What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly (Read via Physical Book)

This was one of those books I pre-ordered off Amazon months ago and was delivered on release date. I do say normally, I would consume this book within 2 days of receiving it, but for some reason it did not happen that way. I think my mind was just not ready to consume most of its data, only until now was I ready to grasp the scope of this book.

I can describe this book in one word. Amazing!

The book starts off with the origins of technology from truly the beginning. Kevin takes us through the different progressions of the  different levels of human capability and capacity. I loved how he highlighted the parallelism of invention over time. Meaning how multiple people in a totally isolated fashion, each independent came to the similar conclusions and developed essentially the same technology within months of release of each other.

There are two parts of the books really gave me a surprise….

The first was the section about the Amish. I did not realize how much of a fascinating study they are. Not to mention how unique they are in the world society. I find it instructing how they evaluate technology and adopt it. What I found myself thinking was how ironic it is the way these people live. I think it is the media perception that has poisoned the stereotypical view that these people are truly off the grid per say. In fact they really aren’t. I found some great parallels with the John Twelve Hawks book ‘The Traveler’ with the group of people that lived independently in their own isolated society. Not to mention the great parallel that Kevin Kelly also mentioned in the book in reference to the Bomber that lived in the shack in the middle of nowhere. Even though he lived very isolated, he did not live off the grid. In fact he still bought is food and supplied from major chain stores when he went into town.

This raises the question of the definition of living off the grid. Because with the amount of technology in this world, it is dam near impossible to do in the purest sense of the concept. My view is that definition of ‘living of the grid’ can be split into two different lines in the dictionary (if not more). The first is moving throughout society without being able to be traced. The classic concept of being anonymous. So that if an institution wanted to track you down, they would have an extremely had time to do so. The second definition is living with independent energy sources and basic necessities. Meaning that the place of residence would not need to be connected to the electrical, water, sewage. It also would prove some basic food sources as well to bridge the periods of scarcity of supplies.

The second point that Kevin made was actually a question he raised. He rightfully states, everyone is still obsessed in spreading connectivity. Keep in mind there is is still a long way until penetration, but what Kevin’s questions is: What happens when the entire planet, all 6 billion people are connected?? What then? How will society change and adapt? A great question.

Overall this book is jam packed of information. I will definitely have to re-read this one a few times, just like Kevin’s other book Out of Control.

Kevin Kelly is truly one of Technology’s Great Wise Philosophers in every classic sense of the definition.

10/10