Download or read book The Cult of the Amateur written by Andrew Keen and published by Currency. This book was released on 2008-08-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
Download or read book The Cult of the Amateur written by Andrew Keen and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
Download or read book The Cult of the Amateur written by Andrew Keen and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
Download or read book The Cult of the Amateur written by Andrew Keen and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-03-04 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new, updated edition, with a new foreword of Andrew Keen s witty and provocative polemic against the rise of user-generated content and the anything goes standards of much online publishing, which set the blogosphere and media alight on publication. Dubbed the 'anti-christ' of Silicon Valley and a dot-com apostate Andrew Keen is the leading contemporary critic of the Internet. and The Cult of the Amateur is a scathing attack on the mad utopians of Web 2.0 and the wisdom of the crowd. Keen argues that much of the content filling up YouTube, MySpace, and blogs is just an endless digital forest of mediocrity which, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter public debate and manipulate public opinion.
Download or read book The Internet Is Not the Answer written by Andrew Keen and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned Internet commentator and author of How to Fix the Future“expos[es] the greed, egotism and narcissism that fuels the tech world” (Chicago Tribune). The digital revolution has contributed to the world in many positive ways, but we are less aware of the Internet’s deeply negative effects. The Internet Is Not the Answer, by longtime Internet skeptic Andrew Keen, offers a comprehensive look at what the Internet is doing to our lives. The book traces the technological and economic history of the Internet, from its founding in the 1960s through the rise of big data companies to the increasing attempts to monetize almost every human activity. In this sharp, witty narrative, informed by the work of other writers, reporters, and academics, as well as his own research and interviews, Keen shows us the tech world, warts and all. Startling and important, The Internet Is Not the Answer is a big-picture look at what the Internet is doing to our society and an investigation of what we can do to try to make sure the decisions we are making about the reconfiguring of our world do not lead to unpleasant, unforeseen aftershocks. “Andrew Keen has written a very powerful and daring manifesto questioning whether the Internet lives up to its own espoused values. He is not an opponent of Internet culture, he is its conscience, and must be heard.” —Po Bronson, #1 New York Times–bestselling author
Download or read book The Cult of Smart written by Fredrik deBoer and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
Download or read book Amateur written by Thomas Page McBee and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction *Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Memoir/Biography *Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize One of The Times UK’s Best Memoirs of 2018, BuzzFeed’s Best Nonfiction of 2018, Autostraddle’s Best LGBT Books of 2018, Book Riot’s Best Queer Books of 2018, and 52 Insight’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018 A “no-holds-barred examination of masculinity” (BuzzFeed) and violence from award-winning author Thomas Page McBee. In this “refreshing and radical” (The Guardian) narrative, Thomas McBee, a trans man, sets out to uncover what makes a man—and what being a “good” man even means—through his experience training for and fighting in a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden. A self-described “amateur” at masculinity, McBee embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of gender in society, examining sexism, toxic masculinity, and privilege. As he questions the limitations of gender roles and the roots of masculine aggression, he finds intimacy, hope, and even love in the experience of boxing and in his role as a man in the world. Despite personal history and cultural expectations, “Amateur is a reminder that the individual can still come forward and fight” (The A.V. Club). “Sharp and precise, open and honest,” (Women’s Review of Books), McBee’s writing asks questions “relevant to all people, trans or not” (New York Newsday). Through interviews with experts in neuroscience, sociology, and critical race theory, he constructs a deft and thoughtful examination of the role of men in contemporary society. Amateur is a graceful and uncompromising look at gender by a fearless, fiercely honest writer.
Download or read book The Cult of Individualism written by Aaron Barlow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American individualism: It is the reason for American success, but it also tears the nation apart. Why do Americans have so much trouble seeing eye to eye today? Is this new? Was there ever an American consensus? The Cult of Individualism: A History of an Enduring American Myth explores the rarely discussed cultural differences leading to today's seemingly intractable political divides. After an examination of the various meanings of individualism in America, author Aaron Barlow describes the progression and evolution of the concept from the 18th century on, illuminating the wide division in Caucasian American culture that developed between the culture based on the ideals of the English Enlightenment and that of the Scots-Irish "Borderers." The "Borderer" legacy, generally explored only by students of Appalachian culture, remains as pervasive and significant in contemporary American culture and politics as it is, unfortunately, overlooked. It is from the "Borderers" that the Tea Party sprang, along with many of the attitudes of the contemporary American right, making it imperative that this culture be thoroughly explored.
