A sweeping history of our deep entanglement with technology.
As lives offline and online merge even more, it’s easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machines reclaims the spectacular story of cybernetics, a control theory of man and machine. In a history that unpacks one of the twentieth century’s pivotal ideas, Thomas Rid delivers a thought-provoking portrait of our technology-enraptured era.
Springing from the febrile mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. This vision would radically transform the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. From the Cold War’s monumental SAGE bomber defense system to enhanced humans, Wiener’s scheme turned computers from machines of assured destruction into engines of brilliant utopias. Cybernetics triggered blissful 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: a peaceful, open space of freedom. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. Meanwhile the future arrived secretly in 1996, with Moonlight Maze, dawn of a new age of digital state-on-state espionage. That “first cyberwar,” as Rid reveals in a blow-by-blow account, went on for years―and indeed has never stopped. In our long-promised cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin.
Drawing on new sources and interviews with hippies, anarchists, sleuths, and spies, Rise of the Machines offers an unparalleled perspective into our anxious embrace of technology and today’s clash of digital privacy and security.
32 pages of illustrations
0 有用 Manchild 2017-06-21 07:45:27
通俗读物。
0 有用 Sea son 2024-03-23 22:03:29 浙江
对cybernetics的基本原理科普不错,想真正了解Wiener的还是去看Hayles
0 有用 Polygethes 2022-12-21 00:34:23 美国
不错的控制论科普+通史。从最初的军事应用,到Bateson的second wave以及反文化运动的科技梦,结束在信息安全战争。唯一不变的是每一步都在背后尝试利用或者捣乱的帝国公务员,高达果然是美国人发明的吧?还有没想到leary也是个主要人物,可见当时他的影响力吧。总之填补了不少知识缝隙也补充了背景知识,推荐。
0 有用 amazzhann 2020-05-29 22:53:53
开始的时候读的很认真,但是对战争武器历史并不感兴趣,读到后面,尤其是第七章讲cyberpunk的时候很感兴趣,却怎么也读不下去,只能说草草读完我的第二本英文书籍
0 有用 Sea son 2024-03-23 22:03:29 浙江
对cybernetics的基本原理科普不错,想真正了解Wiener的还是去看Hayles
0 有用 Polygethes 2022-12-21 00:34:23 美国
不错的控制论科普+通史。从最初的军事应用,到Bateson的second wave以及反文化运动的科技梦,结束在信息安全战争。唯一不变的是每一步都在背后尝试利用或者捣乱的帝国公务员,高达果然是美国人发明的吧?还有没想到leary也是个主要人物,可见当时他的影响力吧。总之填补了不少知识缝隙也补充了背景知识,推荐。
0 有用 amazzhann 2020-05-29 22:53:53
开始的时候读的很认真,但是对战争武器历史并不感兴趣,读到后面,尤其是第七章讲cyberpunk的时候很感兴趣,却怎么也读不下去,只能说草草读完我的第二本英文书籍
0 有用 Manchild 2017-06-21 07:45:27
通俗读物。