The Blind Giant
By Nick Harkaway
Five years ago and when this book was written, everyone was totally freaking out.
2012 was an important year for the digital world:
634 million — Number of websites (December).
51 million — Number of websites added during the year.
1 billion — Number of monthly active users on Facebook, passed in October.
These are big numbers. Scary statistics.
And every actor in this technological theatre had something on their mind. Were we in control, or were we being controlled?
The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World is Harkaway’s attempt at rationalising the world we were in. Published in 2013, the book was a sensible and at times morose overview of where it was believed we were headed and how we could impose our authority on the situation to regain a little composure among the hysterics of the worldwide media scrum.
Harkaway correctly reasoned that we weren’t dancing beyond the edge of a precipice into an Orwellian-shaped hole. Though there are warnings aplenty on this literary odyssey which charts our intimate and — at face value — unorthodox relationships with our devices objectified by the film She, where your hero falls in love with a machine voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
Well, who wouldn’t?
The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World continues to be prescient today. Pick it up from a bargain bin or by clicking the link above and perusing the virtual aisles of our friends at Amazon.
