Tomorrows vs Yesterdays is the kind of book that needs to be read in the year that it was published, not because it might be prescient, but because the issues it discusses are absolutely pertinent right now. Essentially the thinkers interviewed by Andrew Keen are considering such issues as economic inequality, social media, the crisis of democracy and AI. The book is divided up into four sections: The Crisis, Waking Up from Utopia, Democracy and the Digital Revolution and Fixing the Future. Tomorrows vs Yesterdays is undoubtably an important book, but it is also a convenient way to gain quick insight into these important issues from thinkers whom have published books on the subjects without having the read those books. The interviewees are loosely divided up into those who think that things should be wound back and somehow reset and those who believe that we should find ways of working with the various drivers of current trends that are taking us into an increasingly bleak and uncertain future. Keen is a fine interviewer and overall the book is engaging, but despite the cautious optimism of those in the future camp I finished it still feeling pessimistic about the future.
Tomorrows vs Yesterdays is a hard book to give an overview of, as there are so many ideas discussed, so I'll pick one interviewee from each section in the order they are listed above. Shoshana Zuboff published the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2018) and the issues she discusses makes for somber reading; such as the constant data mining of everything we do online and also via CCTV by the likes of Google and Facebook etc that is used to manipulate us and sell us consumer goods. David Kirkpatrick published a book called The Facebook Effect in 2010 that was mostly optimistic about the social media platform, however within the last decade he has changed his mind, strongly criticising Facebook's strong reluctance to regulate abuse of its services as well as its ruthless pursuit of user data for profit. Peter Pomerantsev wrote a book called This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality (2019) and he talks about the abasement of social media and the net in general by right-wing propaganda, something Trump and his allies have excelled at in the most evil and insidieous way possible. In the fourth section the likes of Richard Stengel, author of Information Wars (2019), cites strong regulation of the online environment and the use of the likes of Facebook to educate, rather than spread disinformation and exploit our data. As I've already mentioned, I'm not optimistic! If you want a well put together heads up regarding these issues and more, then this book is up to the task, but if you want to avoid being further depressed about the state of our world then spend the money on a good bottle of wine instead (I did both...).
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