Franklin Foer SIGNED World Without Mind The Existential Threat of Big Tech Apple

Description: World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin FoerPRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE TITLE PAGE THUS: "Alasdair, Keep fighting the good fight! Franklin Foer" (the inscription was made in black felt pen & has gone through heavily to the following Copyright page & less so to the blank part of the Dedication page - there is also one small dot to the next blank page); Penguin Press 2017 1st ed/4th printing, 257pp., text generally in decent order, spine slightly cocked, slight rubbing & bumping to board corners and to the top, bottom & sides of boards (+ one additional bump to the edge of the rear board), slight bumping & rubbing to the top of the spine - very much heavier to the base, both boards slightly marked along with one stain to the top right hand side of the front board, the dust jacket has some shelf wear with slight scuffing to the corners & creasing to the front left hand side, the base of the spine & to the front bottom right hand corner, the rear has a 7cm long (biro?) mark to the right hand side of the bar code, both front & rear have a few marks elsewhere.Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the tool kit to fight their pervasiveinfluence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicatinglevel of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism,their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture ofmisinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection, a worldwithout mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being co-opted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success.Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stewart Brand andthe hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley; Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. Thecorporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide.At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giantshave far more nefarious aims. They are monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but theimperative of resistance.Will ship by Royal Mail 1st Class Signed for, well packaged.(£5.39/neben/shawn) Track Page Views WithAuctiva's Counter

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End Time: 2025-01-03T03:49:45.000Z

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