The Post Social Age

Find some peculiar global trend—the more arcane, the better. Draw a straight line connecting it to the world of apps, electric cars, and Bay Area venture capital. Mention robots, Japan, and cyberwar. Use shiny slides that contain incomprehensible but impressive maps and visualizations. Stir well. Serve on multiple platforms.

from The Naked and the TED by Evgeny Morozov
The New Republic, 2 August 2012.

Morozov was reviewing Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization by Parag Khanna and Ayesha Khanna. Sounds ghastly. It’s published by TED Books, which probably says most of what you need to know about it.

The authors say,

We provide a guide to improving your technik, your capacity to harness emerging technologies. For instance: how to save for physical enhancement, take advantage of virtual currencies, protect your data from hacking, and other increasingly “normal” aspects of our lives in a technologically saturated world.

Cultural capital - so over. How’s *your* technik?

I can’t help but think that this kind of speculation is better left as fiction. Presenting speculations this big as fact is dangerous and it makes you look stupid. You’ll likely only be marginally right and if you’re even marginally right in fiction, you’re a genius. If you’re only marginally right in non-fiction, you’re an idiot.