Main | In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world »
September 14, 2004
Cyberselfish
| Title | Cyberselfish |  |
| Author | Paulina Borsook | |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company, London | |
| Date | 2000 | |
| ISBN | 0 316 847712 | |
| Reviewed by | Jane Szita | |
| Government bad, market good — this is the basic mantra of high-tech culture, and the main idea underpinning the industry’s social irresponsibility, according to writer Paulina Borsook. She knows the Silicon Valley world inside out and her account is scathingly critical, funny and perceptive. She finds an "embarrassing lack of philanthropy" in the digerati, who are "full of nastiness, narcissism and a lack of human warmth." Ageist and misogynistic, to these workaholic young men (and they usually are young men), homes are merely satellite offices, or ‘platforms’ for various media. This book is a good antidote to techno-geewhizzery and a cyberculture which presents itself as being "the One True Way of the future, but which in so many ways embodies the worst of the past — where humane values and, ultimately, people, count for less than machines." | ||
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Posted by Books Editor at September 14, 2004 09:33 PM