Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Tech Has Only Gotten Worse

Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

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Rating: 4 Stars In a nutshell: Author Wachter-Boettcher explores what is so very wrong with modern technology. Best for: Those interested in how horribly tech has gone wrong, and the problems that persist today. Quote that made me think: “When those values reflect a narrow world view, one defined by privileged white men dead set on disruption at all costs, things fall apart for everyone else.” Why I chose it: This has been on my to read list for years, and the audio book was […]

Soylent Green is people!

Technopoly by Neil Postman

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It’s nearly impossible for contemporary critical thinkers to write about our relationship with technology without referencing Postman’s Technopoly. While it was originally published thirty years ago, many of its points and predictions remain as relevant as ever. However, Postman also gets a lot wrong. In particular, his solutions to cultural issues with tech problems seem shallow at best. For that reason, I would only recommend this book to readers interested in the history of our concerns about tech. Postman first asserts that “embedded in every […]

“Breaking up with your phone means giving yourself the space, freedom, and tools necessary to create a new, long-term relationship with it, one that keeps what you love about your phone and gets rid of what you don’t.”

How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life by Catherine Price

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In one word: Transformative I was a late adopter of the smartphone, someone who said that they didn’t need or want “all of that” on their phone. In 2010 I started a new job and at the end of my first meeting at my new gig, everyone pulled out their phones to plan the next meeting and I realized I was the only person who was going to have to go back to my office to consult a calendar. I saw then that I “needed” […]

Privacy and free will? Who needs ’em if a drone brings the latest gadget right to my door!

QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling

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A blurb on the back of the book compares this one to a Black Mirror episode, and I find I don’t have much more to say about it. That is very accurate, but it wouldn’t be one of those episodes the internet is on fire about the next day. In the (probably not-too-distant future), corporations have taken over the world, and the US has been renamed QualityLand. People are assigned levels, and the higher your level, the more perks you get (high level people can […]



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