martinmonstera's review against another edition
The point the author argues for is fine, albeit not new to me. But why would you need a whole book to make the point that the blurb already perfectly summarises?
shayneh's review against another edition
4.0
Compelling case against "internet-centrism": If somebody tells you the Internet wants/demands something, or we should do something because the Internet does, don't get starstruck! The Internet is a big place, and probably contains counterexamples to whatever's being argued. The Internet hasn't, in fact, changed everything.
idrees2022's review against another edition
5.0
My review, which appeared in The National:
In her celebrated January 2010 statement on "internet freedom", Hillary Clinton chided countries such as China, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Egypt for placing restrictions on internet access. The then-US secretary of state affirmed her government's conviction that "the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become", because "access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship".
Not long after, the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks obtained a trove of information revealing US military and diplomatic conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. Information flowed freely. But the US government appeared somewhat less convinced of its capacity for strengthening society. Access to WikiLeaks was restricted in many government agencies; Amazon, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal were persuaded to withdraw their services; and students and government employees were discouraged from sharing Wikileaks information on pain of jeopardising career prospects.
Internet freedom, it turned out, was not a sacrosanct principle. It failed to resist the intrusion of profane political concerns. As an analytical category independent of political and social constraints, the internet produced stirring rhetoric, but shorn of its obfuscating theology, it proved subject to the imperatives of power as much in the United States as in Uzbekistan.
This disconnect between the reality of the internet - the physical infrastructure, with its platforms, protocols and utilities; its promises, perils and limitations - and the idea of "the internet" - as a fixed, coherent and unproblematic phenomenon that is open, public and collaborative - enables two dangerous tendencies that are the subject of Evgeny Morozov's To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems That Don't Exist.
The first he calls "solutionism" - a preoccupation with spectacular and narrow solutions to complex social and political problems. The second is "internet-centrism" - a conviction that "the internet" heralds a revolutionary era, a time of profound change in which old truths have become obsolete.
Solutionism, Morozov argues, is not new. The impulse has manifested itself in the various post-Enlightenment attempts at social engineering. Its dehumanising narratives have been challenged by thinkers such as Jane Jacobs writing on urban planning, Ivan Illich on professional schooling, Michael Oakeshott on rationalism, Karl Popper on historicism, even Friedrich Hayek on central planning.
But dangers arise when the easy availability and low costs of new technologies are taken as licence to intervene in society, to fix problems of politics, public health, climate change, education, law enforcement, even art. The "friction, opacity, ambiguity and imperfection" of social relations are replaced by economistic notions of "efficiency, transparency, certitude and perfection". Political issues are turned into administrative problems with technological fixes. The rhetoric of empowerment is used to defer responsibility onto citizens while leaving structural problems unaddressed. Citizens are provided with the means to optimise their behaviour to the existing system, which is presumed fixed, unchangeable; and codes and algorithms are introduced to eliminate uncertainty from their lives, be it in health, security, or human relations. It's a Brave New World.
The evangelists for digital utopia - that includes both Silicon Valley companies and proselytising intellectuals - never question if such solutions are needed in the first place. Nor do they ask if efficiency is an unambiguous good. Indeed, many of the problems that digital technologies help address have only been recognised as such because the digital means have emerged to "fix" them.
You can read the rest of my review at The National's website:
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/book-review-evgeny-morozovs-compelling-book-on-the-power-the-freedom-and-the-dangers-of-the-internet
In her celebrated January 2010 statement on "internet freedom", Hillary Clinton chided countries such as China, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Egypt for placing restrictions on internet access. The then-US secretary of state affirmed her government's conviction that "the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become", because "access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship".
Not long after, the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks obtained a trove of information revealing US military and diplomatic conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. Information flowed freely. But the US government appeared somewhat less convinced of its capacity for strengthening society. Access to WikiLeaks was restricted in many government agencies; Amazon, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal were persuaded to withdraw their services; and students and government employees were discouraged from sharing Wikileaks information on pain of jeopardising career prospects.
