An excellent book from a well-established internet entrepreneur and visionary. A clear thinker who is not starry-eyed on the web holding nothing but great promise. Thank goodness. Interview here: https://ccragg123.libsyn.com/the-internet-and-how-to-fix-the-future-with-andrew-keen

HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE by Andrew Keen is a newly published book which the author says, "offers what I hope are constructive answers to the myriad questions on the digital horizon." He calls for consumer and citizen action and seems to place a great deal of faith in the upcoming generation. Maybe he will be right – let's hope so – but the students I see are often quite cynical and jaded. We certainly need to reevaluate the role of technology in our lives and Keen is a fierce proponent of keeping humanity at the center while learning from our reactions to past disruptions. He uses his travels and interviews around the world to profile models and generate suggestions in a number of areas including competition, regulation and education. HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE received a starred review from Kirkus.

Dining with the Cognoscenti

Tech has created at least as many problems as it has solved, and there are more on the way. Andrew Keen has sacrificed his stomach, meeting with experts in every field in restaurants around the world to discuss the ways out. This rambling tour of the world touches down where thinkers have identified potential solutions. They all have their opinions and some are acting on them. But it is totally scattered and no seismic shifts are evident. Even the universal basic income, which has support all over the world, is still stuck in the pilot project stage, despite endless proof of concept. So the fixes are not very specific.

The framework for How To Fix The Future is Thomas More’s Utopia, now 500 years young. Keen keeps referring to aspects of it, showing how More’s ideas do or do not apply to our situation today, as well as how little things have changed. He is particularly enamored of Holbein’s map of Utopia, which can be viewed as human skull. Keen refers to it numerous times.

Basically, there are no new solutions, just old ones coming back to life. Musicians are striking against the streaming services. Uber, Lyft, UPS and Fedex drivers want recognition as full employees, not just “independent contractors”. Schools are focusing on developing inquisitive humans (as opposed to test takers). More millennials are purchasing their music and news. Estonia and Singapore are making a lot of data public, and protected from fraud by date stamps. All over the world, small steps are appearing. But for every Redfin, paying real estate agents a living wage plus benefits, there is a Walmart, keeping employees part time, minimum wage, and relying on Obamacare for their health benefits. For every Freada Kapor Klein, there is a Martin Shkreli.

Keen separates fixes into five buckets:
-government or legal regulation (more accountability, and anti-trust activity)
-competitive innovation (encouraging and democratizing startups against the winner-take-all)
-social responsibility by citizens (relying on tech billionaires to do the right thing)
-consumer choice (including trade unionization)
-education (more physical activity, less screen time)

Keen admits these fixes are not star-crossed. They won’t necessarily work or change the world, and they provide their own risks. But for Keen, who has been criticizing the internet for years, this is a turnabout.

David Wineberg