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When it is about technology, there is this tendency to just reject all criticism as being anti-technological and anti-modern. I think this is very unhealthy.

Evgeny Morozov

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Evgeny Morozov
Age: 40
Born: 1984
Born: January 1
Computer Scientist
Journalist
Writer
Unhealthy
Technology
Modern
Reject
Think
Technological
Thinking
Rejects
Tendency
Tendencies
Anti
Criticism

More quotes by Evgeny Morozov

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Steve Jobs was notoriously blunt about products he found wanting, but his attack on Flash - Adobe's popular technology for playing multimedia content inside a browser - was particularly vicious. Claiming it was buggy and insecure, Jobs banned it from the iPad.
Evgeny Morozov
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As befits Silicon Valley, 'big data' is mostly big hype, but there is one possibility with genuine potential: that it might one day bring loans - and credit histories - to millions of people who currently lack access to them.
Evgeny Morozov
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The implications are clear: Facebook wants to build an Internet where watching films, listening to music, reading books and even browsing is done not just openly but socially and collaboratively.
Evgeny Morozov
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When we can commit a crime, we can also trigger debate. Cases go to courts. Media start covering the cases. But once you build smart environments where, if you meet a certain probabilistic profile, you won't even be allowed to board a bus, let alone commit a crime, we're perpetuating existing laws so they face no challenges or revision.
Evgeny Morozov
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The decentralized nature of online conversations often makes it easier to manipulate public opinion, both domestically and globally. Regimes that once relied on centralized systems of media control can now deliver ideological messages more subtly, with the help of little-known intermediaries like anonymous commenters on websites.
Evgeny Morozov
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Contrary to the utopian rhetoric of social media enthusiasts, the Internet often makes the jump from deliberation to participation even more difficult, thwarting collective action under the heavy pressure of never-ending internal debate.
Evgeny Morozov
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In part, slacktivism is what happens when the energy of otherwise dedicated activists is wasted on approaches that are less effective than the alternatives.
Evgeny Morozov
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Much of the real computer talent today is concentrated in the private sector.
Evgeny Morozov
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Information technology has been one of the leading drivers of globalization, and it may also become one of its major victims.
Evgeny Morozov
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Technological defeatism - a belief that, since a given technology is here to stay, there's nothing we can do about it other than get on with it and simply adjust our norms - is a persistent feature of social thought about technology. We'll come to pay for it very dearly.
Evgeny Morozov
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As Barbara Streisand discovered, adopting a militaristic posture against a tech-savvy mob of civil libertarians is not going to be of much help: Many of them run their own servers and blogs - and have thousands of friends on their social networks - so overzealous attempts to silence them only lead to wider dissemination of sensitive information.
Evgeny Morozov
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The great temptation of Big Data is that we can stop worrying about comprehension and focus on preventive action instead. Instead of wasting precious public resources on understanding the 'why' - i.e., exploring the reasons as to why terrorists become terrorists - one can focus on predicting the 'when' so that a timely intervention could be made.
Evgeny Morozov
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It's true that virtually all new technologies do trigger what sociologists would call 'moral panics,' that there are a lot of people who are concerned with the possible political and social consequences, and that this has been true throughout the ages.
Evgeny Morozov
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I spent two years in Palo Alto - what an awful, suffocating place for those of us who don't care about yoga, yogurts and start-ups - and now I have moved to Cambridge, MA - which, in many respects, is like Palo Alto but a bit snarkier.
Evgeny Morozov
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Personalization can be very useful in some contexts but very harmful in others. Searching for pizza online, it's probably OK to keep showing the same pizza shop as your No. 1 choice. I don't see any big political consequences out of that.
Evgeny Morozov
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Mobile phones are one of the most insecure devices that were ever available, so they're very easy to trace they're very easy to tap.
Evgeny Morozov
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The global triumph of American technology has been predicated on the implicit separation between the business interests of Silicon Valley and the political interests of Washington.
Evgeny Morozov
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However revolutionary it may be, the Internet still hasn't altered the basic law of human communication: Being nice to your interlocutors is a good way to start any negotiations, particularly, when being hostile is an open invitation for a cyber-fight.
Evgeny Morozov
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If we don't like rent control, we ought to oppose it on political and social grounds - and not just by arguing that, thanks to smartphones and social networks, we can create new, more efficient markets for matching short-term renters with tenants.
Evgeny Morozov
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There is this absurd assumption that the revitalisation of the public sphere is always a good thing. I think people tend to confuse 'civic' and 'civil,' and they believe that everything that is done by citizens is necessarily a good thing because you build a network, an association.
Evgeny Morozov