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janey's review
4.0
This book was alternately funny, peculiar, clever, and depressing. I can't imagine being so disturbed by the concept of death as to spend one's entire adult life trying to figure out how to avoid it. In my view, that's a great way to never live at all. O'Connell feels much as I do, but gave the TransHumanists a fair chance to make their case. Anyway, I should also add that I started the book as a physical book and kind of drifted away from it, but then started it as an audiobook and was enchanted. It definitely gains something from being read aloud, and in this format O'Connell reminded me a bit of [a:Jon Ronson|1218|Jon Ronson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1428023511p2/1218.jpg], something to bear in mind if you like Ronson.
schnauzermum's review
4.0
There were times when I wondered if this book were fiction. O’Connell investigates the transhumanist movement - the people who want to transcend the limitations of the body, or even conquer death. My ‘favourite’ was 2016 US Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan campaigning in a 1978 bus modified to look like a giant coffin ‘to raise awareness about death’. Wikipedia says he plans to run again in 2020.
matterofact's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn’t finish this book. I was enticed by this book’s fantastic cover art, and the title seemed to indicate it would be a somewhat philosophical look at transhumanism, to dip your toes into the theory.
The way this book is written is insufferable. To demonstrate this, here is a line from the book - ‘Randall did not disagree that this was ubdesirable’.
THREE NEGATIVES IN ONE SENTENCE. JUST SAY RANDALL AGREED WITH THIS!!!!
This whole book reads like a popular journalist walking round and laughing at something he doesn’t care to properly understand. It’s like he read an article about brain emulation, thought ‘huh that’s stupid’ and then decided to write an entire book about how ridiculous it all is, but then when he finished it was only like 100 pages long, so he went back and added a load of irrelevant crap about weed drifting through the bay air and making the sentences about 3 lines longer than they were initially to make his book visibly longer and therefore more legit from the outside.
Don’t waste your time with this pretentious rubbish.
The way this book is written is insufferable. To demonstrate this, here is a line from the book - ‘Randall did not disagree that this was ubdesirable’.
THREE NEGATIVES IN ONE SENTENCE. JUST SAY RANDALL AGREED WITH THIS!!!!
This whole book reads like a popular journalist walking round and laughing at something he doesn’t care to properly understand. It’s like he read an article about brain emulation, thought ‘huh that’s stupid’ and then decided to write an entire book about how ridiculous it all is, but then when he finished it was only like 100 pages long, so he went back and added a load of irrelevant crap about weed drifting through the bay air and making the sentences about 3 lines longer than they were initially to make his book visibly longer and therefore more legit from the outside.
Don’t waste your time with this pretentious rubbish.
tom_in_london's review against another edition
4.0
The prolific Irish author Mark O'Connell specialises in writing "documentary" books about the kinds of people who take human existence to its extreme possibilities. In this book, which is about the mad and rather pathetic people, mainly in America, who think Artificial Intelligence and the great God Technology will solve all our problems, he writes in an elegant, ironic way about his encounters with them - attending many conferences, meetings, and other events about Transhumanism (the belief that we are only machines that can be perfected and can thus escape death and live forever).
When they are not torturing innocent animals they perform horrendous experiments on themselves, such as inserting electronic devices below their own skin that receive and transmit instructions to do simple things such as lift their arm (and not much else because so far, these devices have not been very successful). They accompany their Frankenstein-like activities with elaborate theories based on the assumption that sooner or later Technology will overcome all our human shortcomings and make us perfect - which is very amusing when you read O'Connell's descriptions of how very human, how far from perfect these people are; he chats to them at conferences where they exchange information about how they're getting on. Many of them even have considerable amounts of university research funding.
O'Connell pretends to be deeply interested in what they're doing but behind his hand, he's laughing at them as he goes deeper into more serious reflections on the history of the many efforts that have been made to overcome the human condition by applying technology to it - placing today's idiot nerds in a context of which they themselves seem completely unaware - shallow and trite as their "philosophising" is. Ultimately these people are all stupid and deeply uninteresting people, and it is only O'Connell's beautiful writing that keeps you reading what would otherwise be a slightly boring book about idiots doing pointless things. But the writing is great- here's an excerpt taken more or less at random:
Capek's robots are "artificial people" created for the purpose of increased industrial productivity, and represent, through the prism of the profit motive, an oppressively reductive view of human meaning......the robots having proliferated greatly and having in many cases received military training in technologically European states, decide they no longer consent to be ruled over by a species they view as inferior and resolve to eradicate that species...
For those of us who scorn the worship of technology and the notion that we are only machines, this is a very gratifying read because O'Connell is on our side, but with the difference that rather than dismissing the technology worshippers as worthless fools, he gives them his time, engages with them, and even befriends them. His book culminates in a long account of a road trip across the United States in a broken-down truck that has been rebuilt to resemble a coffin, by one of these sad, alienated characters whose personal life is a total mess but whose sights are fixed on the higher purpose of defeating their own mortality. This is absolutely hilarious and will have you laughing out loud.
