A smart but often strident look at the trouble that technological progress might portend.
A somber warning about the dire problems caused by unchecked technology.
Contemporary discussions about technology’s sociological impact are often critical but rarely ominous. Relatively few writers have interpreted the breakneck pace of advancement as a challenge to our very humanity. Debut author Publius, however, cautions that such progress brings more power to ruling elites at the expense of others. First, the book highlights the unprecedented expansion of computer-assisted power to scrutinize every aspect of our lives. This is seen usually seen in the field of marketing, in which our activity as consumers is thoroughly inspected, but Publius asserts that it also extends to all other human behavior. Second, the author notes that progress in the fields of automation and artificial intelligence threaten certain types of laborers with outright replacement; soon, Publius says, a whole host of occupations will be staffed by robots. This challenges the very existence of the middle class, which has been historically dependent upon a surfeit of low-skilled employment. Moreover, the author says, it’s not only vanishing jobs that are at issue, but also the implications of living among intelligent beings who aren’t people—a condition that, at the very least, raises urgent questions about what it means to be a human being. Publius is best when addressing the constituent elements of human dignity and the ways in which alternative forms of intelligence may undermine the unique moral value of human existence. Also, the book offers a searching discussion of the nature of human consciousness, which involves purposefulness, emotion, and even faith, rather than simply efficient computation. Unfortunately, these provocative explorations are often undermined by breathless hyperbole, such as, “Really then, it’s just a matter of time and a mere flip of some switch, before this bad-to-the-bone one becomes—tomorrow’s diabolical nightmare.” Many sentences are boldfaced for emphasis, and it’s not unusual for an assertion to be punctuated with a concluding “dammit!” It’s a shame that the book’s prevailing tone of shrill alarmism will turn off many readers, who might then miss the book’s many thoughtful philosophical insights.
A smart but often strident look at the trouble that technological progress might portend.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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