Technology is omnipresent in our daily lives. From WhatsApp to Quantified Self tools: we are increasingly guided by technology, made in Silicon Valley . So far nothing new. What is new is that a vanguard is emerging that takes the technological revolution to task and questions our rapidly changing behavior. Meet Evgeny Morozov, Dave Eggers and my 91-year-old uncle Jan.
Technology critic Evgeny Morozov recently gave a lecture at the Media Fund. His comment on the rise of Google ( Glass ), Facebook and all those other Silicon Valley innovators:
“Technology does not treat people as living beings in an imperfect world, but reduces poland mobile phone number list them to predictable carriers of information.”
LivesOn: When your heart stops, keep tweeting
Morozov's argument is actually a plea for doubt. Silicon Valley will apparently solve all the world's problems, he claims. Life will be sunny, peaceful, clean. Soon there will be an app for every problem. But should we want that? " When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting," is the reassuring slogan that welcomes visitors to the website of LivesOn, a service that promises to keep tweeting on your behalf, even after you've died. By analyzing your past tweets, the service learns something "about your preferences, tastes and use of language" and adds a personal touch to all those automatically composed scribbles from the afterlife.
LivesOn could turn out to be a joke or fizzle out for any number of reasons, but as an idea it underscores the dominant ideology in Silicon Valley today: Whatever can be undermined should be undermined — even death, Morozov argues.
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