Douglas Rushkoff: Program or Be Programmed
Douglas Rushkoff just announced that pre-orders for his new book, Program or Be Programmed, have begun.
Rushkoff has been writing and commenting about digital media for a very long time now. From his early books, Cyberia, Media Virus, to his PBS Frontline documentaries, including “Digital Nation.” This book is a nice segue from his last book, Life, Inc., which discussed the need for other forms of currency and transactions in a move to get away from being trapped by large corporations controlling everything. He brings up ideas on how we can reconnect with our communities, with the value we create in life, and with the people around us.
Our lives are no longer brick and mortar. We function and live by being connected through computers and the Internet primarily, which means the rules for the game of life are changing. Most people are unable to fully control the machines in front of them, and that’s a dangerous position to be in. For Rushkoff, programming computers is a new form of literacy. Literate people are able to program, to control, the processes that function around them.
In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.
He later writes in the introduction:
A society that looked at the Internet as a path toward highly articulated connections and new methods of creating meaning is instead finding itself disconnected, denied deep thinking, and drained of enduring values. It doesn’t have to turn out this way. And it won’t, if we simply learn the biases of the technologies we are using and become conscious participants in the ways they are deployed.
The “disconnect” we feel relates perfectly to the discussion going on right now about the web dying along with newspapers and paper books. People are indeed frustrated with how much can change on the web (ie all the changes by Facebook get greeted by the formation of “I Dislike the Recent Changes” groups), but they also get frustrated with how things don’t work they way they would like them to work. I have to believe that the way Rushkoff is tackling this issue is going to be right. If we all learned to program our surroundings, we no longer have to rely on others who are controlling it.
I am really looking forward to reading this book when it comes out. Rushkoff notes that it ”is an indie book in every sense of the word. It can only be ordered directly from the publisher, OR Books which cuts out a whole lot of corporate middlemen while getting the book out a lot sooner and less expensively.” Currently, there is a 15% discount on orders, which makes this book extremely affordable. The book is priced under $14, and an eBook is $8.50. Check out the OR Books website for more information.
By James McCullough
