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Evgeny Morozov

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism Hardcover – March 5, 2013

by Evgeny Morozov (Author)

4.1 182 ratings

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A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

In the very near future, “smart” technologies and “big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency? What if some such problems are simply vices in disguise? What if some friction in communication is productive and some hypocrisy in politics necessary? The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything—from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity—by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical, and civic behavior we may also change the very nature of that behavior. 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. Some of those imperfections are not accidental but by design.

Arguing that we badly 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.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

PublicAffairs
Publication date

March 5, 2013
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

1610391381
ISBN-13

978-1610391382
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Editorial Reviews

From Bookforum

No one writing about technology seems to read more or faster than Morozov. Now twenty-eight and just starting his graduate work at Harvard, Morozov already grasps wide swaths of several scholarly fields and weaves them together astutely. To Save Everything, Click Here is a heavy read, and it covers a vast array of material, from how we think about privacy (poorly) to the dangers of quantifying everything we can. It serves as a sharp corrective to the complacencies of our latter-day techno-prophets. —Siva Vaidhyanathan

Review

“Evgeny Morozov calls himself a ‘digital heretic,' and he is right to do so. Against the reigning consensus—that there is a digital fix for every social and political problem, and that thanks to the technologies that we group together for convenience's sake as the Internet, the brave new world of the future will be one of endless, limitless improvement in every realm of life—Morozov offers a sophisticated, eloquent, and definitive rebuttal. Technological ‘solutionism,' he argues, is the romantic utopia of our age, and, like Communism or the free market fantasies of Reagan and Thatcher before it, it is one more god doomed to fail. In our ahistorical, gadget obsessed, and self-regarding age, Morozov's skeptical, modest humanism will doubtless engender fierce resistance. But then, that is the tribute that self-delusion has always paid to reason. Voltairean in its lucidity, To Save Everything, Click Here is not just a brilliant book, it is a necessary one.”

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of the Republic of Estonia

Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic
“[Morozov] is a truly great critic…. To Save Everything, Click Here is the most wide-ranging and generative critique of digital technology I've ever read.”

TIME Magazine
“Provocative.... Brings wit to complex ideas.”

The New York Times
“The book crackles with intellectual energy and is encyclopedic in scope.… Morozov's overall perspective is vital and important … [his] formidable intellect makes this a noteworthy book.”

Los Angeles Review of Books
“To Save Everything, Click Here … effectively dismantles the ideological status quo.… Morozov's critique skillfully exposes the solutionist conception of the future as radically inhumane in spite of its claims to the contrary.”

Richard Sennett, author of The Craftsman

“This hard-hitting book argues people have become enslaved to the machines they use to communicate. It is incisive and beautifully written; whether you agree with Morozov or not, he will make you think hard."

Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown

"For the brilliant dissident Evgeny Morozov, computers are like broken beach-toys on the dark, historic tides of power politics. His new book should be bound in sandpaper and used to abrade the works of other Internet pundits."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, distinguished professor of risk engineering at NYU-Polytechnic and author of The Black Swan and Antifragile

"A clear voice of reason and critical thinking in the middle of today's neomania.”

David Rieff, author of A Bed For the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

“When it comes to anything ‘internet' related, Evgeny Morozov is the writer who brings us back to earth. Lubricated by snake oil, too much of what we read about the internet and the possibilities offered by modern technology is hypertext hyperbole. In this riotous read, Morozov continues his quest to restore empirical rationality in our own thinking about our techno-utopian pipe-dreams. We have become gullible to what Morozov calls solutionism, the idea that whatever complex situation we face, we can solve it simply by finding the right algorithm, and thanks to technology we can find a solution. We have seen this before, with Condorcet and other thinkers of the Enlightenment, but then, as now, too much reliance on mathematics when we are dealing with problems of people and society leads inevitably to failure. Today, we who live, work, and dream in cyberspace need Morozov to keep our feet firmly planted on Terra Firma.”

