Readers are enjoined to read through the long, trenchant, scathing and fabulous piece Evgeny Morozov has penned about Tim O'Reilly (the internet/open source evangelist) : The Meme Hustler.
For those of you who are unaware of Morozov, he's the eternal skeptic of the power-of-the-internet 'cyber-utopians' (a term he's coined) pointing out that the effects of such technology is not necessarily simple and emancipatory; and so while Twitter and Facebook and other internet tools may aid civic protests, they also aid large scale repression in China, Russia and other more protest-unfriendly places.
One can't but help notice the similarities between Morozov (who's only 27!) and the great documentarian Adam Curtis - for questioning deep ideological biases implicit even in the best technocratic proposals and for underlining how even the best technocratic intentions can be hijacked and turned into harrowing nightmares for common, unsuspecting people.
Do read it! His is a voice that needs to be heard.
2 comments:
Brilliant article. Among the tech/cyber-utopia skeptics, I find the voice of Jaron Lanier to be the sanest.
Btw, in another news, 3 months back Google hired Ray Kurzweil as their 'Director of Engineering'!
Yes, heard that news!
There is a great article Jaron Lanier once wrote called Wikipedia and Digital Maoism - a wonderful take on what gets to be called truth in this day and age.
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