An invaluable guide to the underlying machinery and technology that controls modern society – and a roadmap to navigate it. Foreword by social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind.
OUTRAGE MACHINE:
How Tech Amplifies Discontent and Disrupts Democracy―And What We Can Do About It
by Tobias Rose-Stockwell
Legacy Lit/Hachette US, July 2023
(via Park & Fine)
Throughout history, new technologies have disrupted our capacity to make sense of the world, from the printing press to the telegraph, from radio to television. OUTRAGE MACHINE explores the serious recent disruption caused by social media, and how it has triggered an urgent society-wide crisis of trust. Drawing from deep historical context, as well as cutting-edge research, author, designer, and media researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell shows how social media has bound us to an unprecedented outrage machine, training us to react rather than reflect, and attack rather than debate.
Rose-Stockwell expertly illustrates how social media platforms were unintentionally designed to reward outrage and penalize tolerance, leading to distorted public conversations that live at the extremes and deepen political divisions. Pulling from extensive personal experience in tech and media, he exposes the triggers and tactics used to exploit our anger, unpacking how these technologies hack our deep tribal instincts and cognitive biases. These tools have now become opportunistic platforms for authoritarians and a threat to democratic norms everywhere.
But this book is not just about the problem. OUTRAGE MACHINE situates social media within a historical cycle of intense conflict and emerging tolerance. Using clear language and powerful illustrations, this book reveals the magnitude of the challenges we face, while offering realistic solutions and a promising pathway out.
Tobias Rose-Stockwell is a renowned media researcher and strategic advisor to Jonathan Haidt’s organization, OpenMind. Tobias’s work has been featured in major outlets such as The Atlantic, FastCompany, Quartz, Medium, NPR, the BBC, and many others. In his role as a media researcher, he has advised the directors of Gannett, one of the largest news organizations in the country, and was also a guest lecturer at Stanford University. He has been honored with the Unsung Hero Award by the 14th Dalai Lama for his work helping to rebuild essential infrastructure in Cambodia. Tobias lives in New York.
Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. He lives in New York City.
For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to multiple ground wars, it has pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital surveillance, as well as detaining people indefinitely and torturing them. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized, paranoid feature of American politics and security, expanding the possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home. A politically divided country turned the War on Terror into a cultural and then tribal struggle, first on the ideological fringes and ultimately expanding to conquer the Republican Party, often with the timid acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today’s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9/11 era.
These new and collected essays from the acclaimed naturalist Barry Lopez—his final undertaking—represent the culmination of a lifetime’s thought in service of our relationship with wilderness, and with each other. Here, his collected essays offer a unifying vision; his drive to reconnect the cultural and the natural is unflinching, and major, never-published pieces offer profound commentary on topics that veer from the autobiographical—his abuse as a child—to the evolution of his views on the untamed. His classic prose, like the arctic landscape he elegized, remains as ever: “spare, balanced, extended…” It has been said that Barry Lopez understood what we gain when we accept the enormity of what we don’t know; these essays hinge on that tantalizing concept.
Raquel Willis is a powerful woman. But growing up as a young boy in the South made being herself almost impossible. In this moving and provocative memoir, Raquel relives the many risks she faced in her struggle to become a fierce advocate for her community—and the powerful woman—that she is today. Today, she is known as a transgender trailblazer, both for work with the Transgender Law Center and speaker at the National Women’s March. She offers intimate reflections on masculinity and blackness, informed by a tumultuous relationship with her father. From a childhood built in opposition to expectations, all the way through her transition at a flagship Southern university, Raquel demonstrates that her story is but one thread in the larger tapestry of Black trans American life; a tapestry that has never truly been chronicled from this millennial, Southern perspective.
12 NOTES is a self-development guide that will affirm that creativity is a calling that can and should be answered, no matter your age or experience. Drawing from his own life, and those of his many creative collaborators past and present, Quincy Jones presents readers with lessons that are hardworking and accessible, yet speak to the passion of self-expression. He includes sections as deep as how to transform grief into power, and as practical as how to set goals and articulate intentions through daily affirmations. Weaving his story throughout, Jones lets readers in on his own creative process, as well as the importance of letting honesty, hard work, and good relationships drive your career.