- March 19, 2019
Facebook’s algorithms shaping the news. The literature of our time mediated through e-readers. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code—and coders are the ones who built it. Acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson shares a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today: computer programmers. Clive picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding skills as he reckons with what superb programming looks like; ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy; and wrestles with the major controversies of our era, from the “disruption” fetish of Silicon Valley to the struggle for inclusion by marginalized groups. To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. Clive gives us a definitive look into the heart of the machine.