[D66] Radical Technologies

[R.O.]

9781784780456
Radical Technologies
The Design of Everyday Life
by Adam Greenfield <https://www.versobooks.com/authors/2168-adam-greenfield>

  * Paperback
  * Ebook
  * Hardback

Paperback with free ebook
£9.99£5.9940% off
368 pages / May 2018 / 9781784780456

A field manual to the technologies that are changing our lives

Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our 
lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our 
Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to 
reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and 
spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley 
consensus determining the future.

We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our 
existence. We’re told that innovations—from augmented-reality interfaces 
and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving 
cars—will make life easier, more convenient and more productive. 3D 
printing promises unprecedented control over the form and distribution 
of matter, while the blockchain stands to revolutionize everything from 
the recording and exchange of value to the way we organize the mundane 
realities of the day to day. And, all the while, fiendishly complex 
algorithms are operating quietly in the background, reshaping the 
economy, transforming the fundamental terms of our politics and even 
redefining what it means to be human.

Having successfully colonized everyday life, these radical technologies 
are now conditioning the choices available to us in the years to come. 
How do they work? What challenges do they present to us, as individuals 
and societies? Who benefits from their adoption? In answering these 
questions, Greenfield’s timely guide clarifies the scale and nature of 
the crisis we now confront —and offers ways to reclaim our stake in the 
future.


    Reviews

“A tremendously intelligent and stylish book on the ‘colonization of 
everyday life by information processing’ calls for resistance to rule by 
the tech elite … a landmark primer and spur to more informed and 
effective opposition.”

– /Guardian/ 
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/13/radical-technologies-adam-greenfield-review?CMP=twt_b-gdnreview>

“Adam Greenfield goes digging into the layers that constitute what we 
experience as smooth tech surface. He unsettles and repositions much of 
that smoothness. /Radical Technologies/ is brilliant and scary”

– Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of /Expulsions/

“We exist within an ever-thickening web of technologies whose workings 
are increasingly opaque to us. In this illuminating and sometimes deeply 
disturbing book, Adam Greenfield explores how these systems work, how 
they synergize with each other, and the resultant effects on our 
societies, our politics, and our psyches. This is an essential book.”

– Brian Eno

“A systematic analysis of the hazards posed by the most revolutionary of 
new technologies … his analyses are extremely proficient at uncovering 
the risks and contradictions that our enthusiasm for new technology has 
occluded … a vital counter-statement to such pervasive utopianism.”

– /Public Seminar/ 
<http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/07/we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholesale/#.WXsDpIWKwot>

“Does an excellent job of introducing non - specialist readers to some 
of the game-changing technologies that are transforming our lives and 
that are set to affect the social, economic, political and cultural 
evolution of humanity... a very valuable contribution to the discussion 
about what that future should look like.”

– /Morning Star/ 
<http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-73c5-Game-changers-could-be-great#.WZqtVYWKwot>

“A work of remarkable breadth and legibility that acts as both a 
technical design guide and a sharp political critique of the networked 
products that are reshaping society.”

– Scot Ludlam, /The Monthly/

“Provides a grounded guide, a cautionary tale in which each chapter 
walks readers through another layer of a dazzling and treacherous 
landscape.”

– Jennifer Howard, /Times Literary Supplement/

“Of all the books I’ve read this year, one that really stood out was 
/Radical Technologies/ by Adam Greenfield, which describes some of the 
ways innovation is transforming our daily lives … Change is inevitable. 
The big question is, How do we retool ourselves? How do we function in 
this new, utterly transparent world? What are the social consequences of 
what we are experiencing?”

– Indra Nooyi, /Wall Street Journal [Books of the Year, 2017]/ 
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-business-leaders-read-in-2017-1513107964>

“Fascinating and scary … [Adam Greenfield] is very well informed about a 
whole host of technologies that we hear a lot about but (if you’re like 
me) have a hard time grasping. He’s a graceful writer, so even when he’s 
angry he’s eloquent without relying on emotional cues or nostalgia. More 
importantly, he thinks new technologies have a lot of potential—but if 
we fail to pay attention, all of its benefits will reinforce current 
power structures. What they call ‘innovation’ now that ‘progress’ has 
gone out of style is the entrenchment of power and wealth.”

– Barbara Fister, /Inside Higher Ed/ 
<https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/informed-dissent>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuxtown.net/pipermail/d66/attachments/20200802/c76f95db/attachment-0001.html>