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cwl's reviews
261 reviews
Terminal Bar: A Photographic Record of New York's Most Notorious Watering Hole by Stefan Nadelman
5.0
Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society by Firmin Debrabander
4.0
Thanks to Netgalley, the author Firmin Debrabander, and Cambridge University Press for the advanced review copy. Life After Privacy is expected September 8th 2020.
This is absolutely and important and topical argument in today’s hyper connected world. We should all be talking about this subject more. At 200 pages, the book isn’t huge, but it does have some fancy writing, talking about panopticons and political notions of the "public space." Perhaps it may be a bit much for some.
The argument that “nothing less than personhood is at stake” when privacy is violated holds significant weight, but as the author repeats often, too many act as if this is inconsequential.
The grim thought that we may face a society that expects perfection and without it would cast off those members. Recent events that unfolded in Minnesota with the U.S. Government using an unmanned drone to several protesters bears out some of this. The power to watch in the hands of govt. is some we should expect will be used. Clearly “individual citizens and consumers seem especially ill equipped to muster much of a defense against the forces of surveillance.”
Privacy, of course, could not be interrogated well if we didn't look at the self. What makes a person autonomous, thinking and then that thinking private (and of some use, for, say voting). The privacy of our thoughts my well be the very last thing we could lose. This book seems to think this is valid, but all very inward-looking.
The central ideas in this book might be a surprise to you (it was to me). I'm not sure I agreed with it to begin with, but it's growing on me. One thing is for sure, we need a new way of looking at privacy and surveillance in this digital era.
#LifeafterPrivacy #NetGalley #Privacy #Internet
This is absolutely and important and topical argument in today’s hyper connected world. We should all be talking about this subject more. At 200 pages, the book isn’t huge, but it does have some fancy writing, talking about panopticons and political notions of the "public space." Perhaps it may be a bit much for some.
The argument that “nothing less than personhood is at stake” when privacy is violated holds significant weight, but as the author repeats often, too many act as if this is inconsequential.
The grim thought that we may face a society that expects perfection and without it would cast off those members. Recent events that unfolded in Minnesota with the U.S. Government using an unmanned drone to several protesters bears out some of this. The power to watch in the hands of govt. is some we should expect will be used. Clearly “individual citizens and consumers seem especially ill equipped to muster much of a defense against the forces of surveillance.”
Privacy, of course, could not be interrogated well if we didn't look at the self. What makes a person autonomous, thinking and then that thinking private (and of some use, for, say voting). The privacy of our thoughts my well be the very last thing we could lose. This book seems to think this is valid, but all very inward-looking.
The central ideas in this book might be a surprise to you (it was to me). I'm not sure I agreed with it to begin with, but it's growing on me. One thing is for sure, we need a new way of looking at privacy and surveillance in this digital era.
#LifeafterPrivacy #NetGalley #Privacy #Internet
BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom by Rinaldo Walcott, Idil Abdillahi
2.0
Being Toronto-focused, I wanted to understand more about the Canadian Black Lives Matter perspective.
Not terribly well written - “The reality is that BlackLife in Canada finds itself being expressed and circumscribed by the demand from Black people that it be a full life and resisted by a set of forces, structures and people that it be something less than a full life.” This is a book that would benefit greatly from additional editing and proofreading. Often complex words are used when simpler ones would have similar impact. Sentences run on far too long - taking me away from the book. In fact, the first chapter takes three paragraphs to explain what its going to be about. Unnecessary.
Passages like this just feel like word soup: “Since 1492, the globe has been embroiled in a conception of the human driven by European man-human conceptuality, understandings and categorizations of the world and thus the globe.”
A topic I genuinely wanted to read about given the local context, but the book did not hold my attention. Perhaps this was overly academic in nature and best served for that audience.
Not terribly well written - “The reality is that BlackLife in Canada finds itself being expressed and circumscribed by the demand from Black people that it be a full life and resisted by a set of forces, structures and people that it be something less than a full life.” This is a book that would benefit greatly from additional editing and proofreading. Often complex words are used when simpler ones would have similar impact. Sentences run on far too long - taking me away from the book. In fact, the first chapter takes three paragraphs to explain what its going to be about. Unnecessary.
Passages like this just feel like word soup: “Since 1492, the globe has been embroiled in a conception of the human driven by European man-human conceptuality, understandings and categorizations of the world and thus the globe.”
A topic I genuinely wanted to read about given the local context, but the book did not hold my attention. Perhaps this was overly academic in nature and best served for that audience.