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weswalker423's review against another edition
3.0
This is definitely a book I think people should read. The discussion of how we technology functions is an important one. Postman is very insightful and articulate. I only gave this book three stars because I think what Postman says in 199 pages could be said in an essay.
authorjbr's review against another edition
4.0
The beginning of this book is weak. It’s technopoly claim seems to me to be a little unclear. It feels more like it makes statements without building arguments, expecting me to take the statements more as aphorisms than as evidence. The latter half of the book analyzing technologies and culture is much stronger to my mind. The chapter on medical technology especially so, though the social science chapter was very interesting as well.
As an educator, the last chapter just makes me more interested in reading Postman’s writings about education as a subversive and as a conserving activity. Always more to read!
As an educator, the last chapter just makes me more interested in reading Postman’s writings about education as a subversive and as a conserving activity. Always more to read!
pcdbigfoot's review against another edition
3.5
"We have devalued the singular human capacity to see things whole in all their psychic, emotional and moral dimensions, and we have replaced this with faith in the powers of technical calculation."
Worthwhile read. The philosophical argument that technology is basically a newly fashionable theology is both provocative and timely. Book predates social media's impact on all of us, but still holds true. Postman's description of the impact as ecological is spot-on, in that we can't easily compare new waves of technological impact as with/without something. Rather the impact is broad, and seems to touch so much. 25 years after early broadband, we can see that it's not about just having 500 channels of on-demand television, but that the way we consume media and the means of basic commerce has changed. This book offers pretty apt observations of change, citing history of medicine and publishing as precedents. Taken with Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism", and Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" potent food for thought.
Worthwhile read. The philosophical argument that technology is basically a newly fashionable theology is both provocative and timely. Book predates social media's impact on all of us, but still holds true. Postman's description of the impact as ecological is spot-on, in that we can't easily compare new waves of technological impact as with/without something. Rather the impact is broad, and seems to touch so much. 25 years after early broadband, we can see that it's not about just having 500 channels of on-demand television, but that the way we consume media and the means of basic commerce has changed. This book offers pretty apt observations of change, citing history of medicine and publishing as precedents. Taken with Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism", and Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" potent food for thought.
yvan_noir's review against another edition
5.0
En este libro, Postman hace su crítica a nuestra sociedad cada vez más fiel y dependiente de la técnica y la tecnología, donde todo está medido en base a la eficiencia, pero su ensayo trata de llegar más allá del mismo concepto de la tecnología y de lo que creemos que significa esa palabra. De igual manera analiza la relación en entre ciencia y tecnología, para después dar su explicación de por qué las "ciencias sociales" no son ciencias. También me pareció muy interesante saber sobre cómo el uso excesivo de los símbolos hace que se "sequen", para después trivializarse y en consecuencia perder todo sentido.
El último capítulo lo dedica a explicar su propuesta sobre cómo combatir la cada vez mayor alienación ante la tecnología, poniendo como base la educación y el conocimiento.
El último capítulo lo dedica a explicar su propuesta sobre cómo combatir la cada vez mayor alienación ante la tecnología, poniendo como base la educación y el conocimiento.
paulataua's review against another edition
3.0
Despite being published in 1993 and therefore dealing with technology well before the internet revolution, many of the ideas are very relevant in our world today. Some really thought provoking points, like asking how important the invention of the printing press was to the coming of the Lutheran reformation. The central hypothesis that there are good and bad effects to every new technological advance needs to be put forward, but the book tends to repeat that point so many times and never really goes deeper than that.
jamesdoyle's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
missprint_'s review against another edition
2.0
Neil Postman was, apparently, a big deal. Upon starting his 1992 book Technopoly I learned that he had died in 2003, which makes the negative parts of this review feel vaguely like I'm speaking ill of the dead. Sorry, Mr. Postman.
Anyway, Technopoly takes the idea behind Aldous Huxley's dystopic novel Brave New World very seriously. Unlike 1984, Huxley's novel imagined a world where we are ruined by what we love, not what we fear. (This idea crops up again in Scott Westerfeld's novel Uglies to some extent--Huxley was also apparently a big deal.)
What did everyone love in 1992? Technology. Postman fears that as cultures embrace technology more and more readily, they would lose something of themselves. Specifically, in an era that Postman coincidentally calls "Technopoly," people will begin to depend on technology for everything. Problems will be created to be fixed with technology. Faced with an information glut, people will revere data sorting software despite its ostensibly doing nothing of actual use.
I don't know if Postman would agree with me here, but Technopoly seems to be about how to deal with (and resist) a world where computers are becoming more human while humans become more tied to machines than ever before.
While this book was interesting, and likely important, I couldn't take it completely seriously. Postman's use of self-made terms like "technocracy" and "technopoly" made it impossible for me to read the text seriously. Postman's moralistic warnings against technology's dangers also seemed very close to a doomsday scenario. And somewhat one sided.
An entire chapter is dedicated to medical technology. It details the dangers of a technological medial profession: more surgeries and relying on machines for diagnosis. But he almost completely ignores the technological miracles like incubators, which almost exclusively save lives. This one-sided look at technology would be fine, if Postman had not started his book with a drawnout summary of a story about an Egyptian king named Thamus who was famous for looking at a matter from all sides.
There is value Technopoly, particularly when Postman warns of the information glut inherent to a Technopoly culture where computers are so dedicated to producing data. And yet, being in school to become an information professional, I can't help but think we're still smarter than computers. We create all of this information, but there are still discerning information-controllers like teachers and librarians who will maintain the order.
Maybe one day the doomsday Postman seemed to be anticipating in this book will come to pass. But I don't think it will be today or even tomorrow.
Anyway, Technopoly takes the idea behind Aldous Huxley's dystopic novel Brave New World very seriously. Unlike 1984, Huxley's novel imagined a world where we are ruined by what we love, not what we fear. (This idea crops up again in Scott Westerfeld's novel Uglies to some extent--Huxley was also apparently a big deal.)
What did everyone love in 1992? Technology. Postman fears that as cultures embrace technology more and more readily, they would lose something of themselves. Specifically, in an era that Postman coincidentally calls "Technopoly," people will begin to depend on technology for everything. Problems will be created to be fixed with technology. Faced with an information glut, people will revere data sorting software despite its ostensibly doing nothing of actual use.
I don't know if Postman would agree with me here, but Technopoly seems to be about how to deal with (and resist) a world where computers are becoming more human while humans become more tied to machines than ever before.
While this book was interesting, and likely important, I couldn't take it completely seriously. Postman's use of self-made terms like "technocracy" and "technopoly" made it impossible for me to read the text seriously. Postman's moralistic warnings against technology's dangers also seemed very close to a doomsday scenario. And somewhat one sided.
An entire chapter is dedicated to medical technology. It details the dangers of a technological medial profession: more surgeries and relying on machines for diagnosis. But he almost completely ignores the technological miracles like incubators, which almost exclusively save lives. This one-sided look at technology would be fine, if Postman had not started his book with a drawnout summary of a story about an Egyptian king named Thamus who was famous for looking at a matter from all sides.
There is value Technopoly, particularly when Postman warns of the information glut inherent to a Technopoly culture where computers are so dedicated to producing data. And yet, being in school to become an information professional, I can't help but think we're still smarter than computers. We create all of this information, but there are still discerning information-controllers like teachers and librarians who will maintain the order.
Maybe one day the doomsday Postman seemed to be anticipating in this book will come to pass. But I don't think it will be today or even tomorrow.