Internet freedom, it turned out, was not a sacrosanct principle. It failed to resist the intrusion of profane political concerns. As an analytical category independent of political and social constraints, the internet produced stirring rhetoric, but shorn of its obfuscating theology, it proved subject to the imperatives of power as much in the United States as in Uzbekistan.
This disconnect between the reality of the internet - the physical infrastructure, with its platforms, protocols and utilities; its promises, perils and limitations - and the idea of "the internet" - as a fixed, coherent and unproblematic phenomenon that is open, public and collaborative - enables two dangerous tendencies that are the subject of Evgeny Morozov's To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems That Don't Exist.
The first he calls "solutionism" - a preoccupation with spectacular and narrow solutions to complex social and political problems. The second is "internet-centrism" - a conviction that "the internet" heralds a revolutionary era, a time of profound change in which old truths have become obsolete.
Solutionism, Morozov argues, is not new. The impulse has manifested itself in the various post-Enlightenment attempts at social engineering. Its dehumanising narratives have been challenged by thinkers such as Jane Jacobs writing on urban planning, Ivan Illich on professional schooling, Michael Oakeshott on rationalism, Karl Popper on historicism, even Friedrich Hayek on central planning.
But dangers arise when the easy availability and low costs of new technologies are taken as licence to intervene in society, to fix problems of politics, public health, climate change, education, law enforcement, even art. The "friction, opacity, ambiguity and imperfection" of social relations are replaced by economistic notions of "efficiency, transparency, certitude and perfection". Political issues are turned into administrative problems with technological fixes. The rhetoric of empowerment is used to defer responsibility onto citizens while leaving structural problems unaddressed. Citizens are provided with the means to optimise their behaviour to the existing system, which is presumed fixed, unchangeable; and codes and algorithms are introduced to eliminate uncertainty from their lives, be it in health, security, or human relations. It's a Brave New World.
The evangelists for digital utopia - that includes both Silicon Valley companies and proselytising intellectuals - never question if such solutions are needed in the first place. Nor do they ask if efficiency is an unambiguous good. Indeed, many of the problems that digital technologies help address have only been recognised as such because the digital means have emerged to "fix" them.
You can read the rest of my review at The National's website:
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/book-review-evgeny-morozovs-compelling-book-on-the-power-the-freedom-and-the-dangers-of-the-internet
devinayo's review against another edition
4.0
Evgeny Morozov challenges the people who put "the internet" and digital technology on the pedestal. The "internet-centrists", as Morozov called them, are often busy selling "solutionism", which sees the world as a collection of bugs that can only be solved through technological means.
At the heart of the book is Morozov's argument that solutionism is a form of reductionism and that the bugs in our society are actually features. By committing to solutionism, the internet-centrists are simplifying the world and seeing it through a narrow perspective. Therefore, the solutions proposed do not necessarily solve the problems, but just presenting the illusion of progress and improvement and could be even detrimental as it takes resources away from meaningful reform.
What is interesting is the challenge towards our view of automation and efficiency. In a chapter dedicated to law enforcement and digital policing, Morozov mentions that while it might be true that preemptive policing can prevent crime before it happens, the view of law enforcement and morality in society will be drastically changed. Can someone be good when there is no alternative? Can you be morally conscious if your action has been made easy, nudged, or even automated, and not as a result of deliberate choice?
By the end of the book, Morozov calls for the rethinking of our relations with digital technology. Calling this a post-internet approach, we need to scrutinize each innovation separately, and not blinded by the promises of progress and solutions. What's more important than solution is our ability to question and confront the status quo, problem or no problem, bug or feature, in order to be one step closer to meaningful reform.
At the heart of the book is Morozov's argument that solutionism is a form of reductionism and that the bugs in our society are actually features. By committing to solutionism, the internet-centrists are simplifying the world and seeing it through a narrow perspective. Therefore, the solutions proposed do not necessarily solve the problems, but just presenting the illusion of progress and improvement and could be even detrimental as it takes resources away from meaningful reform.
What is interesting is the challenge towards our view of automation and efficiency. In a chapter dedicated to law enforcement and digital policing, Morozov mentions that while it might be true that preemptive policing can prevent crime before it happens, the view of law enforcement and morality in society will be drastically changed. Can someone be good when there is no alternative? Can you be morally conscious if your action has been made easy, nudged, or even automated, and not as a result of deliberate choice?
