To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

In the near future, "smart" technologies and "big data" will allow us to make large-scale interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such "solutionism" affect our society? What will happen when deeply political, moral, and irresolvable problems are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency? Technology, Evgeny Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement--but only if we keep solutionism in check and learn to appreciate the imperfections of liberal democracy. Arguing that we need a new, post-Internet way to debate the moral consequences of digital technologies, To Save Everything, Click Here warns against a world of seamless efficiency, where everyone is forced to wear Silicon Valley's digital straitjacket. Featuring Evgeny Morozov, Contributing Editor, The New Republic, Author, To Save Everything, Click here; Christine Rosen, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation, Senior Editor, The New Atlantis.