Not So Fast
Thinking Twice about Technology
by Doug Hill
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Pub Date Oct 15 2016 | Archive Date Oct 31 2016
Description
There’s a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, “How’s the water?” The younger fish are puzzled. “What’s water?” they ask.
Many of us today might ask a similar question: What’s technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we’re so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail to perceive all the ways it might be shaping us.
Usually when we hear the word “technology,” we automatically think of digital devices and their myriad applications. As revolutionary as smartphones, online shopping, and social networks may seem, however, they fit into long-standing, deeply entrenched patterns of technological thought as well as practice. Generations of skeptics have questioned how well served we are by those patterns of thought and practice, even as generations of enthusiasts have promised that the latest innovations will deliver us, soon, to Paradise. We’re not there yet, but the cyber utopians of Silicon Valley keep telling us it’s right around the corner.
What is technology, and how is it shaping us? In search of answers to those crucial questions, Not So Fast draws on the insights of dozens of scholars and artists who have thought deeply about the meanings of machines. The book explores such dynamics as technological drift, technological momentum, technological disequilibrium, and technological autonomy to help us understand the interconnected, interwoven, and interdependent phenomena of our technological world. In the course of that exploration, Doug Hill poses penetrating questions of his own, among them: Do we have as much control over our machines as we think? And who can we rely on to guide the technological forces that will determine the future of the planet?
A Note From the Publisher2>
Doug Hill is a journalist and independent scholar who has studied the history and philosophy of technology for more than twenty-five years. His work has appeared in numerous national publications, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Salon, Forbes, Esquire, and the blog “The Question Concerning Technology.” He is coauthor of the bestseller Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live and lives in Philadelphia.
Advance Praise
—Bill McKibben, activist and author, Enough, The Age of Missing Information and The End of Nature
"This book is the most comprehensive, provocative, and entertaining
review of technological thought, expression, impact and controversy that
I have yet seen. Written in a remarkably straightforward and open
style, and seemingly without personal axes to grind, Doug Hill provides
details and insight into the evolution of technology over the last
millennium, while focusing on the debates, pro and con, that shaped many
stages of recent development. The book is more than just a discourse;
it's an informal encyclopedia of perspectives, predictions, debates and
consequences of our society's technologic evolution; the upsides, and
perhaps more-so, the downsides; and is more comprehensive and efficient
in these explorations than anything that has preceded it. And yet it is
easy reading, personable, and charming. An extraordinary achievement."
—Jerry Mander, Founder and Chair of the International Forum on Globalization and author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television; In the Absence of the Sacred; and The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws in an Obsolete System
"Not So Fast addresses the primary questions of the day: how
can we construct a coherent story about what is happening to us? And
what can we do about it? Anyone interested in the future of the human
project will benefit hugely from Doug Hill's lucid performance."
—James Howard Kunstler, author of Too Much Magic, The Long Emergency, and The Geography of Nowhere
"Lively, fast moving, always entertaining, Not So Fast offers a
grand overview of the extravagant hopes and dire warnings that
accompany the arrival of powerful new technologies. Blending the key
ideas of classic and contemporary thinkers, Doug Hill explores the
aspirations of those who strive for the heavens of artifice and those
who find the whole enterprise a fool's errand. This is the most
engaging, readable work on the great debates in technology criticism now
available and a solid contribution to that crucial yet unsettling
tradition."
—Langdon Winner, author of Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought and The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology
"This is the technology criticism I've been waiting for—aware of the
history of technology criticism and the history of changing attitudes
toward technology, and at the same time attuned to contemporary
developments. Not So Fast is readable, meticulously sourced, and, above all—nuanced. I recommend it for technology critics and enthusiasts alike."
—Howard, Rheingold, author of Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs and Net Smart
"Doug Hill's Not So Fast has to be one of the five best books
on technology I've read over the past decade. Hill has a remarkable
command of the technology creators, analysts, and critics, such as
Ellul, Heidegger, Kurzweil, Gates, Jobs, Mumford, Borgmann, and McLuhan.
He approaches technology from several helpful angles. His prose is
clear, convincing, and often droll! Not So Fast must be part of any reflection on our culture and future."
—David W. Gill, Professor of Workplace Theology & Business Ethics,
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, President, International Jacques
Ellul Society
"Not So Fast reflects, in addition to Doug Hill's consummate
skill as a writer, his deep knowledge of the history and the philosophy
of technology. His reflections are grounded in that knowledge and at the
same time are original and profound. I've worked and traveled in the
highest reaches of the tech world for more than twenty years and I still
learned much from this book."
—Allen Noren, Vice President, Online, O'Reilly Media
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780820350295 |
| PRICE | $29.95 (USD) |