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jmc513's review against another edition
5.0
There's a resonance between this book and some of Donna Haraway's work that offers a sort of agency, a plurality of possible futures beyond the multiple utopias/dystopias that plague our collective imaginaries, if only we reclaim our relationship with the present.
Neither a defeated account of our imminent demise, nor a hopeful formula for brighter days, New Dark Age engages with the depth of its denunciation, and offer a sobering invitation to stay with the trouble of living amidst the cloudiness of the cloud, to revise our relationship with the tools we've built and the world we've built into them, and to engage with the complexity of the challenge, not by blind faith in technological solutionism but by acting to understand and reshape that very technology. Think we must.
Neither a defeated account of our imminent demise, nor a hopeful formula for brighter days, New Dark Age engages with the depth of its denunciation, and offer a sobering invitation to stay with the trouble of living amidst the cloudiness of the cloud, to revise our relationship with the tools we've built and the world we've built into them, and to engage with the complexity of the challenge, not by blind faith in technological solutionism but by acting to understand and reshape that very technology. Think we must.
cattytrona's review against another edition
3.0
i found the central conceit of the dark age very evocative: information and truth does feel out of my grasp a lot of the time. it was reassuring, and then worrying again, to think that it isn’t just me, that it is in the design, the hyper object in the centre of our daily lives, whether that’s thanks to shadowy agencies, or just sheer incomprehensibility. i also thought the idea that darkness/lack of surety does allow for positivity (because what is unknown might well be good), although i’m not totally sure the book, often gloomy, earns its optimistic spin.
but it wasn’t quite what i thought it would be. it’s basically a series of examples of various lengths, which are often over explained, even if they eventually make good points, and which sometimes feel a little too anecdotal and specific to be extrapolated into anything. it cannot be overstated how often two sentences of explanation takes two (plus) paragraphs, and that means the book is very clear, but also very skimmable. it’s hard to reach big social truths or even thesis statements when so much of the writing is so entrenched in the minutiae of youtube kids vids (half a chapter!) or chess computers or weather prediction. those examples are interesting, if often not new to me (and i am a relative layperson to this discussion) but it also sort of feels like, if i wanted to know about this stuff, i would have picked up a book specifically and explicitly about it. it’s tough because i do want this kind of discussion to be rooted in real circumstances, i guess i’m just looking for a different scope or balance or something. however, there was at least one moment where i found the anecdote so interesting that i was like ‘why do i bother with fiction, i should be finding out about the world’, although now i can’t remember which one made me react that way. and the whole book is always very readable too, that’s worth mentioning.
but it wasn’t quite what i thought it would be. it’s basically a series of examples of various lengths, which are often over explained, even if they eventually make good points, and which sometimes feel a little too anecdotal and specific to be extrapolated into anything. it cannot be overstated how often two sentences of explanation takes two (plus) paragraphs, and that means the book is very clear, but also very skimmable. it’s hard to reach big social truths or even thesis statements when so much of the writing is so entrenched in the minutiae of youtube kids vids (half a chapter!) or chess computers or weather prediction. those examples are interesting, if often not new to me (and i am a relative layperson to this discussion) but it also sort of feels like, if i wanted to know about this stuff, i would have picked up a book specifically and explicitly about it. it’s tough because i do want this kind of discussion to be rooted in real circumstances, i guess i’m just looking for a different scope or balance or something. however, there was at least one moment where i found the anecdote so interesting that i was like ‘why do i bother with fiction, i should be finding out about the world’, although now i can’t remember which one made me react that way. and the whole book is always very readable too, that’s worth mentioning.
jedwardsusc's review against another edition
4.0
The title is an homage to H. P. Lovecraft. That tells you most of what you need to know going in about the pessimism level in this book. Bridle argues that more information does not and cannot fix our problems. Instead, the quest for more and faster access to information has created a digital fog (cloud) so dense that even our fanciest computer algorithms (the ones that built the cloud) cannot see beyond it. The result is not a science fiction thriller of smart computers becoming self aware and seizing control but a profoundly more banal horror story of big data machines mindlessly magnifying and exploiting our worst human tendencies.
ainepalmtree's review against another edition
This was good - well written, engaging, informative, and interesting. My one critique would be that while Bridle seems to suggest that the only way forward is developing technological literacy and understanding, his book doesn't quite deliver that, and he doesn't really signpost where else to go - consequently, it can occasionally read as simply an account of how terrifying and terrible everything is.
meemzala's review against another edition
3.0
Took another break, and I’m glad I did. Had a long conversation w Ariel about my irritation with the author for mixing his opinion in with fact so inextricably as to make me mistrust any statement that wasn’t cited. A little later in the book, Bridle discusses that Kenyan survivors of British torture weren’t believed until royal documents were leaked that detailed the torture. The Kenyans were telling the truth in relating their own experiences, but neither the general public nor the ruling powers did anything about it until they heard about it from the colonizers themselves. My unwillingness to believe anything I was reading unless it was either cited or stated as absolute fact was reflected by the case studies in the text. I’m releasing my death grip on needing to know “exactly what genre this book is” and letting myself sink deeper into it.
motherslug's review against another edition
5.0
I LOVE this book even though it terrifies me. James Bridle draws damning parallels between seemingly very unrelated things like surprise egg videos on YouTube and the proliferation of fake news. He makes fascinating points, like that oppressive imperialist policies are encoded in the physical framework of data structures. He explores highly intriguing shit like weather manipulation and secret deportation flights. Extremely thought-provoking and even fairly accessible!
adamchalmers's review against another edition
5.0
Incredible read. All about the way that (contrary to what "common sense" and tech companies say) modern technology is actually making the world less knowable, more opaque, harder to reason about.
So many books or blogs critiquing modern technology are just fear-mongering hand-waving from people on the outside. Especially since the 2016 election. This is a very considered book with a lot of very illuminating ideas from someone who definitely knows what he's talking about. It's changed my mind about some issues I hold dear.
This is an issue that any armchair philosopher with a CS degree - there sure are a lot of armchair philosophers with CS degrees hey - needs to read.
So many books or blogs critiquing modern technology are just fear-mongering hand-waving from people on the outside. Especially since the 2016 election. This is a very considered book with a lot of very illuminating ideas from someone who definitely knows what he's talking about. It's changed my mind about some issues I hold dear.
This is an issue that any armchair philosopher with a CS degree - there sure are a lot of armchair philosophers with CS degrees hey - needs to read.
bookends_68's review
4.0
An incredibly detailed analysis on the expansion of technology and how it messes us up, basically.
I found this book through the author's TED talk about the horrors of children's YouTube, and it's still the greatest TED talk I've ever seen, so the most informative chapter of this book for me was the one that covered that in more detail. (I am now even more terrified of YouTube)
What I also found interesting was the sheer amount of links this book made between so many topics I'd vaguely considered to be related (especially for topics like climate change). This book feels like a great jumping off point to read deeper into a whole bunch of different historical events and current scandals that I'd never even heard of before picking this up.
I found this book through the author's TED talk about the horrors of children's YouTube, and it's still the greatest TED talk I've ever seen, so the most informative chapter of this book for me was the one that covered that in more detail. (I am now even more terrified of YouTube)
What I also found interesting was the sheer amount of links this book made between so many topics I'd vaguely considered to be related (especially for topics like climate change). This book feels like a great jumping off point to read deeper into a whole bunch of different historical events and current scandals that I'd never even heard of before picking this up.
fridde82's review against another edition
dark
informative
slow-paced
2.5
Paranoid, erschreckend, paranoid.
Und ich mochte die Stimme nicht.
Und ich mochte die Stimme nicht.