraction. But he offers some semblance of hope in the idea of guardianship, the suggestion that although it’s impossible to understand every facet of the network (get ready to learn the word ‘hyperobject’) we can still try to take control and wrestle meaning from chaos. It’s a cogent, sober idea and after reading this book, if you can successfully fight the urge to hide under a rock, one that will feel urgent and necessary.
Of course there’s more to say, but I can barely think straight. This is simply the best book about ‘now’ from the last five years and something I can’t recommend highly enough.
Bridle covers everything from climate change to bot-generated YouTube channels and basically I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. There’s so much in here that will shock and horrify - like the fact that data centers around the world constitute approximately the same level of carbon emissions as the airline industry, which means the same ‘egalitarian’ industry we assume will save us from ourselves is also a rapidly growing risk to every living creature on the planet.
And that’s without even considering the psychological calamity the internet germinates daily.
The world he paints - our world, one we’re increasingly lost in - is a nightmare of obfuscation and distraction. But he offers some semblance of hope in the idea of guardianship, the suggestion that although it’s impossible to understand every facet of the network (get ready to learn the word ‘hyperobject’) we can still try to take control and wrestle meaning from chaos. It’s a cogent, sober idea and after reading this book, if you can successfully fight the urge to hide under a rock, one that will feel urgent and necessary.
Of course there’s more to say, but I can barely think straight. This is simply the best book about ‘now’ from the last five years and something I can’t recommend highly enough.
yates9's review against another edition
4.0
Quick fluid read with well researched technological failures taken into account for their ability to confuse how humans value technology, and inducing a kind of blindness.
Not enough here about solutions, and a bit too much in complaints about systemic changes that would occur by emergence, no matter what the underlying culture.
Not enough here about solutions, and a bit too much in complaints about systemic changes that would occur by emergence, no matter what the underlying culture.