The Age of Earthquakes

by Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Shumon Basar

[wcs53]

This was a different, but interesting, little book that I borrowed from the library. It wasn't your normal kind of book, being filled with what at first seemed to be randomly chosen pictures and text. However, there was a point to it all, which was pointing out how much the internet has taken over our lives and the ways in which this could be damaging or helpful. Although I could have read it in one sitting I chose not to, instead just reading a little bit at a time and allowing myself to reflect on it.

Some of the ideas if followed through to their extreme could seem quite scary or destructive. Some of them could also lead to one thinking about some changes that they could make to their reliance of being seemingly constantly online.

It could be a very quotable book and some of the ones I liked were:

'The future loves you, but it doesn't need you.'
'Going to a cubicle every few years or so to put a cross in a box no longer works.'
'Believing in something you know is stupid somehow makes it more believable.'
'But if technology is only a manifestation of our intrinsic humanity, is it possible to make something ultimately smarter than ourselves?'
'Doing nothing has become very hard to do.'

Anyway, it's an interesting little read that, if nothing else, makes you think a little about how much has changed so quickly in so short a time, leaving you wondering if there's much that can be done to change the way things are heading.