The Sceptical Optimist: Why technology isn't the answer to everything

by Nicholas Agar

The rapid developments in technologies — especially computing and the advent of many 'smart' devices, as well as rapid and perpetual communication via the Internet — has led to a frequently voiced view which Nicholas Agar describes as 'radical optimism'. Radical optimists claim that accelerating technical progress will soon end poverty, disease, and ignorance, and improve our happiness and well-being. Agar disputes the claim that technological progress willautomatically produce great improvements in subjective well-being. He argues that radical optimism 'assigns to technological progress an undeserved pre-eminence among all the goals pursued by our civilization'.Instead, Agar uses the most recent psychological studies about human perceptions of well-being to create a realistic model of the impact technology will have. Although he accepts that technological advance does produce benefits, he insists that these are significantly less than those proposed by the radical optimists, and aspects of such progress can also pose a threat to values such as social justice and our relationship with nature, while problems such as poverty cannot be understood intechnological terms. He concludes by arguing that a more realistic assessment of the benefits that technological advance can bring will allow us to better manage its risks in future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Technology

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[JustHB · Rating 1 out of 5]

Catchy title. Possibly the most boring book I've read. Long complex sentences, with obtuse words, make this a real slog. No real content. The title doesn't even relate to the content. Disappointment from the first sentence.

[JG · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was a hard slap against all technological optimists, but in truth is just a book against radical optimists as the author calls them. Those who think that technology by itself will be the solution to every problem and they choose to leave out other important and inherent aspects like the sociological, psychological, cultural, ethical and of course the secondary effects, the perverse incentives and the unintended consequences that the new technology will bring.

As a matter of fact I think the author is kind of a moderate optimist as he himself says:

The rapid exponential improvement of information technology is infectious. It tends to spread to wellbeing technologies. Progress in an infected well-being technology tends to accelerate

. Or

This book is no attack on technological progress. Rather, it is an attack on certain overly ambitious ways of thinking about technological progress.

.

There are several and similar quote from the author stating optimism in technology but always clarifying that we need to ponder about the costs and the price we will pay.

I think is a good book to temper our expectations and recognize that we need to ask more questions before demanding quick and short term solutions (or pleasures). To think that technology is the all for all and the only tool in our toolkit is to make the same mistake as the man with a hammer where he thinks that everything is a nail. We need to remember that some of the most beneficial breakthroughs in human history have been through social and attitude changes.


The only thing I found a little naive about the author is his belief that you can control human ingenuity and technological advance as if it were some kind of predictable and complete malleable clay. No doubt we can plan some scenarios ahead and set priorities in order to maximize and optimize our current resources, but sadly sometimes we need to "let the beast loose" if we want to discover things serendipitously that otherwise we couldn't. In other words, sometimes we need to break things and push the boundaries. Everything is a trade-off.

For me the most important points of the book are: (i)attitudinal time travel; (ii)experienced improvement Vs real improvement; (ii)progress traps; (iv) technology improvement is a conditional law.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good effort and raised some interesting questions for further consideration. I appreciate the liberal and democratic perspective this took. For most of the book, it felt like reading a university research paper and I thought it could have done a deeper dive into some of the topics introduced.
Topics of interest: discussion of poverty and relative social statuses throughout history, e.g. is a poor person today better off than Louis XIV due to technological advances of the 21st century? No, because a poor person understands that she is poor within the realm of current technologies; transhuman development and inserting technology into the human body or altering the brain in relation to advancing technology. I would have liked to hear more about why cancer research and techonology seems subpar to other advancements made in society. Is there a threat to advancing cancer research and finding a cure? What is that threat? Monetary, population control, something else?

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, though somewhat dry and academic, read. Agar raised some interesting points and provides much food for thought. Could you imagine if a cure for cancer was sought with the same zeal and resources that are used to develop the next best "smartphone" or social networking site? Are we really happier because we have such technology? Why have advances in medicine slowed down, relatively speaking, when compared with what was discovered in the last 100 years? Agar discusses these themes and more. Worth a read, and it's relatively short.

[Robharries · Rating 2 out of 5]

Said very little of value that I already didnt know and was surprisingly limited in its critique of radical optimism.

Endless pages hammering the same basic point bored me to tears. I had high expectations of this book.

[JustHB · Rating 1 out of 5]

Catchy title. Possibly the most boring book I've read. Long complex sentences, with obtuse words, make this a real slog. No real content. The title doesn't even relate to the content. Disappointment from the first sentence.