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A review by emilesnyder
Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last by David Edwards
This was one of those books aimed at me that just didn't land. There were many things that had me gritting my teeth throughout (excessive name dropping, continual use of "pioneer" and "frontier" imagery exultantly tone deaf fashion, extreme levels of self congratulation) but at the heart of it was a stubborn refusal to address the title question: what does it mean for something to *matter?*
David Edwards wants to glide over this, assume we all know what it means and agree on which projects embody it. But his relentless, chipper, "shit's fucked up and bullshit but humans are *innovators* and *aesthetic creators* and we just have to keep doing *pioneering* stuff at the *frontiers* and we'll figure it out" take refuses to grapple with any of the hard problems. We are not just dealing with the fallout of bad actors, but also the unintended consequences of people pursuing their dreams and passions trying to improve the human condition.
If you write a book about creating things that *matter,* and argue that it will help us deal with our sustainability crises, you have to deal with this stuff. The petrochemical revolution in industrialization definitely *matters* in the sense of being overwhelmingly, climate shapingly, important. But clearly this isn't what Edwards means. Colonialism and white supremacy clearly mattered in a similar sense. The development of industrial farming practices; same.
The overwhelming proportion of examples of "things that matter" that Edwards uses in the book are projects from the last 20 years. And I don't think I found a *single* negative example; something that didn't matter, or didn't matter in the right way.
Extremely frustrating read.
David Edwards wants to glide over this, assume we all know what it means and agree on which projects embody it. But his relentless, chipper, "shit's fucked up and bullshit but humans are *innovators* and *aesthetic creators* and we just have to keep doing *pioneering* stuff at the *frontiers* and we'll figure it out" take refuses to grapple with any of the hard problems. We are not just dealing with the fallout of bad actors, but also the unintended consequences of people pursuing their dreams and passions trying to improve the human condition.
If you write a book about creating things that *matter,* and argue that it will help us deal with our sustainability crises, you have to deal with this stuff. The petrochemical revolution in industrialization definitely *matters* in the sense of being overwhelmingly, climate shapingly, important. But clearly this isn't what Edwards means. Colonialism and white supremacy clearly mattered in a similar sense. The development of industrial farming practices; same.
The overwhelming proportion of examples of "things that matter" that Edwards uses in the book are projects from the last 20 years. And I don't think I found a *single* negative example; something that didn't matter, or didn't matter in the right way.
Extremely frustrating read.