Team human
"Team Human is a manifesto--a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff's most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together--not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups. Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff's own words: "Being social may be the whole point." Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity--together--we can make the world a better place to be human."--Page [1].
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- If you're looking for a book I wrote one specifically about this problem. Some of you may like it. It's short and has short chapters you can read in one "boredom chunk" of about 10 mins.
One reason for making it an old fashioned paper book is that some of the ideas it presents would simply be censored on what the internet is becoming.
It's not really written as "self-help", more as philosophical musings for intellectual self-defence. Many people who have read it tell me they successfully quit their smartphone.
As ongoing research in modern critical technology studies I'm trying to keep a list of ones I read and at least found interesting (below). Good luck finding the courage to take back control of your technology.
Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine
Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us
Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality
Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged
Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design
Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency
Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids
Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
Douglas Rushkoff Team Human
Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control
David Shenk Data Smog
Paulina Borsook Cyberselfish
- FWIW Mandie, here's my list of modern pop tech critique, all topics that DV touches at least tangentially. Far more than 40 days and nights worth of reading
Shoshana Zuboff Big Other (surveillance capitalism)
Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality
Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged
Cory Doctorow Radicalized
Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design
Nick Srnicek Platform Capitalism
Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine
Heather Burns Understanding Privacy
Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us
Catherine Price How to Break Up With Your Phone
Thomas Kersting Disconnected: Protect Your Kids Against Device Dependency
Nicholas Kardaras Glow Kids
Zeynep Tufekci Twitter and Tear Gas
Lelia Green Technoculture
Douglas Rushkoff Team Human
Jaron Lanier Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media
Carissa Véliz Privacy is Power: Why You Should Take Back Control
Xiaowei Wang Blockchain Chicken Farm
Jenny Oddell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Wendy Liu Abolish SIlicon Valley
Jonathan Taplin Move Fast and Break Things
Andrew L. Shapiro The Control Revolution
Lawrence Lessig Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
David Shenk Data Smog
Douglas Rushkoff Cyberia
Paulina Borsook Cyberselfish.
- He's a rational actor who also somehow doesn't actually get it in a broad sense. Consider Kara Swisher's interview with him on Recode Decode… or Doug Rushkoff (Team Human book/podcast etc) wondered publicly if part of the problem was how Zuck dropped out of college. Rushkoff speculated about all these deeper philosophical, economic, political, humanism, etc. courses that might have got Zuck to actually get a more mature perspective instead of basically going right from adolescent snarky asshole to just applying that maturity level (albeit with a lot of intelligence) to his business.
He's rational in a sense, but he very well might not have ever stepped back far enough to really consider broader perspectives with an open mind, even as he reads and hears concerns. He probably reads them all with some strategic/tactical mindset that blocks him from truly getting the point.
