Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

Book review: Cyberselfish by Paulina Gorsook

“A critical romp through the terribly libertarian world of high tech”

I don’t know what happened to Paulina, but she seems to have suffered somehow at the hands of a someone she thinks represents all techno-libertarians.

This book describes the views of a small subset of people who have managed to get the wrong end of the stick about libertarianism, and expanded that view to cover pretty much anyone who works in the hightech industries. It describes some shocking examples of social irresponsibility and inability to comprehend that there is a need for social structure provided by government. It also glosses over the fact that most people in the IT sector are just normal people, the ones you get to hear about are the oddballs, the extremists.

There is also, throughout the book, a bitter diatribe about the management of Wired magazine, and how they project their sexist and selfish worldview on those around them, and the industry as a whole. This seems to be related to Paulina having fallen out with the management.

It does raise some interesting points, about the disconnect some of us (high tech workers) feel from society, but it seems to make a point of misunderstanding the implications of that disconnect as being a symptom of either sexism or selfishness, or both.

All in all, not a very positive book.

Who should read this: nobody

(no poll for this one, I’m not going to waste your time by lending it to you)


2 comments

  1. That its a selfish thing, its about taking funding from the government and not paying taxes to support it.

    Which isn’t what I consider libertarianism to be about, its more about having freedom to do and act in ways you want (where that doesn’t impact other peoples freedom to do similar). Shes taken a particular, minority right wing view of it and expanded it to cover anyone who has slightly more liberal views on anything than she does.

    And, sure, I’m a little upset about paying taxes into a government that gives me nothing in return (except a reasonably stable and safe society within which to live), but thats not to say that the government should be despanded because of it…I would prefer to get more out of it, but I’m not a demographic the government sees, so I’m not worth catering for.

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