Kirkus Reviews

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs; 45555th edition (March 5, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1610391381
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1610391382
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #226,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Phillip Skaga

Can Tech Save the World?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 31, 2015

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Small print in the title of this book - “The Folly of Tech Solutionism” - pretty much summarizes what it is about if one simply ignores attendant implications, and mind boggling complexity of tech interactions and shortcomings. Morozov begins his narrative with examples of Schmidt (Google) and Zuckerberg (Facebook). Both reflect in public statements their unequivocal conviction tech (web in these cases) and its strengths possess ability to solve world problems. Schmidt is quoted as saying “ . . . if we get this right I believe we can solve all the world’s problems”! A very big ‘if’ it seems to me! So far a most affective use of tech is Anonymous but serving negative goals.
All aspects of present tech changes involve a highly complex network of tools, people, opinions, physical locations, laws, life styles, etc. A combinatorial conundrum experienced, in small ways, in past with telephone books and catalogs but never before in real time. To make these contentions even more incredulous both cited experts say they are not in it for the money? A person recently took me on a tour of her Facebook ‘friends’ pages. She rapidly clicked through hundreds of pages only to comment ’I simply don’t have time to look at all these photos of somebody else’s toys and vacations?” In her case doesn’t seem Facebook serves well its most elementary objective. Zuckerberg and Schmidt are not the only tech optimists. Daily more books are printed with titles such as “Abundance”, “The Future”, “How to Create a Brain”, “Moral Machines”, "Darwin in the Machine", "Robots Will Steal Your Job", "Our Final Invention", "Big Data", and many others.
Tech accomplishments thus far are very impressive and arriving swiftly, thus a future rapidly becoming our present. As we race into this future there are examples of those studying implications of tech. They are not altogether optimistic or may be with highly qualified conclusions. An Oxford University study observes a realistic probability approaching 50% unemployment for many of 702 U.S. job classifications! Opposing claims are that new tech toys will increase job opportunities? Little if anything using Facebook or Google explicitly addresses problems such as employment. Many other studies look at influence of high tech on employment, environment, organization, political behavior, economic performance, politics and so on. Few of these studies are unqualifiedly optimistic. No tool or person can be conclusive about an indefinite future.
Present tech trends possess at least as much probability of adverse influence as have those in past. Morozov addresses some of these influences. One adverse influence of blogs is on daily news. In his view, with which I agree, bloggers have developed a forum “creating beachheads for manufacturing news”. An example he discusses is Huffington. The modus operandi of these blogs is such one need only respond to a blog, click ‘send’ and promptly forget it. Thus is produced a collection, a sample, of responses with opinions on which a new story can be constructed as an ‘exclusive’. Tech is easily a means of ‘participating’ in public affairs without pain of committing time or physical effort. Governments have also gone through experiments with tech. A Scandanavian country decided the public should be direct source of participation in creating legislation. They set up a system in which a set percent of the population could propose legislation for consideration by government. The program died because there was no mechanism to accommodate sector disagreements let alone ridiculous ideas, special interest motives, legally incomplete or impossible proposals, and so on. One could conclude such a tech process could make worse referendum/initiative tools. Being easier than the time consuming referendum/initiative process could completely paralyze California governing and grow deficits even faster. As early as 1821 Saint Simon proposed that “ . . decisions must be the result of scientific demonstrations totally independent of human will . . “ Didn’t work that way of course and probably won’t soon.
Will there come a day, observes Morozov, when we will pick up a book made by printing and binding a collection of tweets? Probably - but will it be entertaining or informative or useful in any way?
Morosov’s observations are useful but certainly not exhaustive. It is hoped tech optimists will take him seriously. I do.

