I contend that Matthew Crawford is one of the sharpest thinkers of this era with regard to technology and cognition. His Substack, Archedelia, is typically excellent and thought-provoking reading that dives into various interstices of these subjects (mcrawford.substack.com). Shop Class As Soulcraft is probably a better starting place if you've never read him before, but The World Beyond Your Head is so good it bears reading and re-reading, especially since, as Jeremy notes, its prose tilts to the academic side. His latest, Why We Drive, is also great.
He has much to say about the (small-L) liberal individualism that so dominates our culture, valorizing "choices" as the key to "authenticity" but having little to say by way of orienting us to what choices might be better than others. This hollowed-out framework is extremely vulnerable to market manipulation by choice architects that heavily and relentlessly socially engineer what is available to us. They then posture as agents of freedom but in fact have any number of other agendas in mind than our own supposed "freedom".
If you can't get enough of the academic exploration of this subject, I also highly recommend Anton Barba-Kay's A Web of Our Own Making, published just last year and heavy on the analysis of so-called artificial intelligence systems that are rapidly being grafted onto human culture: "At bottom, this outsourcing of human judgment to data is also a form of the primitive impulse to idolatry: a heightened reverence for something that we desire to trick ourselves into forgetting we have made, a desire to obey ourselves writ large."
Jeremy, thanks for the reviews. I wasn't aware of either of these but they both focus on a topic that I am very interested in exploring. I look forward to checking them out.
Adding both of these to the TBR (well, moving Filterworld up the TBR anyway). Really appreciate your concise reviews/synopses, Jeremy!
Thanks Vinny! Really appreciate it!
I’m fascinated by your descriptions of these two books and will definitely be checking them out. Thanks, Jeremy!
Both are well worth it! I'd probably start with "Filterworld," then if you're still interested move to Crawford. :)
I contend that Matthew Crawford is one of the sharpest thinkers of this era with regard to technology and cognition. His Substack, Archedelia, is typically excellent and thought-provoking reading that dives into various interstices of these subjects (mcrawford.substack.com). Shop Class As Soulcraft is probably a better starting place if you've never read him before, but The World Beyond Your Head is so good it bears reading and re-reading, especially since, as Jeremy notes, its prose tilts to the academic side. His latest, Why We Drive, is also great.
He has much to say about the (small-L) liberal individualism that so dominates our culture, valorizing "choices" as the key to "authenticity" but having little to say by way of orienting us to what choices might be better than others. This hollowed-out framework is extremely vulnerable to market manipulation by choice architects that heavily and relentlessly socially engineer what is available to us. They then posture as agents of freedom but in fact have any number of other agendas in mind than our own supposed "freedom".
If you can't get enough of the academic exploration of this subject, I also highly recommend Anton Barba-Kay's A Web of Our Own Making, published just last year and heavy on the analysis of so-called artificial intelligence systems that are rapidly being grafted onto human culture: "At bottom, this outsourcing of human judgment to data is also a form of the primitive impulse to idolatry: a heightened reverence for something that we desire to trick ourselves into forgetting we have made, a desire to obey ourselves writ large."
Jeremy, thank you. These both sound like something I need to read.
Jeremy, thanks for the reviews. I wasn't aware of either of these but they both focus on a topic that I am very interested in exploring. I look forward to checking them out.