Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology
The key to understanding technology lies not in the future—but in the past. That's the contention of Lizzie O'Shea's Future Histories, a grand tour through past and present to explore the practical—and sometimes revolutionary—possibilities of our digital age.

Searching for new ways to think about our networked world, O'Shea asks what the Paris Commune can tell us about the ethics of the Internet and finds inspiration in the revolutionary works of Thomas Paine and Frantz Fanon. She examines Elon Musk's futuristic visions only to find them mired in a musty Victorian-era utopianism. Instead of current-day capitalist visionaries, O'Shea returns us to the Romantic age of wonder, when art and science were as yet undivided, narrating the collaboration between Ada Lovelace—the brilliant daughter of Lord and Lady Byron—and polymath Charles Babbage, who together designed the world's first computer.

In our brave new world of increased surveillance, biased algorithms, and fears of job automation, O'Shea weaves a usable past we can employ in the service of emancipating our digital tomorrows.
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Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology
The key to understanding technology lies not in the future—but in the past. That's the contention of Lizzie O'Shea's Future Histories, a grand tour through past and present to explore the practical—and sometimes revolutionary—possibilities of our digital age.

Searching for new ways to think about our networked world, O'Shea asks what the Paris Commune can tell us about the ethics of the Internet and finds inspiration in the revolutionary works of Thomas Paine and Frantz Fanon. She examines Elon Musk's futuristic visions only to find them mired in a musty Victorian-era utopianism. Instead of current-day capitalist visionaries, O'Shea returns us to the Romantic age of wonder, when art and science were as yet undivided, narrating the collaboration between Ada Lovelace—the brilliant daughter of Lord and Lady Byron—and polymath Charles Babbage, who together designed the world's first computer.

In our brave new world of increased surveillance, biased algorithms, and fears of job automation, O'Shea weaves a usable past we can employ in the service of emancipating our digital tomorrows.
19.95 In Stock
Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology

Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology

by Lizzie O'Shea
Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology

Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology

by Lizzie O'Shea

Paperback

$19.95 
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Overview

The key to understanding technology lies not in the future—but in the past. That's the contention of Lizzie O'Shea's Future Histories, a grand tour through past and present to explore the practical—and sometimes revolutionary—possibilities of our digital age.

Searching for new ways to think about our networked world, O'Shea asks what the Paris Commune can tell us about the ethics of the Internet and finds inspiration in the revolutionary works of Thomas Paine and Frantz Fanon. She examines Elon Musk's futuristic visions only to find them mired in a musty Victorian-era utopianism. Instead of current-day capitalist visionaries, O'Shea returns us to the Romantic age of wonder, when art and science were as yet undivided, narrating the collaboration between Ada Lovelace—the brilliant daughter of Lord and Lady Byron—and polymath Charles Babbage, who together designed the world's first computer.

In our brave new world of increased surveillance, biased algorithms, and fears of job automation, O'Shea weaves a usable past we can employ in the service of emancipating our digital tomorrows.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781788734318
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 08/17/2021
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 5.07(w) x 7.79(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lizzie O'Shea is a lawyer, writer, and broadcaster. An experienced lawyer in Australia and internationally, specializing in human rights and Aboriginal rights in Australia, she has represented refugees, activists, and people targeted by national security legislation. O'Shea is regularly featured on national television programs and radio to comment on law, digital technology, corporate responsibility, and human rights, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and The Sydney Morning Herald, among others. She holds degrees from the University of Melbourne and an Masters in Law from Columbia University, specializing in corporate responsibility and digital technology, and sits on the boards of numerous non-profit community organizations, including Digital Rights Watch Australia.

Table of Contents

1 We Need a Usable Past for a Democratic Future 1

A Spanish Prince's Automaton and an American Novelist's Living History

2 An Internet Built around Consumption Is a Bad Place to Live 12

Cityscapes, as Imagined by Sigmund Freud and Jane Jacobs

3 Digital Surveillance Cannot Make Us Safe 39

Policing Bodies and Time on London's Docks

4 Technology Is as Biased as Its Makers 65

Exploding Cars, Racist Algorithms, and Design Beholden to the Bottom Line

5 Technological Utopianism Is Dangerous 95

The Tech Billionaires Have Nothing on the Paris Commune

6 Collaborative Work Is Liberating and Effective 121

Poetical Philosophy, from Lovelace to Linux

7 Digital Citizenship Is a Collective Endeavor 151

Tom Paine's Revolutionary Idea of Public Participation

8 Automation Can Mean Less Work and More Living 171

Downing Tools So We Can Build Robots to Eat the Rich

9 We Need Digital Self-Determination, Not Just Privacy 196

Frantz Fanon Theorizes Freedom

10 The Digital World Is an Environment That Needs to Be Cared For 217

Ancient Forms of Governance Hold Relevance for Modern Infrastructure

11 Protect the Digital Commons! 239

Socialise the Cows

Conclusion: History Is for the Future 261

Another World Is on Its Way

Acknowledgments 264

Notes 268

Index 312

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