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A review by hieronymusbotched
New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle
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.