How to become ungovernable by reading slow, deep, thoughtful things
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1. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
Why it gets buried: Too long. Too true. Too terrifying. Also, it uses big words and makes tech bros uncomfortable.
Buy here (affiliated link)
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2. Filterworld: How Algorithms Make Everything the Same by Kyle Chayka
Why it gets buried: Algorithms flatten culture, reduce complexity, and quietly decide what we get to see.
Why it belongs: If you’ve ever wondered why the weird stuff doesn’t go viral anymore ~ this is the answer.
Buy here (affiliated)
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3. The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour
Why it gets buried: It’s about how we’re all trapped in a loop of doom-scrolling for meaning.
Buy here, (affiliated link)
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4. Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari
Why it gets buried: It points at tech, capitalism, and our own bad habits. No one wants to admit that.
Buy here, (affiliated link)
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5. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman
Why it gets buried: Old-school but prescient. Doesn’t praise innovation for innovation’s sake.
Buy here, (affiliated link)
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6. You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier
Why it gets buried: The guy helped build the digital world, and now he’s like “actually this might be bad.”
Buy here, (affiliated link)
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If you want to resist the algorithm, start by reading the stuff it ignores. Then talk about it somewhere the algorithm isn’t watching (yet).
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And here’s a bonus article written by a real writer Max Read (and not a tired bookseller cobbling links together for clicks) about the second book in the list Filterworld: How Algorithms Make Everything the Same by Kyle Chayka. There are some other links to some other good books and blogs on there too,
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