By the end of the book, Morozov calls for the rethinking of our relations with digital technology. Calling this a post-internet approach, we need to scrutinize each innovation separately, and not blinded by the promises of progress and solutions. What's more important than solution is our ability to question and confront the status quo, problem or no problem, bug or feature, in order to be one step closer to meaningful reform.
matthew_p's review against another edition
5.0
A slow read due to tons of thought-provoking arguments that poke holes in the pervasive Internet-centrism and solutionism presented by proponents of gamification, nudging, automation, etc.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
windingdot's review against another edition
4.0
Not the easiest read in the world, but well worth reading. Morozov critiques the idea of "solutionism," where technological fixes are assumed to be possible for all social ills, without questioning whether the ills are problems in the first place, or if the fixes create greater problems themselves. He argues that it's better to accept human imperfection as necessary. I don't necessarily agree with him on every single point (I don't think political donation records ought to be made less public, for example), but even where I disagreed, he made me think about my own beliefs and biases, and whether I had fully considered the ramifications of my views. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in technology and politics.
cloudgenerator's review against another edition
3.0
First thoughts: somewhere halfway through the book, I was inclining towards giving a mere 2 stars for this book. I was annoyed by the author's condescending style and his very repetitive argument -- that the "Internet" is not a thing in itself, with a single logic and inherent values, and that technology is hailed as messiah-like in "saving" us from the "inefficiency" of politics of culture -- but as the book progressed I started to feel that this argument actually really resonated with me, and filled in some of the gaps I am dealing with in my own research about technology. Maybe the middle chapters, where Morozov discusses solutionist fixes in all kinds of areas, from crime-fighting to online restaurant reviews, were a bit redundant, but I think the first and last two chapters really made a lot of sense, and I was surprised to read some unprecedented (and much appreciated) humility in Morozov's words in the postscript.
ekfmef's review against another edition
4.0
Dit is het boek dat je na The Circle zou moeten lezen. Het is wel echt een project, maar het is het absoluut waard. Behalve dan dat je je hierna aan weer een hoop extra dingen kunt ergeren.
Moeozov legt feitelijk het kernprobleem van deze tijd bloot: we kunnen en doen heel veel maar vergeten daarbij vaak om het grotere plaatje in beeld te houden. Uiteindelijk leidt dat tot schijnoplossingen waarbij voor de gewone end user het hele probleem uit beeld raakt - de complexe werkelijkheid wordt versimpeld tot een spelletje of een eenvoudige techoplossing. Ware het niet dat er maar zelden een juist antwoord is op een probleem, en dat het probleem vaak ook niet maar 1 oplossing vereist ondat het zich niet in een vacuum bevindt maar in een socio-economische, maatschappelijke context. En is het probleem wel echt een probleem om op te willen lossen en moeten we niet gewoon iets anders bedenken? Achter elke oplossing zit dus al een heel gedachtengoed, het is niet alsof een app neutraal is. Social media zijn geen spiegel maar vormen zelf actief het publieke discours - en niemand weet precies hoe. Daarom is het zo van belang dat we ons daar eens druk over gaan maken want nu bedenken de techbedrijven wat we (moeten) willen en hoe.
Technologie is dus slechts een middel en nooit een doel op zich. Als we techniek in zetten moeten we vooraf goed bedenken waarom en ook wat de gevolgen kunnen zijn. Uiteindelijk moeten we niet geleefd worden door nudges en 'data' maar zelf de controle houden - anders is het geen leven meer en word je gereduceerd tot stimulus-response gedragsopties. Dat kan als je dat werkelijk vindt, maar dat moet je niet aan anderen gaan lopen opleggen alsof het de moreel superieure keuze is, terwijl je daar toch wel flinke vraagtekens bij kunt plaatsen. We moeten toe naar een werkelijkheid waarbij de techniek aansluit op onze waarden ipv andersom.
