TECHNOLOGY AND BARBARISM

A portentous collection of essays about big tech and literature in the Anthropocene.

Built on the idea that “technology is the border between civilization and barbarism,” these serpentine essays explore advancements in science and medicine and highlight the cultural casualties lost in society’s race toward the future. Sarcastically titled “Capitalist Science Fiction: How Billionaires Will Save the World,” the first part of the book showcases the influence of science fiction on the likes of Elon Musk and Sam Altman but highlights how “contaminating” their work is: “This disassociation between the dazzling ecological technologies that ­will save humanity and the contaminating and highly precarious conditions of their production is the pasture that feeds the colonial discourse of cap­italist science fiction.” Nieva (Dengue Boy, 2025) notes that a Tesla’s lithium battery depends on the “consumption of 2.2 million liters of drinking ­water for each ton of mineral, which happens to be extracted from desert areas with water deficits,” such as Argentina, where the author was born. Nieva finds many paths back to Argentina throughout the collection, to the extent that readers might question whether this book is more interested in technological developments or Argentina’s storied history. He writes, “Argentinian lit­erature is born from, and imbued with, this problematic crux…their exact point of encounter, of friction and crossing.” Other essays repeatedly invoke Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo and the stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Nieva revels in placing seemingly incongruent outlooks in proximity to illuminate their hidden connections. Observing Silicon Valley through the lens of vintage science fiction exposes the rottenness beneath its futuristic ambitions. One essay discusses virology and expands to explore Argentina’s borders and wars. Elsewhere, a Stanislaw Lem text leads to a critical take on ChatGPT. The apocalypse looms in these energetic texts, but their outlook often lands more cloudy than stormy. Nieva attempts to explore so much, but in doing so leaves his ideas lacking cohesion.

An ominous, occasionally blurry vision.