As one
of the first writers to understand the paradigm-demolishing impact of the
Internet (Cyberia), Douglas Rushkoff has long been lumped in with
the web world's cheerleaders. As this slim, cool-headed broadside makes clear,
however, if Rushkoff was ever unambiguously thrilled about the online age, that
time is past. Confronted with the tsunami of content that he believes threatens
our sense of reality, Rushkoff puts forth ten recommendations, or "commands"
that he believes will help people thoughtfully navigate the new world.
Although Rushkoff's dicta
can read like a wired Emily Post ("Do Not Sell Your Friends," "Share,
Don't Steal"), his aim is less to promote web civility than to encourage
readers to take back the Internet before it is fatally compromised by a
desensitized, crowd-sourced, omnipresent cloud of Twittering, snarking,
short-attention-span infotainments. Befitting its message of level-headed
rationality, Rushkoff's prose is cleanly bonded to his ten precepts, avoiding
the heavy-breathing fulminations often preferred in the digital debate. While
acknowledging that the Internet is changing the species in ways unprecedented
since the birth of the printing press, Rushkoff throws cold water on the gauzy
libertarian fantasies promulgated by champions of social media. He slyly notes
that while creative people are expected to upload all of their work for free,
the reality of web advertising means that somebody
is getting paid when this media is consumed, just not the creators. "Instead
of optimizing our machines for humanity," he warns, "we are
optimizing humans for machinery."
While Rushkoff's answer—learn
how to actually use and program the machines that we spend so much of our lives
on—is not likely to be taken up by many, his warning about the consequences of
passivity is hard to shake.
Chris Barsanti is the
author of Filmology. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, his
reviews and essays have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, PopMatters,
In These Times, and The Chicago Tribune.
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