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Overview
Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills?
In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781610395281 |
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Publisher: | PublicAffairs |
Publication date: | 05/26/2015 |
Pages: | 352 |
Sales rank: | 1,084,149 |
Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Chapter 1 No Laptop Left Behind 3
Conflicting Results in Educational Technology
Chapter 2 The Law of Amplification 17
A Simple but Powerful Theory of Technology's Social Impact
Chapter 3 Geek Myths Debunked 38
Dispelling Misguided Belief About Technology
Chapter 4 Shrink-Wfapped Quick Fixes 57
Technology as an Exemplar of the Packaged Intervention
Chapter 5 Technocratic Orthodoxy 74
The Pervasive Biases of Modern Do-Gooding
Chapter 6 Amplifying People 103
The Importance of Heart, Mind, and Will
Chapter 7 A Different Kind of Upgrade 122
Human Development Before Technology Development
Chapter 8 Hierarchy of Aspirations 151
The Evolution of Intrinsic Motivation
Chapter 9 "Gross National Wisdom" 172
Societal Development and Mass Intrinsic Growth
Chapter 10 Nurturing Change 192
Mentorship as a Social-Cause Paradigm
Conclusion 211
Acknowledgments 219
Appendix: Highlighted Nonprofits 223
Notes 225
References 279
Index 315