Jeremy Weinstein

Read this if you want to understand how to shape our technological future and reinvigorate democracy along the way. -- Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix__________A forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professors which reveals how big tech's obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.__________In no more than the blink of an eye, a naïve optimism about technology's liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. Yet too few of us see any alternative to accepting the onward march of technology. We have simply accepted a technological future designed for us by technologists, the venture capitalists who fund them, and the politicians who give them free rein.It doesn't need to be this way.System Error exposes the root of our current predicament: how big tech's relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get.Armed with an understanding of how technologists think and exercise their power, three Stanford professors - a philosopher working at the intersection of tech and ethics, a political scientist who served under Obama, and the director of the undergraduate Computer Science program at Stanford (also an early Google engineer) - reveal how we can hold that power to account.As the dominance of big tech becomes an explosive societal conundrum, they share their provocative insights and concrete solutions to help everyone understand what is happening, what is at stake, and what we can do to control technology instead of letting it control us.

From its onset, the Second World War changed the course of many couples’ lives as they were parted, not knowing if they would ever see their partners again. Documenting the hopes and the heartbreak of the young Jewish Weinstein family, this book uses a treasure trove of 700 letters sent between husband and wife to depict the everyday struggles of lovers surviving apart as war wore on in Europe and North Africa.The letters, always vivid, sometimes funny, often passionate, contain intimate details of the pressure on the young couple, dealing with conditions at home and abroad, family and political rivalries, and even tension as talk of the temptation and ease of ‘playing away’ arises.The Weinsteins’ War is an honest portrayal of the strains of sustaining a loving relationship when so far apart and of the hopes the couple had for a new, post-war Britain.

Read this if you want to understand how to shape our technological future and reinvigorate democracy along the way. -- Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix__________A forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professors which reveals how big tech's obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.__________In no more than the blink of an eye, a naïve optimism about technology's liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. Yet too few of us see any alternative to accepting the onward march of technology. We have simply accepted a technological future designed for us by technologists, the venture capitalists who fund them, and the politicians who give them free rein.It doesn't need to be this way.System Error exposes the root of our current predicament: how big tech's relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get.Armed with an understanding of how technologists think and exercise their power, three Stanford professors - a philosopher working at the intersection of tech and ethics, a political scientist who served under Obama, and the director of the undergraduate Computer Science program at Stanford (also an early Google engineer) - reveal how we can hold that power to account. As the dominance of big tech becomes an explosive societal conundrum, they share their provocative insights and concrete solutions to help everyone understand what is happening, what is at stake, and what we can do to control technology instead of letting it control us.