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Burningman

Indispensable critique to Solutionism

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 20, 2015

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This book is a relentless critique of “solutionism” and “internet centrism”.
Solutionism is the belief that every problem that humankind faces can be solved by the use of algorithms, clever sensors, big data and gamification techniques, while Internet centrism it’s the idea that we are living unique revolutionary times in which time-worn rules do not apply and that “the Internet” is a kind of mythical entity that has predefined rules that are pre-ordained and cannot be tinkered with.
Morozov's formidable intellect and critical capabilities dismantle these two ideas tirelessly, and his tirades against many of the apostles of these ideologies are almost painful to read, particularly against authors like Lawrence Lessig, Clay Shirky or Kevin Kelly. I think this sentence summarizes well his attitude: “Part of my job is to raise the cost of producing bulls*** in this area, and to make sure people pay for that with shame, with being ridiculed, with harsh reviews, whatever,”

To say that this book is thought provoking would be an understatement. I never thought that there could be so many angles and layers beneath very innocent looking design decisions in our society.

For example there is in principle nothing wrong with using wearable devices to track things like the steps we walk, our weight, blood pressure, etc, particularly if they help us to be healthier. But that information can be used against us by Insurance companies, and in a society where this is widespread, individuals who wouldn’t want to do it will be pressured by society to comply or looked upon as hopeless technophobes or luddites. Sounds far fetched? Well, it happened with cell phones and is now happening with Facebook.

There is also nothing wrong with using technology to reduce crime, but the problem here is the very definition of crime. For example in a "perfect” world incidents like Rosa Parks refusal to give her seat would have not happened, some clever algorithm coupled with face recognition techniques would have detected the problem in advanced and avoided confrontation by not letting a few darker faces to get in the bus in the first place.

Using game mechanics to get people to be better citizens, recycle more, exercise more, etc, also seems like a laudable goal, but after looking at it with morozovian lenses, we realize that it’s not only important to do the right thing, the why is also important. If people are only moved by incentives, they will eventually only move by them and lose any critical thinking capabilities.

In a world ruled by algorithms, there will be less confrontation and more efficiency but less deliberation and citizens would be slowly turned into consumers.

I disagree with Morozov’s constant criticism of geeks, though. Geeks need to be part of the solution not of the problem, not all of them are naive technoutopians who think human beings are automatons, slaves to rational choice theory.

Also, his suggested alternative of designs that generate friction to increase awareness of global problems like the caterpillar extension chord (which twists as in pain when a device is on stand by mode) or the Forget me Not lamp (which progressively gets dimmer), though intriguing and creative, i think will be very difficult to implement in a meaningful way.

All in all, a highly recommended book, it’s not an easy read, but it’s a refreshing voice in the usually uni-dimensional debate about technology, usually only focused on coolness and awesomeness.

6 people found this helpful

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recluse

政治哲学！

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on April 21, 2013

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全編を通して流れるトーンと基調は前作のnet delusion The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom と共通するものです。ここで断罪されるのは、internet中心主義とtechno-solutionismです。これはどちらもある種の近代合理主義と啓蒙主義のたどり着いたなれの果てなのです。
前者はinternetという技術に、社会を変革していく全能の価値と哲学を見出そうとする思考です。果たしてそうなのでしょうか？著者は、internetはあくまでも技術であり、それ自体に世界を解放する革命的な価値などはないと指摘します。似たような技術はいつの時代も生み出されており、どれも世界変革の役割を担わされながらも、すべて時代の拘束を帯びた技術以上のものではなかったのです。時代時代での具体的な拘束のもとで、その取り扱いを間違えると間違えると、dystopiaにつながってしまうものなんです。
むしろそこに潜むのはスマートフォーンの技術的な進化を通して、絶え間ない個人のプロフィーリングを外面内面にわたって続け、疑わしいアルゴリズムの「洗練」を通して、その究極的な危険性の可能性にもかかわらず、愚にもならない企業マーケティングと宣伝の走狗と化しているグロテスクな現状です。現状のinternetの伝道師たちの幼稚で政治的に無知な（それとも逆か？）スローガンと「説教」がこれでもかというほどその根底から崩されていきます。
この果てにあるのは人間の全ての行動を数値化して、アルゴリズムの中立性の美名のもとで、「自分」を知り、人間の行動をbig dataの集積から予測しようという、大それた、しかし狂気としか思えない傲慢なのです。合理的選択理論をベースとする金融工学と同じように、これこそが西欧啓蒙主義のたどり着いたなれの果てなのです。
この種の「教説」が異様なまでの高見に祭り上げられるのは、アメリカでのプロテスタンティズムと密接な関係があるのではという指摘は、それ以上議論は深められませんが、鋭い指摘です。個人が、全ての中間組織を排して、直接に「神」（net)と交信しようとする思考はたしかにその色彩が濃厚です。
もう一つ断罪されるのが、techno-solutionismです。全ての問題は解決可能であり、解決すべきであるという世界観です。著者は、ここでも根本的な疑問を提示します。そもそも問題は解決可能なのか、解決された称せられる問題へのくくり方や問題の設定自体は正しいのか、むしろ「問題」、「悪」、「悪意」の存在と非解決可能性こそが、人間を人間ならしめて、社会生活と最低限の秩序維持を可能ならしめているのではないだろうかとの問題を提起します。
これは政治哲学の作品です。単純化やレッテル付けは危険ですが、この著者は、ロシアの政治哲学の臭いを濃厚に醸し出しています。そしてドストエフスキーの地下室の手記 (新潮文庫) で提示された疑問が垣間見えます。