Download or read book Cult X written by Fuminori Nakamura and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The magnum opus by Japanese literary sensation Fuminori Nakamura, Cult X is a story that dives into the psychology of fringe religion, obsession, and social disaffection. When Toru Narazaki’s girlfriend, Ryoko Tachibana, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of the private detective he’s hired to find her. Ryoko’s past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue to her whereabouts is a previous address in the heart of Tokyo. She lived in a compound with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru with a revisionist Buddhist scheme of life, death, and society. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru’s brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn’t what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence he is stepping into. Inspired by the 1995 sarin gas terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, Cult X is an exploration of what draws individuals into extremism. It is a tour de force that captures the connections between astrophysics, neuroscience, and religion; an invective against predatory corporate consumerism and exploitative geopolitics; and a love story about compassion in the face of nihilism.
Download or read book The Amateur Naturalist written by Nick Baker and published by National Geographic Society. This book was released on 2004 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on the success of the 1982 bestseller by Gerald and Lee Durrell, "The Amateur Naturalist" makes nature accessible to all ages and inspires a new generation to make the most of the world around them. 200 full-color photos & illustrations throughout.
Download or read book Cult of the Ibis written by Daria Tessler and published by Fantagraphics Books. This book was released on 2019-02-20 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exquisite and mostly silent graphic novel takes place in a fantasy cityscape loosely inspired by German Expressionist film. Cult of the Ibis tells a story of an occultist getaway-driver who, after escaping with the loot from a bank robbery gone wrong, orders a build-your-own homunculus kit and goes on the lam.
Download or read book Digital Vertigo written by Andrew Keen and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Digital Vertigo provides an articulate, measured, contrarian voice against a sea of hype about social media. As an avowed technology optimist, I'm grateful for Keen who makes me stop and think before committing myself fully to the social revolution." —Larry Downes, author of The Killer App In Digital Vertigo, Andrew Keen presents today's social media revolution as the most wrenching cultural transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Fusing a fast-paced historical narrative with front-line stories from today's online networking revolution and critiques of "social" companies like Groupon, Zynga and LinkedIn, Keen argues that the social media transformation is weakening, disorienting and dividing us rather than establishing the dawn of a new egalitarian and communal age. The tragic paradox of life in the social media age, Keen says, is the incompatibility between our internet longings for community and friendship and our equally powerful desire for online individual freedom. By exposing the shallow core of social networks, Andrew Keen shows us that the more electronically connected we become, the lonelier and less powerful we seem to be.
Download or read book The Amateur Hour written by Jonathan Zimmerman and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length history of college teaching in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, this book sheds new light on the ongoing tension between the modern scholarly ideal—scientific, objective, and dispassionate—and the inevitably subjective nature of day-to-day instruction. American college teaching is in crisis, or so we are told. But we've heard that complaint for the past 150 years, as critics have denounced the poor quality of instruction in undergraduate classrooms. Students daydream in gigantic lecture halls while a professor drones on, or they meet with a teaching assistant for an hour of aimless discussion. The modern university does not reward teaching, so faculty members at every level neglect it in favor of research and publication. In the first book-length history of American college teaching, Jonathan Zimmerman confirms but also contradicts these perennial complaints. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unexamined sources, The Amateur Hour shows how generations of undergraduates indicted the weak instruction they received. But Zimmerman also chronicles institutional efforts to improve it, especially by making teaching more "personal." As higher education grew into a gigantic industry, he writes, American colleges and universities introduced small-group activities and other reforms designed to counter the anonymity of mass instruction. They also experimented with new technologies like television and computers, which promised to "personalize" teaching by tailoring it to the individual interests and abilities of each student. But, Zimmerman reveals, the emphasis on the personal inhibited the professionalization of college teaching, which remains, ultimately, an amateur enterprise. The more that Americans treated teaching as a highly personal endeavor, dependent on the idiosyncrasies of the instructor, the less they could develop shared standards for it. Nor have they rigorously documented college instruction, a highly public activity which has taken place mostly in private. Pushing open the classroom door, The Amateur Hour illuminates American college teaching and frames a fresh case for restoring intimate learning communities, especially for America's least privileged students. Anyone who wants to change college teaching will have to start here.
