It is now possible, in principle, to remember everything that anyone says, writes, sings, draws, or photographs. Everything. If digitized, the world has enough disks and memory chips to save it all, for as long as civilization can keep producing computers and disk drives. Global computer networks can make it available to everywhere in the world, almost instantly. And computers are powerful enough to extract meaning from all that information, to find patterns and make connections in the blink of an eye. … But we don’t know how things will turn out.  — Abelson, Ledeen & Lewis, Blown to Bits

Readings for Discussion

  • Abelson, Hal, Ken Ledeen & Harry Lewis. Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008. Online Version available.
    Copies also available in the UWO Bookstore.