The Problem with Solutions, Julie Guthman
The Problem with Solutions, Julie Guthman
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Problem with Solutions
Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food

Author: Julie Guthman

Narrator: Lisa S. Ware

Unabridged: 7 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 10/15/2024


Synopsis

A concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises.

Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today's myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.

The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector's ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Patricia on June 18, 2025

Felt on board with the main arguments of the book before reading and found it helpful how clearly and in no-nonsense style it was written. I think I wanted a bit more about solutionism — how it operates and why it operates and what disrupts it — but found the vocabulary the book offered useful enoug......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on June 10, 2025

Read this for the critique of Silicon Valley even if you don't particulary care about agriculture and also read it if you've ever been in a college/university class in which you are invited to adress the world's biggest problems through entrepreneurship......more