In one of the most famous paragraphs of our most famous autobiography, Henry Adams located the precise moment when “eighteenth century troglodytic Boston” joined industrial America: “the opening of the Boston and Albany Railroad; the appearance of the first Cunard Steamers in the bay; and the telegraphic messages which carried from Baltimore to Washington the news that Henry Clay and James K. Polk were nominated for the presidency. This was May, 1844.”
Pioneers, Settlers and Town Planners
The rants and raves of Simon Wardley on Evolution, Technology, Economics and Business
Technological parables and iconic illustrations: American technocracy and the rhetoric of the technological fix
This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the ‘technological fix’. Channeled by their long-term ‘chief’, Howard Scott, their claim was that technolo...
The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution
JAMES W. CAREY, JOHN J. QUIRK, The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution, The American Scholar, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Spring, 1970), pp. 219-241
The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution
JAMES W. CAREY, JOHN J. QUIRK, The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution, The American Scholar, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Summer, 1970), pp. 395-424
The History of Information - Chris Haughton
disinformation, chris haughton, information, noam chomsky
Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property
Andrew Ross, Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property, American Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 3, Rewiring the "Nation": The Place of Technology in American Studies (Sep., 2006), pp. 743-766
The Birth of the Attention Economy
The rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century remade how Americans engaged with the world.
Technically Radical
Over 2024, we saw major tech investors and company owners overtly turn toward the right, overtly backing Donald Trump in his electoral campaign. This group of individuals, which commentators have taken to calling the “Tech Right”, are motivated by various concerns like the attempts by the Biden administration to regulate them and a general backlash against “wokeness”. Representative individuals and their respective justifications can be found in things like Marc Andreessen's essay The Techno-Optimist Manifesto or books like Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State, and Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska’s The Technological Republic.
Science: A New Golden Age
President Trump seeks to lay the foundations for a new Golden Age of American Innovation. The Trump administration is working to revitalize the national science enterprise, to secure U.S. leadership in emerging technologies against foreign rivals, and to ensure that all of America’s citizens will benefit from new scientific breakthroughs and technological transformations. The President understands the American story as one of ambition, discovery, and invention, of pioneers who forever seek new frontiers for exploration, particularly now in science and technology.
Science: A New Golden Age
President Trump seeks to lay the foundations for a new Golden Age of American Innovation. The Trump administration is working to revitalize the national science enterprise, to secure U.S. leadership in emerging technologies against foreign rivals, and to ensure that all of America’s citizens will benefit from new scientific breakthroughs and technological transformations. The President understands the American story as one of ambition, discovery, and invention, of pioneers who forever seek new frontiers for exploration, particularly now in science and technology.
Steve Jobs
"FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted. Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values"--
The Technological Republic: The Sunday Times bestseller from the great minds behind Palantir
The Sunday Times and #1 New York Times Bestseller‘The Technological Republic is far too important to ignore’ Times Literary SupplementSilicon Valley’s brightest minds once collaborated with governments to advance technologies, securing the West’s dominance on the global stage. But that relationship has corroded – with perilous repercussions for us all.Lifting the veil on tech giant Palantir and its broader political project, visionary co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and his long-time deputy Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective culture of complacency. To regain geopolitical power and preserve our freedoms, we must tackle the world’s most pressing challenges – including the artificial intelligence arms race – together and head-on. Now is the time for the West to wake up.‘Bold and ambitious ... Essential reading’ Eric Schmidt‘Fascinating’ Financial Times‘A stirring manifesto’ Niall Ferguson‘Provocative and insightful’ Jamie Dimon
Historical pragmatism and the internet
This article argues that the literature describing the internet revolution in the 1990s was characterized by the rhetoric of the technological sublime. This rhetoric suffered from three fatal flaws: (1) it was not sufficiently grounded in the historical development of technology; (2) it viewed the internet in isolation, failing to consider the wider technological context; and (3) it failed to examine the internet in view of the social, economic, religious and political circumstances of its users. Several examples from history are cited, demonstrating that changes in various systems for the production, dissemination and preservation of cultural information both border and deborder the world. The article suggests that if internet researchers take a pragmatic, historically grounded approach, they will discover that the introduction of internet technology can be seen to have similar consequences. While the technology overcomes many boundaries (of space and time, politics and economics), other social borders may be created at the same time. It is easier to see old boundaries coming down than to see new ones being erected. Rather than being swept by utopian or dystopian enthusiasms, the article insists that the really interesting discoveries are to be made in locating the subtle social shifts taking place, relatively unnoticed, as a consequence of technological change.
"Historical pragmatism and the internet" by James Carey (2005) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444805054107
Technological
Posts about the future of the internet, AI, and anything technological. Hence the name.
Take back the web. Make it weird again - soulcruzer
Social Media and Anti-Social Pluralism - Aaron Ross Powell
Technorealists, the silent majority? - open self
Skyreader Vision - Skyreader Dev Log
Road to a book lexicon (Part 2) - Nick The Sick
The Turing Collapse | Jason G. Butterfield | Offprint
