by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books, Markets, Technology
By Vikas Datta,
Title: The People Vs Tech; Author: Jamie Bartlett; Publisher: Ebury Press/Penguin Random House; Pages: 256; Price: Rs 499
Duality is a feature of humanity and manifests itself in all its works, particularly its technology. Advances in digital technology have changed our lives greatly, disrupted many forms of social, economic and political interactions and made us information-rich. So should we welcome all this unreservedly or will there be a price to pay too?
Quite possibly, and it might be higher than we may imagine. How about the threat to democracy, privacy and independent thinking, among others, as this work argues?
Before you think this to be an exaggerated threat, remember the role social media played in the Brexit fight or the 2016 US Presidential Elections where Donald Trump emerged triumphant, the illegal use of Facebook users’ data by Cambridge Analytica, the online trolling and abuse faced by dissenters, the fake news phenomenon and the “post-truth” world.
“In the coming few years, tech will destroy democracy and the social order as we know it, or politics will stamp its authority over the digital world,” says British author and technology expert Jamie Bartlett, but notes it is rather clear that tech is winning against a “diminished and enfeebled opponent”.
And Bartlett, who has written “The Dark Net” about the internet’s hidden corners, presented a BBC documentary series on the Silicon Valley and heads the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at think-tank Demos, goes to show us how and why this is happening.
At the outset, he however stresses that he is not talking about all technology but “specifically the digital technologies associated with Silicon Valley — social media platforms, big data, mobile technology and artificial intelligence — that are increasingly dominating economic, political and social life”.
He argues that the basic structures of democracy — no matter how flawed they may be — are in danger from these technologies. The middle class is being eroded, sovereign authority and civil society being weakened, mainstream media facing a lack of credibility, and politics becoming a toxic encounter, where divisions are exacerbated instead of common ground being reached. The last is not so difficult to gauge — just engage someone of the opposite political persuasion in a discussion and see.
Most worrying is that people are losing their critical facilities, with an increasing reliance on computer codes to do their thinking for them, on what they should buy or watch or where to go for a holiday.
And then, who profits from all this? But here, too, the author stresses that he is not indulging in a “book-length whinge about rapacious capitalists who masquerade as cool tech guys or a morality tale about grasping multinationals”.
He first makes a compelling case that while technology, though a grand and overarching system, is based on different rules and principles than democracy — hence the conflict. Bartlett then postulates six key pillars of democracy, including active citizenry, free elections and a competitive economy and civic freedom, and goes to show how they are under threat from technology.
It is a fascinating, though sometimes sobering and even frightening, journey that encompasses interviews with the top tech pioneers of Silicon Valley (including one surreal encounter), a visit to the now abandoned headquarters of the Trump social media campaign team and an explanation of its working, the monopolies of the big tech companies, the struggle over encryption, the move towards Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and how all these could fashion our future.
He boldters his case by providing a wealth of insights (phones turning us into zombies where we are so happy to talk with a disembodied voice while ignoring people around us), and perceptive views — ranging from Canadian communications guru Marshall McLuhan (of the “global village” fame) to anti-totalitarianism writer Hannah Arendt.
However, Bartlett’s aim is not only to paint a frightening view of a technologically-tyrannical dystopia down the road, but also offers us 20 things, distributed among the six pillars of democracy he has listed, that we can do — not only to reclaim democracy, but also our free will and choice and, eventually, our humanity.
An alarmist polemic? Could be, but all these points deserve consideration. We may not agree with all, but will ignore them only at our peril.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing; Author: Daniel H. Pink; Publisher: Canongate; Pages: 272; Price: Rs 599
Many of us have heard the proverb “strike when the iron is hot” (or its equivalents), but like all such sayings, rarely do we apply it to ourselves. We do understand the importance of timing in various aspects of our lives but think of it more as a subjective talent, or focus more on the “what”, or “how” and “why” instead. Time to rethink?
