You Can Read My Emails (But Leave My Soul Alone)

 

 Remember how I was going on about hating this NewAge jargon about "solutions"? And remember when I posted that quote from the Internet-In-Paperback, The Whole Earth Catalog, that said "We are as gods and might as well get good at it"? And you know how I was always saying it's been rather cultish? Well, according to Evgeny Morozov, I ain't too far off:

In its zeal to create a “frictionless future” by erasing nuance and imperfection, says Morozov, solutionism usually makes matters worse. 

Solutionism in today’s world has been vastly enabled by “Internet-centrism”, which envisions the internet as far more than a network of networks governed by common protocols. The internet becomes an autonomous entity with its own inherent logic and development, extolled as the template to emulate: 

“It is this propensity to view “the Internet” as a source of wisdom and policy advice that transforms it from a fairly uninteresting set of cables and network routers into a seductive and exciting ideology – perhaps today’s über-ideology.” 

In fact, if this ideology “sounds like a religion, it’s because it is”.

Which is exactly why I don't take futurist advice from Glenn Reynolds.

Look, they got us coming and going - which can only mean one thing:

I think we gotta punch our way out,...