Technopoly

The Surrender of Culture to Technology

By: Neil Postman

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, privacy, intelligence, and truth, as they are redefined to fit the requirements of the technological thought-world.

©1992 Neil Postman (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

As a technologist, this book is a lighthouse.

Today, so much is without any meaning except more, more, more. Why we create technology is completely left out, along with its place in life. Craving real culture, we destroy more of it every day. This book crushes the premise of technology as an end in itself, and especially charges structures which undermine humanity. The solution at the end is appropriate and exciting. And the book itself is prescient in measurable ways. I'm grateful beyond words for this work. And now, we regroup around actual value, not efficiency alone.

narrator

Narrator talked way too fast. I had to slow it down to 90%, sometimes 85%.

Aging But Hyper-relevant

Even though much of this books struggles with age, as it was written before the most recent explosion in technological advancement, the core principles of how technology and a technopolist ideals (a concept I won't be able to do justice here) affect culture and thought are still quite relevant and interesting. I enjoyed it so much that I will buy a physical copy to refer back to.

An Interesting Perspetive

While I don't agree with a lot of the contents of this book, it provides a readable counterpoint to the exuberance of the technology community. It's a worthwhile read if you're interested in the interaction between technology and society, and it has some almost prophetic things to say about life in a world increasingly designed by and for machines (and people who act like them).

Some things he said were incorrect from a modern perspective, but it's interesting to see what people were saying about the future at the time, and some of the broad trends he talks about are still generally relevant today.

An in-depth account of the now

Brilliant.
Maybe this requires previous readings of history and philosophy, religion and science. I might suggest Scientific Revolutions by T S Kuhn as a companion read. And In Our Time (BBC4). And Wikipedia.
I found Technopoly to be up there with the best.
Brilliant.

Indispensable

This is indispensable to philosophy of science and/or technology. Postman is more relevant now than ever.

Still as relevant and illuminating as it was 30 years ago

Technopoly is a philosophical examination of the ways in which technologies impact and influence our world, beyond simply their use and implementation. Postman is not a Luddite, a staunchly anti-technology critic hoping to return to the pre-technological past. Rather, he asks us to think critically and carefully about the ways in which our technologies affect us in ways that we may not have considered, including creating and reinforcing ideologies, changing the goals of our political process, even disturbing and confusing our concept of truth in favor of precision and efficiency.

This is serious philosophy of technology, but is accessible in its style and not overly referential.

Published in 1992 (before the widespread public use of the internet), some references are dated. The ideas, however, are just as relevant today as they were then.

Gives You chills

This book is absolutely captivating from start to finish. I rate it five stars but I am blind and the app will not let me. Neil Postman traces the history of societies and how they biew their tools, which he states are in fact always forms of technology. in fact, he argues that science in and of itself is in fact a technology. Postman proceeds to demonstrate forthwith our idolatry of and enslavement to technology. This book was written at a time in which the World Wide Web did not even exist, and any reference to the Internet would have called it Ciberspace. The conclusion of the book is quite uplifting as Postman implores us not to allow precious things such as religion, the telling of stories, and relationships themselves to slip away. #TechAddiction #Creepy #whitty #Troubling #Inspiring #Enthralling #TagsGiving #SweepStakes

Postman was a prophet

This book is so relevant for this moment. While the ideas he offers are dense and tough to take in, they explain so much about our current instability.

Amazing book

Everyone should read this prescient book that anticipates the contemporary media landscape and exposes the core assumptions that tacitly govern our world