Definitely, for we are neglecting the key word “when”, says author Daniel Pink. This can help us to know when we should tackle problems demanding a logical or an intuitive approach, take a break or exercise, drink a cup of coffee or even quit our job, get married or avoid a medical examination.
And he contends that we know the importance of timing but not what its actual nature is — with all the problems this lack of knowledge causes.
As he says, our lives have many “when” decisions — “when to change careers, deliver bad news, schedule a class, end a marriage, go for a run, or get serious about a project or a person”, but answers to most of these “emanate from a steamy bog of intuition and guesswork” that makes us believe timing is “an art”.
Pink holds this is not true.
The author of books like “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” (2009) — where he argues motivation is largely intrinsic, doesn’t stem from hope of rewards and fear of punishment, or factors such as money — and “To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others” (2012), about how every attempt to influence others is “selling”, believes that “..timing is really a science — and emerging body of multifaceted, multidisciplinary research that offers fresh insights into the human condition and useful guidance on working smarter and living better”.
And Pink tells us that he and two other researchers analysed over 700 reports from economics and anaesthiology, anthropology and endocrinology, chronobiology and social psychology to “unearth the hidden science of timing”.
He draws on these to answer questions spanning why beginnings of anything we do matters — and how we can deal with false or stumbling starts, how the midpoint is significant, and how endings can both give us a renewed sense of purpose.
Pink also goes on to show us the importance of synchronicity in shared endeavours, the importance of schedules — and how to make one which works — and how to think about the past and future optimally for our present.
Alongside, he tells us the importance and the proper duration of midday naps, which the most important meal of the day is — and why — and if there is actually such a thing as a “midlife crisis”.
Beginning with the fatal decisions of the captain of luxury ocean liner Lusitania, whose torpedoed sinking in 1915 started the chain of events that eventually brought America into World War I, Pink shows us how we can determine our personal, easily calculated chronotype (larks, owls or a third bird) that determines our moods and abilities at various stages of the day and thus affects our professional or ethical judgement as well as physical functions.
But enlivening the scientific part — which draws on fiercely-contested US college basketball matches and the life and career of James Dean to the secrets of Mumbai’s dabbawallahs — Pink, to prove his case, also supplements his theory with regular installments of the “Time Hacker’s Handbook”, offering practical hints and tips from every chapter summarised for the intensely practical and impatient readers.
And the treatment, while frequently counter-intuitive, is not all dogmatic or loaded with jargon, and is most accessible and humorous. The work shows how you can make time your friend, not master — don’t grudge the time taken to read it.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: The Philosopher and the Wolf; Author: Mark Rowlands; Publisher: Granta Books; Pages: 256; Price: Rs 499
There are many things that distinguish human beings as a species — apart from an inclination for dazzling technological gizmos — but the most outstanding, as far as their survival and peace of mind goes, will be their habit of gaining knowledge from singularly unique experiences. Like this misanthropic academician did from an over-decade-long, frequently nomadic stint with a wolf.
Welsh-born Mark Rowlands was starting his academic career in the US in the 1990s when he made a purchase that would not only change his life but also give him a vivid insight into what it means to be human, appreciating nature — including from a non-human perspective — and our similarities and differences with other animals.
And as he shows us in this non-linear memoir-cum-extensive philosophical exposition, it also enabled him to gain an understanding of the evolution of intelligence and civilisation, good and evil, and heaven and hell, time and its course, happiness, memory, and even the creation of the universe, and the meaning and purpose of life.
It all began with an urge, in his second year as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, to get a dog, like he had in childhood when his “dysfunctional family” had plenty of big dogs around the house.
Scanning the classifieds, he found one that aroused his interest — a breeder offering “96 per cent” wolf cubs for sale — drove to his house and picked the second-biggest male out of the six-weeks-old litter.
On reaching home, he would have cause to rue his impulse for Brenin, as he named the cub after the Welsh for king, within two minutes, trashed the curtains, made his way out of the house and under it — the building was stilted — and “methodically, meticulously but above all quickly”, ripped all of the air-conditioning pipes.
