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"Is Your Technology Biased?"

We thought you'd find this article recently published in the Washington Post interesting.  Is our technology biased?  Do we really understand its influence on ourselves and others? Is anything really private anymoer? One of our favorite cutting-edge thinkers, Douglas Rushkoff, weighs in in this piece by Dominic Basulto.

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Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff

More on Douglas Rushkoff

Wired.com's Interview of Douglas Rushkoff, Author of "Program or Be Programmed"

 

One of our favorite audiobooks is Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff.  Rushkoff has been hailed as one of the most cutting edge thinkers of our time, and was recently interviewed by Wired.com.  Check out the interview by clicking here.

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More on Douglas Rushkoff

 

Excerpt 2 from "Program or Be Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff

We are delighted to offer another transcribed excerpt from Douglas Rushkoff's mind-expanding book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. In this book -- and this excerpt -- Rushkoff challenges us to take control of we interact with the ever evolving world of digital technology.

The way people approach me about this problem is they will say, “Well look, I know how to drive a car but I’m not an auto mechanic and I’m fine with that. When my car breaks, I’ll take it to the auto mechanic. I’ll take it to the garage.” Or the dealer at this point because people don’t trust the garage anymore. That’s another story. Take it back to the branded dealer and let them fix it. But I’m not talking about the difference between an auto mechanic and an automobile driver. I’m talking about the difference between an automobile driver and an automobile passenger.

Excerpt 1 from "Program or Be Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff

 We are delighted to offer the audiobook version of Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff on BetterListen!  Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, says that we should “Read this book [Program or Be Programmed] before and after you Tweet, Facebook, email, or YouTube.”  We agree.  Following is a transcribed excerpt from this fascinating book, read by Rushkoff himself.

When human beings acquired language, we learned not just how to listen but how to speak.  When we gained literacy, we learned not just how to read but how to write. As we move into an increasingly digital reality, we must learn not just how to use programs but how to make them. In the emerging highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple. Program or be programmed. Choose the former and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter and it could be the last real choice you get to make.

Excerpt 1 from A Talk Based on "Life Inc" by Douglas Rushkoff

Check out this fascinating excerpt from a talk by Douglas Rushkoff based on his book Life Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take it Back -- a book that challenges us to think completely differently about how we see the economics, the world of business, and money itself. 

As I see it, nothing is free. Nothing is free. Everything costs. It’s just that many things are not paid for. So there is a very big difference between those two things. I think that the problem is that the operating system for money, the operating system that we use for money, is obsolete and it is incompatible with the digital era. Our money system is a legacy system and like any legacy systems, they work for a certain amount of time. You forget that it’s even a legacy and then you begin to accept the operating system as a given circumstance.

Excerpt 1 from A Talk Based on "Program or Be Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff is widely considered to be one of most cutting-edge thinkers of our time.  In his book, Program or Be Programmed, Rushkoff asks the question: Do we direct technology or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it?  BetterListen! is delighted to make a available a talk Rushkoff gave on his fascinating new book.  Following is a transcribed excerpt from that talk which challenges us to think differently about the world around us.

What I see when I look at the history of culture and technology and computing, and media in particular, is I see occasional rare opportunities for civilization, the majority of people, to decide to participate in what’s going on. For people to actually become what in the sixties we used to call empowerment. For people to actually become empowered to exercise agency in their own affairs and in the world around them.