Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines - Softcover

Talbott, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1492025615 ISBN 13: 9781492025610

Verlag: O'Reilly Media, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

"Self-forgetfulness is the reigning temptation of the technological era. This is why we so readily give our assent to the absurd proposition that a computer can add two plus two, despite the obvious fact that it can do nothing of the sort--not if we have in mind anything remotely resembling what we do when we add numbers. In the computer's case, the mechanics of addition involve no motivation, no consciousness of the task, no mobilization of the will, no metabolic activity, no imagination. And its performance brings neither the satisfaction of accomplishment nor the strengthening of practical skills and cognitive capacities."

In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing--our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems.

Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic."

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steve Talbott is Senior Researcher at The Nature Institute in Ghent, New York. He produces the Institute's NetFuture newsletter, which was termed an "undiscovered national treasure" in a New York Times feature story on his work. His book, "The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst", (O'Reilly, 1995) was named one of the "Outstanding Books of 1996" by the academic library journal, Choice.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: O'Reilly Media
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1492025615
• ISBN 13: 9781492025610
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 298
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar