World Without Mind

July 24, 2017
Former New Republic editor Foer (How Soccer Explains the World) constructs a scathing critique of tech culture and breaks down the collective history and impact of giant corporations such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Silicon Valley companies “have eroded the integrity of institutions—media, publishing—that supply the intellectual material that provokes thought and guides democracy,” Foer states in his introduction, already showing a pointed antipathy toward his subject. He traces the origins of big tech monopolies back to the 1960s and specifically to the “crown prince of hippiedom,” Stewart Brand, who spread the vision of a “world healed by technology, brought together into a peaceful model of collaboration” with his publication of The Whole Earth Catalog (once described by Steve Jobs as “the bible” of his generation). Foer argues that Brand's vision is the basis for Silicon Valley's corporate culture, where monopoly is seen as part of the natural order (it is telling that startups no longer aspire to displace giants such as Facebook or Google but rather to be acquired by them). The result is of extraordinary detriment to American culture, writes Foer, who blames the collapsing value of knowledge, on the absent-minded entrepreneurs leading Amazon, Facebook, and Google. He goes on to argue that Google’s evolving mission statement as “a company with ever-expanding boundaries,” Facebook’s focus on increasingly complex algorithms, and Amazon’s growing stranglehold on commerce have played a role in “the catastrophic collapse of the news business and the degradation of American civic culture.” Foer is neither subtle nor impartial (he notes early on his falling out with Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, who bought the New Republic in 2012), and this is more a call to arms than a wake-up call. It’s a rousing—though oversimplified—spin on the Silicon Valley origin story and the cultural impact of technology.

July 15, 2017
A capably argued if perhaps too familiar criticism of things as they are in this intermediated, technological swirl of a world.There may be some Ayn Rand-worshipping libertarians in Silicon Valley, writes Foer (How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, 2004, etc.), but the governing ethos of what the Europeans call GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) is to aggregate us into a big data collectivity and manage our every desire, memory, taste, and everything else that makes us individuals. In an essay/manifesto driven by righteous indignation at having been fired from his job as New Republic editor by one of those wandering techies, Foer fires back with, among other things, the charge that the tech billionaires' forays into media "have eroded the integrity of institutions...that supply the intellectual material that provokes thought and guides democracy." (Never mind that the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post has taken the lead in resisting the current administration.) Foer aims broadly and fires buckshot. Sometimes he hits the target, sometimes not. When he does, it's a doozy: he notes, for instance, that our democratic revolution is now running up against our technological revolution, and "we're nearing the moment when we will have to damage one of our revolutions to save the other." The most profound insights in the book usually come from other thinkers on whom Foer draws, such as the economist Herbert Simon, who observed that the true cost of information was its sapping of the information consumer's attention--which is why things come to us in sound bites and bullet points these days. Many of Foer's arguments will be familiar to readers who critique technology, such as Jaron Lanier, Ellen Ullman, and Clay Shirky, but his proposed remedy is pretty much his own, perhaps by way of John Prine: blow up the TV and computer and read a (printed) book. A spirited renunciation of the machine and not just for Luddites in favor of such radical thoughts as private ownership of one's own data and the nonalgorithmic shopping experience.

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September 1, 2017

Journalist and author Foer (How Soccer Explains the World) looks at the sociological impact of the Internet to determine how consumers are increasingly dependent upon Facebook for social interaction, Google for information, and Amazon for shopping. Foer describes how these companies collect significant amounts of data about users and, in turn, use this information to manipulate consumer behavior, including their political activities. In particular, the author is dissatisfied with the way journalistic ethics have been abandoned in the quest for the online audience. He explains, "The election of Donald Trump came with...a sense that we need more committed protectors of truth than the feckless gatekeepers at Facebook and Google." He is also distressed that these companies, founded upon idealistic concepts, now use aggressive tax avoidance policies and intensive lobbying to promote their own interests and preserve their bottom line. While Foer pleads for government regulation of the industry, he finds a glimmer of hope in recent statistics that show a preference for paper books over digital formats, giving readers an increased sense of privacy. VERDICT A brief, timely book well worth reading for anyone concerned with privacy.--Harold D. Shane, Mathematics Emeritus, Baruch Coll. Lib., CUNY

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