Team Human

by Douglas Rushkoff

Overview

Porchlight’s Management and Workplace Culture Book of The Year

“[A] thoroughly fascinating exploration of the long interplay between power and the technologies of communication.” —Adam Frank, NPR

Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups.

Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393541533
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	385,488
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Douglas Rushkoff is professor of media theory and digital economics at Queens/CUNY. Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he hosts the Team Human podcast and has written many award-winning books, including Media Virus, Program or Be Programmed, and Present Shock. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Table of Contents

Team Human 1

Social Animals 9

Learning to Lie 23

Figure and Ground 41

The Digital Media Environment 57

Mechanomorphism 77

Economics 97

Artificial Intelligence 117

From Paradox to Awe 133

Spirituality And Ethics 153

Natural Science 169

Renaissance Now 185

Organize 197

You Are Not Alone 209

Notes 217

Editorial Reviews

"Original and uplifting. Just the book America needs right now."

Frances Moore Lappé

"An intellectual history of the technologies (including social technologies) of the past millennium or two and an effective rallying cry for humanity at a time when many of us have rightly become far too cynical to stomach most rallying cries on most topics."

TechCrunch - Greg Epstein

"Team Human serves as a reminder that we do not have to surrender ourselves to technology.… Joining Team Human means prioritizing the social, transcending a digital inclination and connecting as humans."

Washington Post - Chris Yogerst

"A searing critique.… Visionary, original, and inspirational. If you’re not already a member of Team Human, you will be once you’ve finished reading this important book."

Jeremy Lent

"A provocative, exciting, and important rallying cry."

Walter Isaacson

"Can the revolution start already? This book will help us. Thank God for Douglas Rushkoff."

Parker Posey

"Douglas Rushkoff is the gold standard. He always knows what tech is up to—and he’s usually prophetic. Now he’s here to tell us how our Silicon masters are attempting to pit us against one another for their own gain. Go Team Human."

Walter Kirn

"In Team Human, the always-brilliant Douglas Rushkoff reminds us that the tools we design design us in turn, and offers a vision to invert our tools and make them better."

Jason Silva

"A vivid thinker, Douglas Rushkoff is an insightful and acerbic antidote to Facebook, cultural hegemony, and the corporatization of everything."

Seth Godin

"[Rushkoff] paints our current predicament with infectious élan and energy."

Wall Street Journal - Steven Poole

11/19/2018
Digital technology is destroying social bonds with wide-ranging and dire consequences, according to this scattershot jeremiad. Rushkoff (Program or Be Programmed), a professor of media theory and host of NPR’s Team Human podcast, argues that the internet and social media are enacting a “social annihilation” that leaves individuals isolated, alienated, addicted to screens, vulnerable to consumerist propaganda, and imbued with a computer-flavored worldview that makes them “experience people as dehumanized replications of memes” and “treat one another as machines.” These notions, along with anticapitalist posturing, frame a disjointed rehash of leftish sociocultural concerns, from the looming robot takeover to the inauthenticity of digital sound compared to vinyl. Rushkoff’s theorizing is more free-associative metaphor than serious analysis—he contends that “politicians of the digital media environment pull out of global trade blocs and demand the construction of walls” because of the one-versus-zero character of binary computer code—and yields claims about the real world that are often ill-informed or just plain absurd (“We will need a major, civilization-changing innovation to occur on a monthly or even weekly basis in order to support the rate of growth demanded by the underlying operating system”). People seeking a more connected, sustainable future should look for a better game plan than Rushkoff’s screed. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"[Rushkoff] paints our current predicament with infectious élan and energy."

Wall Street Journal

"[A] thoroughly fascinating exploration of the long interplay between power and the technologies of communication…. Rushkoff's knowledge of digital technology shines … This is an important book that readers are going to want to share with others. "

NPR - Adam Frank

"Team Human serves as a reminder that we do not have to surrender ourselves to technology. … Joining Team Human means prioritizing the social, transcending a digital inclination and connecting as humans."

Washington Post

"[A] catalyst for conversations on what it means to be human."

Booklist

"An astonishing, paradigm-shifting must-read for all inhabitants of the twenty-first century. Precisely and cogently written. Rushkoff’s best work so far."

Grant Morrison