To Save Everything, Click Here

The Folly of Technological Solutionism

By: Evgeny Morozov

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

In the very near future, smart technologies and big data will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing.

But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency? What if some such problems are simply vices in disguise? What if some friction in communication is productive and some hypocrisy in politics necessary?

The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical, and civic behavior we may also change the very nature of that behavior.

Technology, Evgeny Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement but only if we keep solutionism in check and learn to appreciate the imperfections of liberal democracy. Some of those imperfections are not accidental but by design.

Arguing that we badly need a new, post-Internet way to debate the moral consequences of digital technologies, To Save Everything, Click Here warns against a world of seamless efficiency, where everyone is forced to wear Silicon Valley’s digital straitjacket.

©2013 Evgeny Morozov (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Preachy Diatribe

A well written closely argued thesis.
Closely and repeatedly argued.
Discussing many points supporting each comment. Basic message “Internet not so good as people think”. You get that in the preface. The whole book is about that. He should write another one, maybe with the message “cookies are good”, but I doubt he would cram in the evidence like this.

The about face shift in view I've been looking for

Morosov packs a paradigm shifting punch in this very strong piece of literature. As a student of sociology, philosophy, and computer science, this is exactly the analysis of today's engineering mindset that I needed to find. At times his critiques turn into rants, but the rants are largely well founded. It is hard, however, to keep pressing on when everything you've come to know is being torn down and nothing is being built up--it is only in the final chapter that alternatives to current practices are presented. Regardless, this book is undoubtedly a must read for anyone involved in technology.

di Disappointed

I gave up after 3 chapters, I found his extreme views as unbelievable as the views he was attempting to put down.