Rowlands, now a Professor at the University of Miami and author of many specialised and general books on philosophy, goes on to offer a non-linear account of his life with the wolf — and what he learnt, and imagines what the wolf did.
Some parts are gripping — training the wolf, teaching him to leave pet dogs alone, making him a vegetarian, or piscetarian at least — and tragic (in the final years), but there is plenty of humour too: Having to take Brenin to his classes where the wolf howled during long lectures (“a habit that endeared him to students, who had probably been wishing they could do the same thing”) and stole their lunches.
The author notes that having the wolf alongside also attracted girls, who would come to praise the striking “dog” he had.
But it is not only him and the wolf — who would not only become a companion but his best “friend and brother” — for, Rowlands uses various experiences of their unique shared life to go into various philosophical issues and insights they give rise on various issues.
Among them one prominent one is about the difference between “simian” — which humans have followed — and “lupine” intelligence and how they differ in their whole thought process and approach to life. But as Rowlands asks, have we followed the better option?
And Rowlands, as he tells us with honesty, has, in all those years, also found himself, especially his flaws. “There is something lacking in me. And, over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that the choices I have made, and the life I have lived, have been a response to this lack. What is most significant about me, I think, is what I am missing.”
These insights are interspersed with passages of lyrical beauty about this wolf — and others in mythology and folklore — some not-so-complimentary ones about humans, and a great deal of philosophy, particularly in presenting practical applications of top practitioners from Plato to Nietzsche to Wittgenstein, as well as Albert Camus, Milan Kundera and more.
It is a rather hybrid book, much like the partnership it describes, but for all that a unique experience that might influence those who don’t have a wolf, or any as or less exotic a pet, to look at our life and world differently.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership; Author: James Comey; Publisher: Pan Macmillan; Pages: 305; Price: Rs 799
As an Assistant US Attorney in New York in the early 1990s, James Comey was part of the anti-mafia campaign and became well versed about how its top bosses perceived themselves, the people who worked for them and the world. As FBI chief a quarter of century later, he saw the same worldview — in newly-elected President Donald Trump.
Recounting a meeting where he seemed to have angered Trump by contradicting him, Comey tells us that the encounter had left him “shaken” for he had “never seen anything like it in the Oval Office” under the previous two presidents he had served.
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth,” he writes in his autobiography.
And as we go on to find out in the book, this is another aspect of the significant role that Comey would play in the 2016 US Presidential Election, apart from his decisions on “the matter” (the word is significant, as we learn) of Hillary Clinton’s email server being perceived as having damaged her campaign.
These interactions with Trump, where Comey’s “loyalty” was sought in the wake of the probe into Russian support/links against his campaign team and he was even purportedly told to drop the case against a recently-resigned aide (National Security Adviser Michael Flynn), could have far-reaching consequences — for the new President.
While Comey was unceremoniously fired, his claims would lead to a Special Counsel investigation that has reached uncomfortably close to Trump — Luke Harding’s “Collusion — How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House” shows how.
But while around half of Comey’s book is devoted to his decisions and experiences in the Clinton and Trump episodes, it has much more than these two major issues, and is certainly not an explosive, tell-all account — he is too principled and conscientious a lawyer and public servant to reveal what is the court’s domain to the public.
But it does clarify his position in the Clinton matter, where he seeks to explain what the issue was all about, and what lay behind him telling Congress in October 2016 — a few days prior to the election — that the probe was being reopened.
As he reveals, the decision hinged on whether to inform Congress — which could influence the election — or conceal it — which could have been as problematic for the FBI if evidence of prosecutable criminal activity emerged later. “Put that way, the choice between a ‘really bad option’ and a ‘catastrophic option’ was not that hard a call,” he argues.
This is Comey’s memoir with the parts on Clinton and Trump the highlights, but the good lawyer he is, he builds up to them, showing why he acted the way he did by detailing his formative influences and his career.
