You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
I'm not convinced the Simulmatics Corporation accomplished much of anything. This book rambles off historical events that Simulmatics was tied to, but at best only portrays this company and group of people as incompetent. I was thinking this 50 pages into the book, and the rest of the book only confirmed this to be true.
If you're looking for a history of companies, computers, and social scientists' involvement in swaying public opinion and decision making, this isn't it. I considered writing that this book was more of a guide of what not to do for future corporations looking to influence a population, but I didn't get that impression either. It was simply the story of a group of people that were more interested in making money and perhaps gaining some notoriety, while pretending to be social scientists and computer wizards.
The book is promoted as being a backstory to the Silicon Valley companies of today, but the author spends more time identifying all of the ways Simulmatics failed, and failed miserably. This is at least acknowledged in the last chapter, but then quickly overshadowed by the idea that these folks created the early version of some phycological-warfare machine we are prisoners of today. If anything, Simulmatics was a blip - a failed company in the list of attention merchants of time gone by. I'm not convinced this is a history of much at all besides greed.
I've rated the book so low for a few reasons. First, it truly felt like the author was trying to make a story out of nothing, and then never actually made the case that Simulmatics accomplished anything at all. Second, the author writes 330 pages filled with details that either derail the flow of the book or are just completely irrelevant, telling a story that could have been done in a podcast episode. Finally, the story the author was trying to convey never actually came across. When I finished the book, I went and re-read the flaps, and quite frankly, they were the most interesting part of the book. I encourage potential readers to skip this one.
If you're looking for a history of companies, computers, and social scientists' involvement in swaying public opinion and decision making, this isn't it. I considered writing that this book was more of a guide of what not to do for future corporations looking to influence a population, but I didn't get that impression either. It was simply the story of a group of people that were more interested in making money and perhaps gaining some notoriety, while pretending to be social scientists and computer wizards.
The book is promoted as being a backstory to the Silicon Valley companies of today, but the author spends more time identifying all of the ways Simulmatics failed, and failed miserably. This is at least acknowledged in the last chapter, but then quickly overshadowed by the idea that these folks created the early version of some phycological-warfare machine we are prisoners of today. If anything, Simulmatics was a blip - a failed company in the list of attention merchants of time gone by. I'm not convinced this is a history of much at all besides greed.
I've rated the book so low for a few reasons. First, it truly felt like the author was trying to make a story out of nothing, and then never actually made the case that Simulmatics accomplished anything at all. Second, the author writes 330 pages filled with details that either derail the flow of the book or are just completely irrelevant, telling a story that could have been done in a podcast episode. Finally, the story the author was trying to convey never actually came across. When I finished the book, I went and re-read the flaps, and quite frankly, they were the most interesting part of the book. I encourage potential readers to skip this one.
Jill Lepore demonstrates an incredible attention to detail and meticulous documentation of the public and not-so-public details behind the rise of statistical analysis in American politics and business. Unfortunately, the book falls flat for me as it stretches itself thin trying to weave the micro-level details of the character’s personal lives with the macro-level impact of their actions and decisions on society at large. Worth the read if you can get into it.
Well written history of a company who's reach undoubtedly exceeded its grasp, but also a company that prefigured and laid a good part of the foundation for the information driven world we now find ourselves living in. Once the computing power caught up with Simulatics goals, and some of its alumni actually helped invent the internet, things were off and running. Just as with Simulatics, people and politicians protested and bloviated and did nothing substantive to trying and regulate the benign and malign influences now inextricably intertwined with our lives.
I usually like Lepore's book, and it's not like I disliked this one, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
The story she tells, of a corp that attempts to model behavior using big data in the 1960s, is obviously relevant today. And there are disturbing sides to the story even if like me, you're a little callow about the retail political implications. The way it is used in Vietnam and then to track the chances for street protests during the Civil Rights era are enough to make me squirm. But there was something sort of discordant here, that Simulmatics, the company in question, is so bad at what they do.
