Saturday, March 18, 2017

My Review of "Automatic Society"

Worthy subject, bad thinking....

2 out of 5 stars

The author looks at how work has been de-humanized to the point of being just part of a society structured around, as he calls it, computational capitalism, a system where consumer consumption is the measure of success. And, we are ruled by "algorithmic govermentality."

Sure, automation has lead to less needed human work hours, and there is dignity to hard work, be it manual or intellectual. But, this is the way progress happens. The world is the healthiest (longest life expectancy), most educated, etc. By the way, video games require higher order thinking than reading (parallel vs sequential thinking). Not that one replaces the other, just that most everyone's brain is more capable of the creative and critical thinking the author thinks has been lost.

Bottom line, I think this book is misguided AND masked with words so pedantic, one needs a dictionary to read almost every page.

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