10 people found this helpful

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Mark Pack

Evgeny Morozov keeps you on your toes as you swing from agreeing to disagreeing and back again

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 8, 2015

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Reading Evgeny Morozov's book is rather a rollercoaster ride as it swings from well-made criticisms of internet zealots through to arguments with large holes and contentious assumptions.

Given part of Mozorov's argument is that people are too ready to accept at face value self-confident statements about how the internet is and the world must adjust to it, this rollercoaster does at least achieve his aim of keeping readers on their toes.

If you read more than a handful of pages and don't find yourself swinging between agreeing, disagreeing and back again then the chances are you've not read those pages closely enough.

Mozorov is at his best when attacking how some "internet" values, such as transparency, are idolised - as if a technological context somehow magics away all those occasions when transparency runs up against other factors, such as discretion or forgetting, which also have value.

He is also good on how 'understanding the internet' is often used as a misleading synonym for 'you must apply these different, contentious values' such as when people demanding that politics adapts to the internet slip in a definition of 'adapting to the internet' which means 'adopting direct democracy'. Direct democracy has both its pros and cons, but it's not an absolute, unquestioned and inevitable good in the way many internet democracy enthusiasts present it when dressed up in demands that politicians embrace technology. You don't have to be a luddite to doubt that direct democracy is the right model to adopt - and as Mozorov points out, a true understanding of how the internet is impacting politics means understanding that it can support a multitude of different political models.

When he's less good is in taking examples of dilemmas and opportunities existing prior to the internet and then arguing not only that the internet doesn't remake everything anew (true) but also that it hasn't really changed things at all in many cases (not so true). So whilst it is true that the British government's 18th century Longitude Prize was an early example of crowdsourcing solutions, Mozorov goes too far in then arguing that the internet hasn't really made things different when in fact it has made crowdsourcing much easier and more widespread. Something doesn't have to be completely new to be significant.

Then there are also the quite poor sections, such as when Mozorov argues that using technology to harness reviews and votes, which then in turn determine which content gets produced and prominence - such as songs being promoted on a website in response to prior people's reviews - will lead to a homogenisation and dumbing down of artistic endeavour and human variety. You can just as well - in fact better - argue that by reducing production, storage and distribution costs, the internet makes variety easier and enables it to flourish.

After all, the sort of books I write are niche and will never get much in the way of bookshelf space in the high street, either now or in the past. Courtesy of the internet, however, they can find an audience without those bookshelf spaces.

These are just a few of the many points I could have covered in this piece, which in the end makes Mozorov's book definitely one to read; not so much for the extent to which you'll agree with it but for the extent to which it makes you think.