These include the childhood experience when a criminal burst into his home and threatened him and his brother, a wise boss at the department store where he worked part-time, bullies at school, and encounters with the Mafia bosses and killers as US Attorney.
Then, as Deputy Attorney General in the George W. Bush Presidency, there was the “Stellar Wind” surveillance — where he had to forestall two senior administration officials trying to obtain a hospitalised Attorney General’s concurrence — and torture of terrorists and terrorist suspects by the CIA, and being appointed FBI chief by Barack Obama in 2013.
While the comparison of the three Presidents — and their cabinet colleagues — is well brought out and extensive (say, their political styles to sense of humour — or lack thereof), the main point is their attitude to justice, or rather to those tasked with ensuring it. As we learn from history, and increasingly from the news, there is no doubt what the rankings will be.
This, along with Comey’s observations on the ethics of leadership and the pursuit of justice free from any political considerations, is what makes this book more than a political memoir.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Saket Suman,
Book: India’s Aged: Needs and Vulnerabilities; Edited by: Udaya S. Mishra and S. Irudaya Rajan; Publisher: Orient Blackswan; Pages: 254; Price: Rs 825
The immense potential of India’s young population is celebrated time and again by politicians, policymakers and public intellectuals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself highlighted the need to tap the vibrant energy of India’s youth at various global fora. But those who nurtured the youth of today are faced with countless stumbling blocks and a recent book combines numerous studies and rigorous research to present the most vulnerable aspects of the life of the elderly.
Titled “India’s Aged”, the book contains 10 elaborate research essays by respectable names from different spheres of life and has been edited by two professors of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram — Udaya S. Mishra and S. Irudaya Rajan.
Across the globe, there is a rise in the number of elderly persons. The editors explain that “this phenomenon has seldom been witnessed in the past” because a higher fertility rate and lower life expectancy ensured the existence of a larger proportion of young population as compared to the elderly. Now, population projections (UN 2010) reveal that, by 2050, the elderly would comprise over 15 per cent of the total population. But this is not all that policymakers have to worry about.
“The growing concentration of elderly population in much older age groups,” according to the findings of the book, is a matter that requires immediate attention. A World Health Organisation report in 2011 highlights that the elderly population aged 85 years and above is increasingly becoming a significant share of the total elderly population aged 65 years and above. At the same time, the population aged 95 years and above across the world is likely to rise by a whopping 351 per cent between 2010 and 2050, while the population aged 65 and above is projected to increase by 188 per cent.
In a strictly Indian context, the book underlines United Nations Population Fund estimates suggesting that by the middle of the 21st century, India will be home to “one out of every six of the world’s older persons”. The same report also says that India had 90 million elderly persons in 2011, but the number is expected to grow to 173 million by 2026.
Astounding as it may sound, the book reveals that of the 90 million seniors, 30 million are living alone. Further, 90 per cent of them work for their livelihood. Fieldwork and surveys in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh show that about one-fifth of the elderly live alone. So what is leading to the seclusion of the aged?
The book argues that declining fertility, migration and increasing number of nuclear families are three possible reasons for the reduction in household size, which ultimately culminates into an aged member of the family living alone.
The book touches on a range of issues concerning our elderly population, including their economic dependence, living arrangements and health care facilities, morbidity and disability among the elderly, and food and nutritional security for them. At the same time, it also lays down some examples of how these vulnerabilities can be addressed through social policies.
The editors observe that the issue of population ageing is yet to receive any significant attention of central and state policymakers. And that a general neglect of the welfare of the elderly is apparent in the various developmental and humanitarian assistance programmes supported by national and international donors as well as funding agencies.
This book needs to be widely read and discussed by policymakers and public intellectuals. At the same time, it brings together empirical explorations of prevailing realities and mechanisms that shape the existence of the elderly in India, and is therefore a volume indispensable for scholars of economics, development, and health and wellness studies.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