Download or read book The Emerging Markets Century written by Antoine van Agtmael and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new breed of powerhouse companies from the emerging markets is catching their Western competitors off-guard. Household names of today - IBM, Ford, Wal-Mart - are in danger of becoming has-beens as these more innovative superstars rise to dominance, representing both an urgent competitive challenge and an unprecedented investment and business opportunity. Understanding how they have become world-class market leaders - and where they are going next - is crucial to an understanding of the future of globalization. Training his brilliant investor's eye on the top twenty-five of these emerging market companies, visionary international investment analyst Antoine van Agtmael takes readers into the boardroom suites and labs where they are outmanoeuvring their Western competitors. He reveals how these companies have made it to the top of the global heap, profiling major players such as China's Haier appliance manufacturer; Korea's Samsung; Brazil's Embraer jet maker; and India's Infosys. Divulging their strategies for future growth, he analyses how their rise to prominence will change our lives. His unique insights reveal both how we in the West can capitalize on the opportunities these companies represent while also mobilizing a powerful response to the challenges they present.
Download or read book Cult A Love Story written by Alexandra Amor and published by Fat Head Publishing. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Educated, Captive, and Leah Remini's Troublemaker comes the gripping true-life story of one young woman's accidental journey into a cult. And her escape a decade later. It's rarely obvious when a group is a cult. Most cults don't advertise themselves as such: they are groups of people who look and act just like you and me. Not dangerous. Not deranged. At least, not at first. The slide toward complete control of your personality, your thoughts, and your life is slow and virtually unnoticeable. Until it's too late. Cult, A Love Story has been studied in university classrooms, featured in an audio documentary and on podcasts, and read by cult survivors and their families all over the world, from remote British Columbia, Canada to Australia, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. In this award-winning memoir, Alexandra Amor shines a light on cults so that others might learn from her heartbreaking experience. Amor gracefully and sensitively explains how ordinary and intelligent people get seduced into joining cults, why they stay despite the emotional and psychological abuse, and what the long process of recovery looks like once someone leaves a cult. Amor's transparency about her decade-long involvement with a Vancouver, Canada cult makes this powerful and gripping book an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about how the mind control of a high demand spiritual or religious group works. In this page-turning, personal memoir you will learn: - how normal, intelligent people can, without knowing what's happening, get sucked into a cult's grip - why it's so very difficult for those in high demand groups (cults) to leave - how to evaluate whether a group you belong to is a cult - what the recovery period after a cult looks like - resources and recommendations if you know someone in a cult, or if you are in recovery from a cult yourself "This excellent memoir reveals how a charismatic, manipulative spirit medium can use love for God and neighbor as a hook to drag a small group of devotees into her cynical web of impossible goals for self-perfection. After a heroic struggle for insight, Alexandra Amor was one of the cult members who broke the abusive spell." Joesph Szimhart, Cult Information Specialist
Download or read book How to Fix the Future written by Andrew Keen and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From data breaches to disinformation, a look at the digital revolution’s collateral damage with “practical solutions to a wide-range of tech-related woes” (TechCrunch). In this book, a Silicon Valley veteran travels around the world and interviews important decision-makers to paint a picture of how tech has changed our lives—for better and for worse—and what steps we might take, as societies and individuals, to make the future something we can once again look forward to. “A truly important book and the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature in which technology’s smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it.”?Fortune “After years of giddiness about the wonders of technology, a new realization is dawning: the future is broken. Andrew Keen was among the first and most insightful to see it. The combination of the digital revolution, global hyperconnectivity, and economic dysfunction has led to a populist backlash and destruction of civil discourse. In this bracing book, Keen offers tools for righting our societies and principles to guide us in the future.”?Walter Isaacson, New York Times-bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci “Comparing our current situation to the Industrial Revolution, he stresses the importance of keeping humanity at the center of technology.”?Booklist “Valuable insights on preserving our humanity in a digital world.”?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Download or read book The Amateur Marriage written by Anne Tyler and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-01-06 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author—a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage and its consequences, spanning three generations They seemed like the perfect couple—young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother’s grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married. Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.
