Un poète doit laisser des traces de son passage, non des preuves. Seules les traces font rêver.
A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.
René Char
Having reviewed both sides of the argument comprehensively, it has become very clear to me who is on the right side of history in the clash of ideas and ethics between Google and WikiLeaks that is the main subject addressed in Assange’s 2014 book When Google Met WikiLeaks (read my review of Assange’s book here). Without a doubt, the ethics and deeds of WikiLeaks offer a far superior value system: one that reflects the public interest best.
The fact that internet giant Google decided to cast its dark corporate shadow over the politics of the internet at all is disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as the conservative value system Google’s ideologues preached in their 2013 book The New Digital Age. This is the book that I analyze thoroughly in my recent extensive review, “Google’s Cold Betrayal of the Internet”, published at the widely circulated Dissident Voice newsletter and also reprinted on the website of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET).
I hope for this analysis to be a strong contribution to the discussion of the future of the internet and the kind of progressive values and politics we should use the internet to serve. Please visit DV or IEET to read the review, and don’t forget to tweet it and share it via social media as far and wide as you can.
For all who want the opportunity to read it, my longest science fiction title The Traveller and Pandemonium (2014) is reduced in price to a tiny $0.99 this Saturday, before it incrementally goes up to the original list price on Monday. So join my hundreds of other Kindle customers by getting it, before the price is restored to normal.
The Traveller and Pandemonium is set in an alternate universe where everything is a lot worse than you see in our own universe. So, amid all the dark news that floods the airwaves these days, read this book and rest assured in the knowledge that everything could always be worse!
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