Rise of the Machines, Thomas Rid
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Rise of the Machines
A Cybernetic History

Author: Thomas Rid

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 12 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HighBridge

Published: 06/28/2016


Synopsis

As lives offline and online merge, it's easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machines reclaims the story of cybernetics, a control theory of man and machine. Thomas Rid delivers a portrait of our technology enraptured era. Springing from mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of myths about the future of machines. This vision radically transformed the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. Cybernetics triggered cults, the Whole Earth Catalog, and feminist manifestos, just as it fueled martial gizmos and the air force's foray into virtual space. As Rid shows, cybernetics proved a powerful tool for two competing factions—those who sought to make a better world and those who sought to control the one at hand. In the Bay Area, techno-libertarians embraced networked machines as the portal to a new electronic frontier. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. That “first cyberwar” went on for years—and indeed has never stopped. In our cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin.

Author Bio

Thomas Rid is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He testified on disinformation in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also the author of Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History.

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