I always knew that ‘The Internet Is NOT the Answer’. It is a milestone in the chaotic river of evolution. Life and future will find its own way to correct the follies of technological advancement and misuse. No there is nothing to worry about.
Andrew Keen as an author of ‘The Internet Is NOT The Answer’. has placed a highly polarised viewpoint supported by some proper research and inferences.
His arguments and approach to the proposition is very logical, is supported by data and observations. He readily borrows from various authors, speakers, anecdotes and news items and then collectively presents them in a way, that it is hard not to agree. No doubt that Andrew Keen is seen as one of the net’s early contrarians
He has on his crosswire companies of repute and respect. The Amazon, FaceBook, Google and Instagrams of the world. His argues that Internet not really democratising the world by the accessible, available and many times affordable version of product and services, and is not the cooperative new utopianism, it is a ‘Winner Takes All’ economy of monolith polarised power silos.
There is a lot of pages devoted to the development of the web itself. Other than making his point of classical divergence, for what it was conceived for to where it is now, these pages do not hold much of an interest and at times are an overdo.
In Andrew keen’s world, The internet has ruined markets. Killed jobs. Squeezed jobs. Created billionaires who masquerade their greed under the disguise of misguided vision of ‘making the world better’. He keeps on pushing the argument, that the internet is actually generating the new ecosystem of inequality. And he wisely used the available data points to frame your thinking.
In fact his opening ‘The Question’ sets the tone. He questions the promise of the internet as democratising the good and disrupting the bad and thus creating a more open and egalitarian world. Its evangelists say that more people join the net, more wealth it creates- an infinitely positive loop, an economic and cultural win-win for all its users. However, today when it connects everything and everyone, the promise seems hollow and fake. Internet is, in fact, more of a negative feedback loop in which the network users are ts victims rather than being the beneficiaries. The more we use it, the less economic value it brings. It is the cause of growing polarity between rich and poor and the hollowing out of the middle class.
I love his summarization of Social networks as “Advertisements for Myself.” And honestly Instagram, Facebook and Twitter suddenly seem like it. I share so I exist. I have a point of view, so I exist. And in the process, we end up strengthing the same organisations that are willingly creating a divide.
“Google’s power is increased every time we use it. As a symbiosis of human and computer intelligence, the google search engine becomes more knowledgeable and thus more useful the more it is used. So every time we make a Google search we are, in a sense, ‘working” on improving the product. Even more valuable from Google’s point of view, is what Google learns about us each time we make that search. Like Vannevar Bush’s Memex the google trails beer ‘fade’ and Google for better or worse never forget. … The problem, of course, is that er all are working for Facebook and Google, for free, manufacturing the very personal data that makes these companies so valuable.”
Keen tries to open your eyes to the massive damage the new technology has done. He takes you to Rochester, New York, and present the post-nuclear type environment. It is the company town of Eastman Kodak, which employed 1,45,000 people worldwide. It is the company that has been destroyed by digital technology. People livelihood and future became dark. He warns of many new Rochester. And it is not hard to see the picture.
THE DEBATE
The debate is open, whether the Internet has answers to our problems or it has been creating more problems. It will be simplifying the scene if one was to propose that the Internet is not bad, but the way it is exploited or evolved with not much control is what makes it worse. Frankly, the world has somewhat started to see through the fog and is questioning these giants.
“We think we are using Instagram to look at the world, but actually we are the ones who are being watched. And the more we reveal about ourselves, the more valuable we become to advertisers.” …. “And it’s here that we find the most disturbing flaw in the data factory economy. “Free”, you see, is anything but free. Instagram’s greatest deceit is taking our self-love to its darkest and most twisted economic end…. It creates a surreal economy in which we are not only the creator of the networked product but also the product itself…. The data factory’s core economic value is all the personal information extracted from its free labourers. … It’s you- the innocent bystander, the everyman- who is the victim of something that we neither understand nor control.”
I found ‘The Internet Is Not The Answer’ an exciting presentation of case fact. An emotional triggering of questions in mainspace. But, too much of ranting and raving pushing an evident polarised agenda seems to start bothering the reader after some time
NET TAKE ON ‘THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER’.
Having experienced ‘The Internet Is Not The Answer’, I am now favourably inclined and maybe mentally ready to push myself to read his earlier book ‘The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture’.
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THE CONFUSION:
I picked up the author signed copy of the book ‘The Internet is not the answer’ at the IAA World Congress held at Cxochi in February. Andrew was a speaker there. I am unable to decide if it is his signature on the book or someone has played a prank. Somehow I can’t come to terms with the fact that his sign could be so disorganised.
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THE REALITY.
But, something I must share. When we were growing what the dad said or was written in a book was absolute truth. There were nothing and no-one to question it. Nowadays, when I tell something to my kids, they will invariably ask their Google Uncle is it is right. So I wonder, what happens if Google ever needs to Google.
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ON A LIGHTER NOTE:
Thinking Aloud, ‘The internet is not the answer’ but Papu (RAGA) may have the answer to some questions. Is it time to break Google and Apple and Facebook? Should we stop Amazon journey to become the everything store? Should they be penalised for making things too cheap? Should you have a part of their income paid back as a reward of your labour?
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‘The Internet is NOT the ANSWER’ by Andrew Keen is sometimes engrossing and at times full of data and inferences drowning you in a debate that has no answer. Published by Atlantic Book Company,. 234 pages excluding 50 odd pages of references and endnotes.
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Blog/25/Book/4/2019
