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A review by rosco
The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland
1.0
I was not impressed at all with this book. I think this is an interesting topic, and I’ve often enjoyed books in this type of format, so neither of those were the problem here. Here are a few things that particularly stuck out to me in the first few pages:
“Twenty years ago the Internet used zero per cent of human energy consumption”
My first thought here was Wow, this book is only 3 years old and already sounds outdated. My second thought was Wait, that’s probably just not true at all, even at the date of publication. I can’t find any statistics on how much energy was being consumed by the Internet in 1995, but it wasn’t 0. Maybe it was under 1%, (round to 0) but even if that was the case, this seems like an intentionally misleading statement.
“Have you maybe noticed that… … our lives are no longer feelings like stories?”
Honestly no, I don’t feel that way at all.
“… our lives are becoming a lineup of tasks?”
Did earlier generations not complete tasks?
“Fact: The Internet makes you smarter and more impatient. It makes you reject slower processes invented in times of less technology: travel agencies; phone calls; reference libraries; nightclubs.”
a) Pretty sure slowness has very little to do with why fewer people are using travel agencies. Maybe it’s more to do with things like cost, lack of control, etc. b) This one seems relatively true. c) Reference libraries are slower, true, but they can also become quickly outdated which can be a major issue depending what kind of research you’re doing. d) What?! How do nightclubs fit into this? First of all, I’ve never heard anyone describe a nightclub as “slow”, and secondly, are people rejecting them now more than before? As far as I can tell, nightlife is alive and well- and even if I’m mistaken about that, I sincerely doubt that slowness has anything to do with it.
“My mother knows what an algorithm is. She’s 77. That’s just weird.”
How exactly is that weird? Your mother is a real person. 77 year olds can learn things too. 77 year olds are living on the same planet that you are. Computers are a big part of that planet. Would you still think it was weird if it was your 77 year old father? (Maybe you would, I’m not jumping to conclusions- I just can’t help wondering.)
“Proceleration (n.) The acceleration of acceleration.”
This already has a name- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics)
That last item was on page 51 and in my opinion it’s just downhill from there. Lots of provocative pseudo-scientific and/or pseudo-psychological and/or pseudo-political and/or pseudo-philosophical statements presented as facts without ever any evidence or even arguments to back them up. Lots of broad, sweeping statements. To the authors: no, your experiences are not at all universal. I have rarely read anything that came off as so incredibly out-of-touch. People from different social classes, different age groups, different areas of the world, etc. all have differing experiences and perspectives. One example that kept coming up: 7 billion people are NOT on the internet. In 2015, the year this book was published, the International Telecommunication Union estimated that less than half that number has access to the internet. 7 billion people are not constantly bored. 7 billion people are not able to relate to this book at all. If anyone who hasn’t read the book already is reading this, know that I’m using the example of 7 billion because the book literally references “7 billion people” over and over again throughout. Am I at peace with the statistical inevitability that I am most likely downwardly mobile? Just about anyone born after around 1990 has known this to be that case for basically their entire lives, so yeah, I guess so. You miss doing nothing because you spend to much time on your “devices”? Must be nice being so rich that these are the kinds of problems you have. If you want to put your phone down for a minute then put it down. The rest of us miss doing nothing because we have to spend all our time working to pay our rent. (Not sure about Basar or Obrist, but Coupland’s net worth is estimated to be between 175-208 million dollars- just saying. I hate economic equality too, but hearing a person who has a net worth (using the lower estimate of 175mil here) approximately 20x higher [in the USA which seems to be the focus of the book, more than 25x higher in Canada where he lives, and over 225x higher worldwide] than the cutoff for being in the top 1% complain about the 1% feels pretty insincere.)
I *would* love to connect with the person on Earth most identical to me, though. And I liked the Jenny Holzer reference. There were a couple other things here and there that I found interesting, but overall this book was an enormous let-down.
“Twenty years ago the Internet used zero per cent of human energy consumption”
My first thought here was Wow, this book is only 3 years old and already sounds outdated. My second thought was Wait, that’s probably just not true at all, even at the date of publication. I can’t find any statistics on how much energy was being consumed by the Internet in 1995, but it wasn’t 0. Maybe it was under 1%, (round to 0) but even if that was the case, this seems like an intentionally misleading statement.
“Have you maybe noticed that… … our lives are no longer feelings like stories?”
Honestly no, I don’t feel that way at all.
“… our lives are becoming a lineup of tasks?”
Did earlier generations not complete tasks?
“Fact: The Internet makes you smarter and more impatient. It makes you reject slower processes invented in times of less technology: travel agencies; phone calls; reference libraries; nightclubs.”
a) Pretty sure slowness has very little to do with why fewer people are using travel agencies. Maybe it’s more to do with things like cost, lack of control, etc. b) This one seems relatively true. c) Reference libraries are slower, true, but they can also become quickly outdated which can be a major issue depending what kind of research you’re doing. d) What?! How do nightclubs fit into this? First of all, I’ve never heard anyone describe a nightclub as “slow”, and secondly, are people rejecting them now more than before? As far as I can tell, nightlife is alive and well- and even if I’m mistaken about that, I sincerely doubt that slowness has anything to do with it.
“My mother knows what an algorithm is. She’s 77. That’s just weird.”
How exactly is that weird? Your mother is a real person. 77 year olds can learn things too. 77 year olds are living on the same planet that you are. Computers are a big part of that planet. Would you still think it was weird if it was your 77 year old father? (Maybe you would, I’m not jumping to conclusions- I just can’t help wondering.)
“Proceleration (n.) The acceleration of acceleration.”
This already has a name- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics)
That last item was on page 51 and in my opinion it’s just downhill from there. Lots of provocative pseudo-scientific and/or pseudo-psychological and/or pseudo-political and/or pseudo-philosophical statements presented as facts without ever any evidence or even arguments to back them up. Lots of broad, sweeping statements. To the authors: no, your experiences are not at all universal. I have rarely read anything that came off as so incredibly out-of-touch. People from different social classes, different age groups, different areas of the world, etc. all have differing experiences and perspectives. One example that kept coming up: 7 billion people are NOT on the internet. In 2015, the year this book was published, the International Telecommunication Union estimated that less than half that number has access to the internet. 7 billion people are not constantly bored. 7 billion people are not able to relate to this book at all. If anyone who hasn’t read the book already is reading this, know that I’m using the example of 7 billion because the book literally references “7 billion people” over and over again throughout. Am I at peace with the statistical inevitability that I am most likely downwardly mobile? Just about anyone born after around 1990 has known this to be that case for basically their entire lives, so yeah, I guess so. You miss doing nothing because you spend to much time on your “devices”? Must be nice being so rich that these are the kinds of problems you have. If you want to put your phone down for a minute then put it down. The rest of us miss doing nothing because we have to spend all our time working to pay our rent. (Not sure about Basar or Obrist, but Coupland’s net worth is estimated to be between 175-208 million dollars- just saying. I hate economic equality too, but hearing a person who has a net worth (using the lower estimate of 175mil here) approximately 20x higher [in the USA which seems to be the focus of the book, more than 25x higher in Canada where he lives, and over 225x higher worldwide] than the cutoff for being in the top 1% complain about the 1% feels pretty insincere.)
I *would* love to connect with the person on Earth most identical to me, though. And I liked the Jenny Holzer reference. There were a couple other things here and there that I found interesting, but overall this book was an enormous let-down.