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Against platforms : surviving digital utopia / Mike Pepi.

By: Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Publisher: Brooklyn, NY : Melville House, [2025]Description: 209 pages ; 21 cmISBN:
  • 9781685891374
  • 1685891373
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • HM851 .P47 2025
Contents:
The utopia that never came — Data is never raw — The internet is not a "thing" — Technical solutions won't solve social problems — Decentralization is an illusion — Software is hard — Algorithms are made of people — Technology isn't given, it's made — Platforms are not institutions — After platforms.
Summary: A bold and imaginative critique of the hidden costs of digital life - and a manifesto for a better future... At the turn of the millennium, digital technologies seemed to have immense promise for transforming our society. With these powerful new tools, the thinking went, we would be free to live our best lives, connected to our communities in ways full of infinite potential. A quarter of a century on, this form of utopianism seems like a cruel mirage. Our lives are more fragmented and pressure-filled as ever, as we race to keep up with technologies that manipulate, command, and drain us at every turn. So what happened? In Against Platforms, technologist and creator Mike Pepi lays out an explanation of what went wrong - and a manifesto for putting it right. The key, says Pepi, is that we have been taught that digital technologies are neutral tools, transparent, easily understood, and here to serve us. The reality, Pepi says, is that they are laden with assumptions and collateral consequences - ideology, in other words. And it is this hidden ideology that must be dismantled if we are to harness technology for the fullest expression of our humanity -- provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-209).

The utopia that never came — Data is never raw — The internet is not a "thing" — Technical solutions won't solve social problems — Decentralization is an illusion — Software is hard — Algorithms are made of people — Technology isn't given, it's made — Platforms are not institutions — After platforms.

A bold and imaginative critique of the hidden costs of digital life - and a manifesto for a better future... At the turn of the millennium, digital technologies seemed to have immense promise for transforming our society. With these powerful new tools, the thinking went, we would be free to live our best lives, connected to our communities in ways full of infinite potential. A quarter of a century on, this form of utopianism seems like a cruel mirage. Our lives are more fragmented and pressure-filled as ever, as we race to keep up with technologies that manipulate, command, and drain us at every turn. So what happened? In Against Platforms, technologist and creator Mike Pepi lays out an explanation of what went wrong - and a manifesto for putting it right. The key, says Pepi, is that we have been taught that digital technologies are neutral tools, transparent, easily understood, and here to serve us. The reality, Pepi says, is that they are laden with assumptions and collateral consequences - ideology, in other words. And it is this hidden ideology that must be dismantled if we are to harness technology for the fullest expression of our humanity -- provided by publisher.

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