WORLD WITHOUT MIND – Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer’s brilliantly researched World Without Mind is a compelling polemic revealing how the big tech companies are damaging our culture - and what we can all do to fight their influence.
The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide.
A difficult concept to realise, but the aim was to focus on the smartphone - our own personal link to cyberspace.
Our smartphones are now our diary and our dictionary. They contain our conversations, our movements, our reading tastes, music, fashion and more – and the big-tech companies are aiming to influence these decisions.
Early cover ideas focussed on a jumble of Ministry-of-Truth-like text messages, and cracked smartphones revealing darker influences. This is what influenced the idea behind the final cover - what lies beneath the surface – and how we are suckered into believing that owning such sophisticated devices will somehow improve us.
World Without Mind is published this month by Jonathan Cape.
