I really wanted to like this book. I'm all for being on "team human" and being the master of our digital world (not the other way around). But ... this book felt more like an angry old man groaning about how terrible those computer-machines are.

Don't get me wrong, there are some good points in here and several concepts and ideas I highlighted to remember. But the weight of "here's why everything is terrible" to "here's what we can do about it" was so off-balance it made it unenjoyable to read. ( )

I like Douglas Rushkoff's ideas around civilization and human-ness. I agree with him in general about the isolating effects of the way we "connect" today. What I didn't love about the book is that so many of his 100 "statements" just say things as if they're obviously true. I wasn't always so sure. I also think I could have gotten as much out of watching a few more of his videos on YouTube. ( )

I enjoyed it, but not as much as I was hoping to.

The first approximately 150 pages detail the many, many problems with our social media platforms, and what they're doing to us and to our societies. None of them get a very in-depth treatment; while I learned some interesting new facts (eg. that not only do algorithms exist to better predict us, but also try to get us to behave in line with their predictions, which is a bit creepy), nothing was really outside of my expectations. Really if you understand why FaceBook and Twitter are bad for democracy, you won't find much to shake you.


What I wanted from the book was more about its premise: how we can join and support Team Human to overcome our collective problems by doing what we do best: cooperating. But that part of the book was too short to permit much depth.


There are some inspiring bits and pieces. I'll leave one here:

"We mistakenly treat the future as something to prepare for. Companies and governments hire scenario planners to lay out the future landscape as if it were a static phenomenon. The best they can hope for is to be ready for what is going to happen.

"But the future is not so much something we arrive at as something we create through our actions in the present. Even the weather, at this point, is subject to the choices we make today about energy, consumption, and waste.

"The future is less a noun than a verb, a thing we do." (p. 214)
( )

Although I've been meaning to read Rushkoff for years, this is the first one of his books I've gotten around to. I had recently watched Adam Curtis' "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" (a documentary in a similar vein), and had this book recommended to me by a friend.

The book is divided into 100 short sections. Although this format likely simplified the writing process, it tarnished readability by fragmenting the story arc.

With such a title, you might wonder—who is the other team? Rushkoff is careful not to choose just one, using the title more to evoke a "we're-all-in-this-together"-spirit. But if I had to choose just one, I would call it the machine. By no means is this a new analogy; the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff was fighting the machine within each of us a century ago. Familiar threads weave together the tapestry of this book; Rushkoff is aiming to create memes (even devoting a section to them), and prefers to rely on familiar concepts that will lend themselves to mainstream adoption, instead of seeking out new metaphors.

The book follows a familiar structure—speaking in the beginning to the conception of humanity and our tribalistic nature, moving into the forces shaping our societal moment (economics, artificial intelligence), concluding with a call to arms. During this circuit he touches on some issues close to my heart, such as alternative economics and regenerative agriculture. Many a reader will likely find issues to which they can relate.

For those of us shaping the world with our work and participation in larger systems (which is, all of us), this is a great book to get you thinking about ways that we can bring humanity back into our lives, before it is too late.

It's worth noting that this book is only the latest installment in Rushkoff's "Team Human" project, having produced a podcast featuring over one-hundred guests over the past few years. It will be interesting to see where he takes the project next, and how many team members he can recruit. ( )