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A review by folly_problem
New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle
5.0
I cannot sing the praises of this book enough, it is the kind of thing I have long wanted to read, and here it is, better thought out than I could have hoped. I have thought over many of the topics in this book before, and was still inspired by the richness of thought on display.
The book covers, in readable and clear prose, the various ways technology not only works, but encourages us to think. How by asserting that technology is 'neutral' we blind ourselves to its origins and its aims. Beyond all this the author makes one point, fittingly, very clear. Despite the origins and complications of these systems. The military origins of GPS, computation, the internet. Nobody designed the world, none of this was deliberate, everyone is slightly baffled and confused. The theories don't work, conspiracies run rampant, and we all see a different world from the selfsame sky.
We cannot ban the world, unspool the optical fibres, or grasp buildings and force them back into the ground. The world is here, and this book is a call to say even if we don't understand it, we must still aim to address it. When things are unknowable, we cannot lean into the notion that more data will be the solution, the solution is more thinking. Freer, wider thinking.
As the book says in the first chapter, our tools enourage us to think a certain way, but there are so many ways to use tools if we step back and really think. We must re-enchant our tools, if we see them not as natural, colossal inevitablities, but as things made for one purpose, which can be utilised for others. Well then we have a chance here and now in the present. After all, in an uncertain world, the only time to act is now.
I cannot recommend this book enough, go read it!
The book covers, in readable and clear prose, the various ways technology not only works, but encourages us to think. How by asserting that technology is 'neutral' we blind ourselves to its origins and its aims. Beyond all this the author makes one point, fittingly, very clear. Despite the origins and complications of these systems. The military origins of GPS, computation, the internet. Nobody designed the world, none of this was deliberate, everyone is slightly baffled and confused. The theories don't work, conspiracies run rampant, and we all see a different world from the selfsame sky.
We cannot ban the world, unspool the optical fibres, or grasp buildings and force them back into the ground. The world is here, and this book is a call to say even if we don't understand it, we must still aim to address it. When things are unknowable, we cannot lean into the notion that more data will be the solution, the solution is more thinking. Freer, wider thinking.
As the book says in the first chapter, our tools enourage us to think a certain way, but there are so many ways to use tools if we step back and really think. We must re-enchant our tools, if we see them not as natural, colossal inevitablities, but as things made for one purpose, which can be utilised for others. Well then we have a chance here and now in the present. After all, in an uncertain world, the only time to act is now.
I cannot recommend this book enough, go read it!