Dat laatste werkt hij dan weer wat minder goed uit, omdat veel van zijn argumenten tegen 'solutionisme' ook gelden tegen zijn oplossing - Henk de fabrieksarbeider staat na een drukke werkdag niet open voor 'stroeve' techniek die niet perfect is maar je aan het denken moet zetten over de beperkte fossiele brandstoffen. Maar ja, een boek kan ook niet perfect zijn, daar breekt hij juist een lans voor. Het is voor de volgende om eens met goede oplossingen te komen - of juist niet?
Moeozov legt feitelijk het kernprobleem van deze tijd bloot: we kunnen en doen heel veel maar vergeten daarbij vaak om het grotere plaatje in beeld te houden. Uiteindelijk leidt dat tot schijnoplossingen waarbij voor de gewone end user het hele probleem uit beeld raakt - de complexe werkelijkheid wordt versimpeld tot een spelletje of een eenvoudige techoplossing. Ware het niet dat er maar zelden een juist antwoord is op een probleem, en dat het probleem vaak ook niet maar 1 oplossing vereist ondat het zich niet in een vacuum bevindt maar in een socio-economische, maatschappelijke context. En is het probleem wel echt een probleem om op te willen lossen en moeten we niet gewoon iets anders bedenken? Achter elke oplossing zit dus al een heel gedachtengoed, het is niet alsof een app neutraal is. Social media zijn geen spiegel maar vormen zelf actief het publieke discours - en niemand weet precies hoe. Daarom is het zo van belang dat we ons daar eens druk over gaan maken want nu bedenken de techbedrijven wat we (moeten) willen en hoe.
Technologie is dus slechts een middel en nooit een doel op zich. Als we techniek in zetten moeten we vooraf goed bedenken waarom en ook wat de gevolgen kunnen zijn. Uiteindelijk moeten we niet geleefd worden door nudges en 'data' maar zelf de controle houden - anders is het geen leven meer en word je gereduceerd tot stimulus-response gedragsopties. Dat kan als je dat werkelijk vindt, maar dat moet je niet aan anderen gaan lopen opleggen alsof het de moreel superieure keuze is, terwijl je daar toch wel flinke vraagtekens bij kunt plaatsen. We moeten toe naar een werkelijkheid waarbij de techniek aansluit op onze waarden ipv andersom.
Dat laatste werkt hij dan weer wat minder goed uit, omdat veel van zijn argumenten tegen 'solutionisme' ook gelden tegen zijn oplossing - Henk de fabrieksarbeider staat na een drukke werkdag niet open voor 'stroeve' techniek die niet perfect is maar je aan het denken moet zetten over de beperkte fossiele brandstoffen. Maar ja, een boek kan ook niet perfect zijn, daar breekt hij juist een lans voor. Het is voor de volgende om eens met goede oplossingen te komen - of juist niet?
renaesense's review against another edition
4.0
The Internet will help us save everything.
If you frowned upon or scoffed at the above statement, and you love sarcasm and word play, then this book is for you. "Galton's iPhone" and "So Open It Hurts".. come on. Morozov addresses and unpacks our techno-utopian and solutionist view of the Internet, but in a more approachable, conversational manner. Take that with a pinch of salt though, because he comes off as someone who is irked by everything anyone else says about the Internet. So not so much conversation... but more like a conference speech. And at times, he honestly does come off like he is picking a personal bone with certain people.
It is however, still an important book! Perhaps not in itself, as it is quite skewed.. but in the grand scheme of things in media studies as it does reel in the overwhelmingly enthusiastic discourse surrounding the Internet's "ability" to solve our problems.
If you frowned upon or scoffed at the above statement, and you love sarcasm and word play, then this book is for you. "Galton's iPhone" and "So Open It Hurts".. come on. Morozov addresses and unpacks our techno-utopian and solutionist view of the Internet, but in a more approachable, conversational manner. Take that with a pinch of salt though, because he comes off as someone who is irked by everything anyone else says about the Internet. So not so much conversation... but more like a conference speech. And at times, he honestly does come off like he is picking a personal bone with certain people.
It is however, still an important book! Perhaps not in itself, as it is quite skewed.. but in the grand scheme of things in media studies as it does reel in the overwhelmingly enthusiastic discourse surrounding the Internet's "ability" to solve our problems.
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