It makes you wonder, if Lepore is making an argument that even today, with facebook or Cambridge Analytica, what matters is more that your results are seen as valid, not that they actually be accurate? I don't know. In her epilogue, Lepore is a little more direct about her reasons, but they don't get articulated in quite that way. She does seem opposed to data analytics for the way they don't account for humanity, I guess. In her last sentence, she writes about how instead "what matters is what remains, endures, cures." That last term, especially, is an intriguing one, but one that I don't think can be read back into the book, even after seeing her express it that way.
This is a diverting side-trip into the 60s, but it feels like a diversion, not the main route.
The story she tells, of a corp that attempts to model behavior using big data in the 1960s, is obviously relevant today. And there are disturbing sides to the story even if like me, you're a little callow about the retail political implications. The way it is used in Vietnam and then to track the chances for street protests during the Civil Rights era are enough to make me squirm. But there was something sort of discordant here, that Simulmatics, the company in question, is so bad at what they do.
It makes you wonder, if Lepore is making an argument that even today, with facebook or Cambridge Analytica, what matters is more that your results are seen as valid, not that they actually be accurate? I don't know. In her epilogue, Lepore is a little more direct about her reasons, but they don't get articulated in quite that way. She does seem opposed to data analytics for the way they don't account for humanity, I guess. In her last sentence, she writes about how instead "what matters is what remains, endures, cures." That last term, especially, is an intriguing one, but one that I don't think can be read back into the book, even after seeing her express it that way.
This is a diverting side-trip into the 60s, but it feels like a diversion, not the main route.
Interesting look at the early days of the conception of internet and data driven election campaigns (or as Lepore puts it: our present "in which humanity’s every move is predicted by algorithms that attempt to direct and influence our each and every decision through the simulation of our very selves, this particular hell").
Full of interesting little facts like this:
And my favourite line in the book, about Adlai Stevenson: "He was a Henry James character in a Joseph Heller world.”
That was one of the main points of interest in the book for me, by the way: that it filled in some more detail about the perennial loser of 50s politics in America, Adlai Stevenson. I'd come across the name fairly often (in the work of Philip Roth, for instance), but always in a summary way, as a reference readers were already supposed to know about, so it didn't need explanation. Lepore's recounting of certain election events in the 50s and 60s left me with a clearer picture of this symbol fo the failed hope of leftwing America.
Full of interesting little facts like this:
But by 1904 the Times, like other big-city papers, had all sorts of ways of telling its readers about the outcomes, as soon as the numbers were in. On Election Night, it broadcast the results from its building in New York by way of searchlights that could be seen for thirty miles, as if the building itself had become a lighthouse. Steady light to the west meant a Republican victory in the presidential race, steady light to the east a Democratic one; flashing lights in different combinations broadcast the winners of congressional and gubernatorial races. This is what’s meant by a news flash.
And my favourite line in the book, about Adlai Stevenson: "He was a Henry James character in a Joseph Heller world.”
That was one of the main points of interest in the book for me, by the way: that it filled in some more detail about the perennial loser of 50s politics in America, Adlai Stevenson. I'd come across the name fairly often (in the work of Philip Roth, for instance), but always in a summary way, as a reference readers were already supposed to know about, so it didn't need explanation. Lepore's recounting of certain election events in the 50s and 60s left me with a clearer picture of this symbol fo the failed hope of leftwing America.
Jill Lepore has the unique skill of finding the thread of our hidden histories—the story of Simulmatics was just that. She seamlessly strings together the political and technological history of the 1960s and the personal lives of the men behind the corporation to craft not only a compelling story, but a strong argument about the impact of Simulmatics and how the consequences of its hidden history have led to this political moment, in the wake of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. She takes us through Kennedy’s election, the war in Vietnam, and other attempts by Simulmatics to quantify and predict everything. She examines the uneven effects the biases of such analyses had and continue to have on those in poverty, women, and minorities. Never has the history of big data and behavioral analytics been more interesting, nor has it ever been so important. I highly suggest If Then!
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced