Conversations With An Oak Tree

by Carsten Graff

New Version Out May 2021 THROUGH TECHNOLOGY WE CAN CONNECT TO EVERYTHING EXCEPT OURSELVES. The world’s only timeless book about the disadvantages of computers. An award-winning book that can be read by all ages of all cultures. ​A satirical and existential tale about the difference between wisdom and knowledge. ​Carsten Graff is a former computer nerd. He holds a Master's degree in computer science and started his career in the computer industry as a programmer and software designer. With a team of pioneers, Carsten was developing some of the world's first home banking systems. Later he became an expert in multimedia-based training, teaching business managers all over Europe to use the latest technologies when educating their employees. While being at the peak of his career, Carsten went through an existential crisis that made him start asking critical questions about his profession. This book is a result of this process and was written as an antidote to modern society's glorification of knowledge, information, and technology. When it was first published in Denmark, it became an instant best-seller and was awarded the year's most original work of non-fiction by the Danish Authors Society. This edition of the book has been adapted and rewritten for an international audience and will be published in 2021. ​Carsten Graff was inspired to write the book while sitting under an old oak tree in a cemetery in Copenhagen. The atmosphere in a cemetery is an overwhelming contrast to modern technology. In cemeteries, myths and superstitions still live. The book is shaped around a dialogue between an old tree representing wisdom and a computer expert who represents knowledge. It exposes our society's uncritical attempts to register and formalize everything – our fascination with phones and computers and our obsession with the Internet and other complicated systems that can do much more than we need. Awards A year after its publication, CONVERSATIONS WITH AN OAK TREE was awarded a prize by the Danish Society of Authors as the year’s most original non-fiction work. More about this book

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Simona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little synopsis: An ex-computer programmer, turned technology critic talks to a tree(embodying the pre-technology era) about his life. Talks about people's growing dependance on technology, about the time-saving paradox of computers: people invest more time into saving time then they save. From absurdity of computer based byrocracy, to people's obsssion with their phones.

But there is a catch. It is a book written in 1996, making most of the things he complains about seem ridiculous. The word "internet" is mentioned once. In his time the main problem of computers seemed to be that they never what when and how you need them to. He gives tens of amusing stories about faulty systems, programs crashing, database errors. He complains about people obsessed with taking phone calls during conversations. He describe people obsessed about the memory and CPU of their computers to be about to run the most cutting-edge word processing software.

Sure there are some timeless things in it. For example that real, tangible world is more humanly satisfying then computer screens. Another thing is the praising of solitude in creative work.

I woud not necessarily recommend this book. I finnished it because I wanted to know how it ends. It also brings this strange sense of familiarity. I was born in the late 90's, so I never experienced this technology, but from my childhood I remmember the flavour that the technology used to have and this book reminds me of it. How much we used USBs how much more incompatibility of file formats there was, how ugly colourfull we liked our Word/Power point documents to be.

[Sidse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dette er en ret filosofisk bog, og jeg endte med kun at kunne læse 5 sider ad gangen eller noget i den stil, så måtte jeg lukke den, fordi jeg mistede fokus. Jeg kunne vældig godt lide de mange pointer om teknologi og at det skaber afstand mellem mennesker (selv om det på overfladen kan føles som det modsatte), fordi nærvær og tilstedevær ryger ud på et sidespor. Det var også skægt at læse bogen i forhold til de år den har på bagen, og de fremtidsgæt forfatteren kommer med. Noget af det har han ret i, noget er skudt ved siden af. Noget af det, som han var bekymret for og sikker på, ikke kommer til at ske, ER sket (desværre). Jeg kunne vældig godt lide alle de analogier, som han kom med ift. til træet. Når det blev bekymret, så blev furerne på dets bark dybere, fx. Titlen er en smule misvisende, da det drejer sig om en enkelt samtale, ikke flere. Dog varer den til gengæld en hel nat. Det sidste kapitel var lige ved at få mig til at smide bogen fra mig i frustration, alt for søgt og ude på overdrevet, ude af stil med resten af bogen. Den sidste sætning gjorde det dog for mig, og jeg tilgav ham helt. Jeg savner blot lige at få lukket følgende plothul, for at historien bliver fuldendt: Hvem fandt båndoptageren og fik historien udgivet?