6 people found this helpful

Hans-Christian Jetter

Important and very inspiring book...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 9, 2014

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This is an important and very inspiring book. Morozov is miles away from shallow technophobia and does not demonize the "Internet" or ubiquitous computing as something necessarily harmful or evil. His point is based on far deeper thinking and more substantial. Morozov discovers flaws in our shared thinking and narratives around the "Internet" (scare quotes intended) and digital cultures with their frequent hypes around social networks, social media, big data, open source, maker culture, crowd sourcing, crowd funding, quantified self, behavior change or whatever the latest and greatest TED talk was about.

As a researcher in Human-Computer Interaction, I am partially to blame for contributing to the internet-centrism and solutionism that Morozov criticizes in a sometimes polemic but always in an incisive and very entertaining manner. At times I could not help laughing out loud when he again brilliantly takes apart the shared thinking and rhetoric of IT researchers, consultants, and "visionaries" - and this although his dry humor in writing has not spared the things that I truly belief in, work on, and have preached myself. Therefore, even if I do not agree with Morozov in every point, his sharp analysis of so many (actually a bit too many...) examples and cases have left a deep impression on me.

Morozov highlights how we happily and almost religiously apply concepts that we believe are inherent values of the "Internet" (e.g. openness, direct participation, crowd sourcing, wisdom of the crowd, efficient architectures) on society, economy, and politics. Often this happens based on a non-existing or only shallow knowledge of the wealth of pre-internet experiences and practices. This ignorance is legitimized by postulating that the "Internet" is an unprecedented historic singularity, that it will stay with us and remain (largely) unchanged, and that the digital revolution follows own rules anyway. These rules are explained and repeated to us by Silicon Valley visionaries and tech or business consultants but are actually not put to scrutiny by empirical investigation or the rigor and knowledge from long-established scientific disciplines.

In this way, the "Internet" colonizes all fields of our life ranging from politics and health care to education and imposes its (current) "values" on them. In a quasi-religious quest for "solving" problems with information technologies, and without looking at their far-reaching implications, everything MUST get leaner, more efficient, open, bottom-up, etc. ignoring centuries of already successful management, scientific expertise, and craftsmanship. And if we do not find the problems to which we can apply our new technologies, we are really good in creating them.

Again, you will most likely not agree with Morozov in every point, but his book inspires an extremely interesting discourse and makes you view the narratives and thinking of IT entrepreneurs, consultants, and researchers through a different and clearer lens. Overall the way Morozov puts actual human needs and the complexity of human nature (instead of the "Internet") into the center of a reflection about digital technologies is very compelling. For me, as a researcher in Human-Computer Interaction, this is nothing new and already at the heart of our work, but it is reassuring to read this and it also reveals the heartfelt humanism of the author that he cannot hide behind the sharpness and sometimes almost cynical feel of his arguments.

Although the book is long and sometimes feels a bit repetitive, I prefer this length over a more densely written and hard-to-read article. The many examples make Morozov's points concrete and graspable and overall the book is a long, but easy and inspiring read. Highly recommended.

15 people found this helpful

P. A. Jourdan

Read it for the fight

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 3, 2013

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Morozov is combative, and seems to take a great deal of pleasure in dismantling the arguments of the cyber-utopians. Whether he succeeds will depend on whom he's attacking in a particular passage, but I'd give him serious credit for trying it, and for being persistent.

I share his sentiments on the whole, and found some of the rhetorical quirks he adopts amusing and helpful -- things as simple as constantly putting "the Internet" in scare quotes, to dismantle the idea we tend to have of the Net as a unified, magical thing.

I'd argue that whatever you might think of his style or his book, it will be difficult to resent his having done it (twice, now, as The Net Delusion was similar) and stuck to his guns. More serious discussion concerning the internet would be welcome at the "very public" level. Sure, there are plenty of serious discussions about the internet, but the bestsellers are often those that seem to validate as wonderful whatever's already happening anyway. It may be wonderful -- but a critical voice, even a gadfly's voice, is great. And Morozov is frequently charming about how little he gives a damn.

--
Phil Jourdan, author of "Praise of Motherhood" and "What Precision, Such Restraint"

6 people found this helpful

Ellen Kleiven

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 18, 2015

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Interesting and refreshingly honest and critical take on the digital age, and its repercussions and political implications.

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