New Dark Age cover art

New Dark Age

Technology and the End of the Future

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New Dark Age

By: James Bridle
Narrated by: Emily Beresford
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About this listen

As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: The belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.

In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories, and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we're living in a new Dark Age.

From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.

In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime.

©2018 James Bridle (P)2019 Tantor Politics & Government Social Sciences Sociology Urban Artificial Intelligence City Surveillance Urban Planning

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Critic reviews

"New Dark Age is among the most unsettling and illuminating books I've read about the Internet, which is to say that it is among the most unsettling and illuminating books I've read about contemporary life." (New Yorker)
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Excellent book, accessibly written with some great insights. However the woefully mismatched narrator’s theatrical style and bizarre pronunciation made some sections of first person narrative just laughable and the whole thing a bit of a slog to get through. Such a shame, but I’ll be seeking out more of James Bridle’s work.

Great book, poor narration

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Just finished chapter 2. While the content is good, the narration is quite annoying and detracts from the information within the book. Maybe that's why this is in the Plus catalogue.

Good book, inappropriate reading style

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A brilliant book, albeit with a narration/performance that was generucly competent rather than well-suited to the subject matter.
Highly recommended all the same.

Great book, not very well read

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I have been waiting for this book, James Bridle being one of the contemporary thinkers and artists I hold in high esteem. The book doesn't disappoint (though I haven't finished yet, so detailed review later).
However, having heard his talks and many similar books, the narrator is very out of place and distracting for me. She must be a great narrator for fantasy books, but here it becomes hard to follow the thoughts of Bridle.

Great book - mismatched voice

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There is an argument to be made here, but this certainly isn't it. Dreadful, whiny, moralising nonsense.

There are plenty of entertaining and cogent criticisms of modern obsession with data and technology, but you will find them elsewhere. Try Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rory Sutherland, Michael Lewis, Dan Arielly - but this is infantile, paranoid and economically illiterate tosh. Not helped by a narrator who reads it like a cheap horror novel. I confess I was getting so irritated with the narrator and the tiresome righteousness that I sped it up to 150%, which made it even worse.

Before you buy, make sure you listen to the sample. And ba assured it gets more grating as you get an hour or two in.

If you like David Graeber's Bull###t Jobs - a similarly mediocre, whiny book that managed to mangle a perfectly sensible concept, you will love this. Everyone else, steer well clear.

Fifth-form leftist tosh, narrated by a lunatic

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