When they are not torturing innocent animals they perform horrendous experiments on themselves, such as inserting electronic devices below their own skin that receive and transmit instructions to do simple things such as lift their arm (and not much else because so far, these devices have not been very successful). They accompany their Frankenstein-like activities with elaborate theories based on the assumption that sooner or later Technology will overcome all our human shortcomings and make us perfect - which is very amusing when you read O'Connell's descriptions of how very human, how far from perfect these people are; he chats to them at conferences where they exchange information about how they're getting on. Many of them even have considerable amounts of university research funding.
O'Connell pretends to be deeply interested in what they're doing but behind his hand, he's laughing at them as he goes deeper into more serious reflections on the history of the many efforts that have been made to overcome the human condition by applying technology to it - placing today's idiot nerds in a context of which they themselves seem completely unaware - shallow and trite as their "philosophising" is. Ultimately these people are all stupid and deeply uninteresting people, and it is only O'Connell's beautiful writing that keeps you reading what would otherwise be a slightly boring book about idiots doing pointless things. But the writing is great- here's an excerpt taken more or less at random:
Capek's robots are "artificial people" created for the purpose of increased industrial productivity, and represent, through the prism of the profit motive, an oppressively reductive view of human meaning......the robots having proliferated greatly and having in many cases received military training in technologically European states, decide they no longer consent to be ruled over by a species they view as inferior and resolve to eradicate that species...
For those of us who scorn the worship of technology and the notion that we are only machines, this is a very gratifying read because O'Connell is on our side, but with the difference that rather than dismissing the technology worshippers as worthless fools, he gives them his time, engages with them, and even befriends them. His book culminates in a long account of a road trip across the United States in a broken-down truck that has been rebuilt to resemble a coffin, by one of these sad, alienated characters whose personal life is a total mess but whose sights are fixed on the higher purpose of defeating their own mortality. This is absolutely hilarious and will have you laughing out loud.
ginny_g's review against another edition
3.0
3.2/5
this book could be summed up in three words: fear of death. humans keeps going because of that fear, and i wonder, why there are people who want to cancel it so badly? we are humans, and death is one of the things u need to accept since the first moments you are born.
now i’m curious to see where everything about trans-humanists will go, i will surely keep up with the topic.
the book lost some of its “appeal” after the chapter “faith”, i had to force myself to finish it. still, a good book.
this book could be summed up in three words: fear of death. humans keeps going because of that fear, and i wonder, why there are people who want to cancel it so badly? we are humans, and death is one of the things u need to accept since the first moments you are born.
now i’m curious to see where everything about trans-humanists will go, i will surely keep up with the topic.
the book lost some of its “appeal” after the chapter “faith”, i had to force myself to finish it. still, a good book.
marleyrollins's review against another edition
3.0
This was a bit too dry and overly poetic in parts, but fascinating in others. I feel like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be Jon Ronson or a critical theory essay, so it walked a strange but not unappealing mix of both. This book definitely contained some of the most eccentric and odd people I’ve ever seen in a book that isn’t fiction.
signorponza's review against another edition
4.0
Il transumanesimo è "un movimento culturale che sostiene l'uso delle scoperte scientifiche e tecnologiche per aumentare le capacità fisiche e cognitive e migliorare quegli aspetti della condizione umana che sono considerati indesiderabili, come la malattia e l'invecchiamento". Questo libro è un viaggio all'interno del mondo dei transumanisti, fatto di personaggi insoliti e, per certi versi, geniali. La loro follia è grottesca ma, allo stesso tempo, in grado di instillare il dubbio che forse forse c’è il rischio che possano avere ragione su alcuni aspetti legati all'uso della tecnologia e su come questa supporterà l'evoluzione della nostra specie.
Intelligenza artificiale, robot, cyborg, biohacking, singolarità, fede, disabilità sono solo alcuni dei temi che vengono toccati da Essere una macchina. Non si tratta però di un saggio, quanto piuttosto di un racconto del viaggio che l'autore fa allo scoperta delle persone e dei luoghi che rappresentano oggi il movimento transumanista. Ci sono persone che credono ciecamente nel progresso tecnologico, uomini e donne che rimpiazzano la fede in Dio con la fede nelle innovazioni, matti persone moralmente discutibili che si fanno impiantare illegalmente nel corpo dispostivi per raccogliere dati o migliorare le proprie prestazioni fisiche, uomini che si candidano alla Presidenza degli Stati Uniti e girano il Paese per convincere i cittadini della necessità di investire nell'innovazione tecnologica.
Questa e altre recensioni nella mia newsletter mensile sui libri: https://bit.ly/ponzabook
Intelligenza artificiale, robot, cyborg, biohacking, singolarità, fede, disabilità sono solo alcuni dei temi che vengono toccati da Essere una macchina. Non si tratta però di un saggio, quanto piuttosto di un racconto del viaggio che l'autore fa allo scoperta delle persone e dei luoghi che rappresentano oggi il movimento transumanista. Ci sono persone che credono ciecamente nel progresso tecnologico, uomini e donne che rimpiazzano la fede in Dio con la fede nelle innovazioni, matti persone moralmente discutibili che si fanno impiantare illegalmente nel corpo dispostivi per raccogliere dati o migliorare le proprie prestazioni fisiche, uomini che si candidano alla Presidenza degli Stati Uniti e girano il Paese per convincere i cittadini della necessità di investire nell'innovazione tecnologica.
Questa e altre recensioni nella mia newsletter mensile sui libri: https://bit.ly/ponzabook