ISBN:
9781780263298
Language:
English
Pages:
366 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
,
22 cm
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Hughes, Bob, 1947- Bleeding edge
DDC:
303.48/33
Keywords:
Computer
;
Technischer Fortschritt
;
Kapitalismus
;
Einkommensverteilung
;
Computers Social aspects
;
Technology Social aspects
;
Equality
;
Capitalism
Abstract:
"Capitalism likes us to believe in the steady, inevitable march of progress, from the abacus to the iPad. But the historical record tells of innumerable roads not taken, all of which could have led to better worlds, and still can. Hughes argues that prioritizing equality would develop superior and more diverse technologies that would lead to a richer more sustainable world. Bob Hughes shows that every major development in the computer's history arose from voluntary initiative or public funding rather than corporate research. The historical evidence suggest that innovation and creativity thrive in egalitarian settings and are stifled by competition--and the hijacking of the computer by capitalism is taking humanity down the wrong road."--
Abstract:
Introduction -- Chapter 1 Technofatalism and the future – is a world without Foxconn even possible? -- Chapter 2 From water mills to iPhones: why technology and inequality do not mix -- Chapter 3 What inequality does to people -- Chapter 4 The environmental cost of human inequality -- Chapter 5 Ever greater impact, ever less benefit: high-tech capital’s mysterious lack of growth -- Chapter 6 The invisible foot: why inequality increases impact -- Chapter 7 Enclosure in the computer age: the magic of control -- Chapter 8 Sales effort: from the automobile to the microchip -- Chapter 9 Technoptimism hits the buffers -- Chapter 10 The data explosion: how the cloud became a juggernaut -- Chapter 11 ‘The least efficient machine humans have ever built’: how capitalism drove the computer down a dead end -- Chapter 12 Planning by whom and for what? The battle for control from the Soviet Union to Walmart -- Chapter 13 A socialist computer: Chile, 1970-1973 -- Chapter 14 Utopia or bust
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
,
Co-published by New Internationalist
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