Trees on Mars

December 12, 2016
Niedzviecki (The Peep Diaries) takes a deep look at the prevailing 21st-century technological ideology, showing that it may be too late to hit the brakes on a “race to the future” in which individuals and institutions chase constant innovation. He converses with technofuturists, Mars colony hopefuls, life extenders, and SXSWi idea promoters who want to change the world through web apps. Niedzviecki brings educators, psychologists, Walmart shipping workers, survivalist preppers, and nervous new college graduates into the discussion. He follows the implications of a future vision that puts its faith in the individual and promises emancipation while simultaneously making that individual a piece of manipulable data. Similarly, he looks into the rise of IT-based productivity growth that comes without significant creation of new jobs. He deftly pulls together the cultural strands that have woven the future-first rhetoric of improvement though permanent, competitive, systematic disruption and its effects on both people who expect to be on the leading edge and those who expect to be left behind. Niedzviecki may leave his readers somewhat disillusioned, but they will not be despairing; he urges them to “maintain humanity” and make meaning in the present even as the hope of the future inevitably falls short.