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Product Description
Review
Shirky is an original thinker, a compelling stylist ... a sage with a remarkable record of accuracy. Cognitive Surplus is a manifesto for what's next - or what ought to be (Independent )
Lucid and assured ... the most amazing fact about Shirky's incisive manual for building a better world is this: it's just possible that everything he promises may be true (Guardian )
Shirky is the best chronicler we have of the unfolding cultural revolution brought on by the web (New Statesman )
Lucid and assured ... the most amazing fact about Shirky's incisive manual for building a better world is this: it's just possible that everything he promises may be true (Guardian )
Shirky is the best chronicler we have of the unfolding cultural revolution brought on by the web (New Statesman )
Product Description
For decades, technology encouraged us to squander our time and as passive consumers. Today, tech has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky examines the changes we will all enjoy as our untapped resources of talent and good will are put to use at last.
Since the postwar boom, we've had a surfeit of intellect, energy, and time - a "cognitive surplus." Shirky argues persuasively that this cognitive surplus - rather than being some strange new departure from normal behavior - actually returns our society to forms of collaboration that were natural to us up to and through the early 20th Century. He also charts the vast effects that our cognitive surplus - aided by new technologies - will have on 21st Century society, and how we can best exploit those effects, and how the choices we make are not only economically motivated but driven by the desire for autonomy, competence, and community.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Was good, but got repetative after about 150 pages - could have stopped there and still learned as much. Worth a read otherwise tho.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Clay Shirky has a unique ability to write with a highly entertaining pen about a rather complex matter. Namely that massive change of how we use and produce media. His anecdotes are surprising but important. His knowledge wast (spanning hundreds of years).
This is one book that will help you get closer to an understanding of the massive changes that are happening right now. Yes technology opened the door, but it is our passive brains that has been put in "activate" mode that is the true massive change.
If possible, I think it was even better than his previous, Here Comes Everybody.
This is one book that will help you get closer to an understanding of the massive changes that are happening right now. Yes technology opened the door, but it is our passive brains that has been put in "activate" mode that is the true massive change.
If possible, I think it was even better than his previous, Here Comes Everybody.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read Here Comes Everybody, read the Amazon crits and looked forward to Cognitive Surplus which I've just read. This is a review and comment on this second book.
Here Comes Everybody was a bit heavy going, but set up the fact that Prof S has an understanding of how our society is changing, particularly the way in which the internet has enabled Wikipedia footsoldiers (shorthand for the reasonably educated silent majority) to make a more useful contribution to society than merely editing our international free encyclopaedia.
That is what they are doing and that, I believe, is the essential message of Cognitive Surplus: we have brainpower to spare and we want to make our world a better place. Clay Shirky describes in great detail what is happening out there. There are some wonderful (my choice of adjective) developments as vested interests, record companies, cabals, software and hardware moguls, restrictive groups (include any authoritarian church you care to mention) and monopolies are forced to bow to the will of the Majority, the people who throughout history have had to accept the will of the various oligarchies that control them.
Things are still like that, but in Shirky's neck of the woods and mine, the winds of change are running fast. I'd love to tell you about how in Britain right now (November 2010) TV audiences have discovered they have the power to disrupt the voting systems that are supposed to deliver safe and satisfying public participation TV programmes. This is really grist to Clay Shirky's mill and maybe he'll tell us what this is all about in his next book. Keep writing, sir.
Here Comes Everybody was a bit heavy going, but set up the fact that Prof S has an understanding of how our society is changing, particularly the way in which the internet has enabled Wikipedia footsoldiers (shorthand for the reasonably educated silent majority) to make a more useful contribution to society than merely editing our international free encyclopaedia.
That is what they are doing and that, I believe, is the essential message of Cognitive Surplus: we have brainpower to spare and we want to make our world a better place. Clay Shirky describes in great detail what is happening out there. There are some wonderful (my choice of adjective) developments as vested interests, record companies, cabals, software and hardware moguls, restrictive groups (include any authoritarian church you care to mention) and monopolies are forced to bow to the will of the Majority, the people who throughout history have had to accept the will of the various oligarchies that control them.
Things are still like that, but in Shirky's neck of the woods and mine, the winds of change are running fast. I'd love to tell you about how in Britain right now (November 2010) TV audiences have discovered they have the power to disrupt the voting systems that are supposed to deliver safe and satisfying public participation TV programmes. This is really grist to Clay Shirky's mill and maybe he'll tell us what this is all about in his next book. Keep writing, sir.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Clutching at straws...
Shirky grasps evidence from anywhere to reinforce his conviction that the Internet is truly a force for good, encompassing the virtues of creativity, morality and community when... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dr. G. SPORTON
The generous web - Shirky on generations, revolutions and Gutenberg
This is Clay Shirky's followup to his wonderful Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens when People Come Together. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mark Meynell
All you need is love, says Clay
The basic premise of the book is that we have spent too much time passively watching television rather than doing stuff. Read more
Published 22 months ago by K. Nellies
Common knowledge wrapped in a lot of examples
From the beginning this book presents everyday knowledge about old and new media. And to present in a "fresh" way C. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Thor Bank
Cognitive Excitement at Cognitive Surplus
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
I got this book a few days ago and have just read the first chapter avidly. I'm loving it. Read more
I got this book a few days ago and have just read the first chapter avidly. I'm loving it. Read more
Published 22 months ago by reid24hrs
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