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Despite the fact it was published in 2013 (and there are companies mentioned that most people would've forgotten about by now -- Zynga, Zagat, and Gawker), there is still a lot in this book that can be useful for thinking about what's going on today. In fact, whole chunks of it work nicely to reflect on issues that we've already seen today (the first example that comes to mind are "fact-checking" institutions and how many people are often oblivious to the problems behind the scene, believing them to be "non-partisan" or "ideologically moderate"). More than a few times I was like "Oh, this is actually something we're seeing now."

And I'm kind of sure that's not a good thing, especially in a world where we're throwing 'advanced technology' at problems instead of trying to understand the problem. (I mean, if we were to throw any other technology at a problem, acting as if it's a panacea, people would rightfully question whether we were trying to actually do anything useful at all. "Oh, there's a lot of crime? Let's give the criminals some markers!")

There are a few issues that I take with this book. First, there's a factual error so common among white historians that it's infuriating to see someone so analytical making it: the presumption that Rosa Parks "didn't know" where she was sitting would become a "whites only" area of the bus. The fact that what she did was intentional is completely omitted in lieu of making an analogy about how her "breaking the law" (which helps change culture, it continues) would've never been possible if technology existed that could separate Black and white people without further human intervention in buses at the time. The argument could've still functioned (and probably been stronger) had he actually acknowledged that Rosa Parks' actions were an intentional act of political defiance.

Second, there are a lot of are of areas where it's assumed that we should maintain systems of governance that we have and reform them because it's the best we've got. Politically, I kind of disengaged with arguments because there were areas where he'd take shots at the wrong areas (like making generalisations around decentralisation -- there are a lot of good cases for decentralising certain aspects of our lives, and this goes out the window because he's focusing on the contradictory beliefs of right-libertarian techbros).

And the same is true of the discussion around political parties. There is no engaging with what we're actually seeing in many places and how some political parties really aren't all that different from others. Much like the people that Morozov writes about who are ignoring the problems to simply fix them with technology, he's also ignoring the underlying political and social issues of the things he 'defends'. It does make me curious where he'd fall today as a result of the atrocious pandemic response, which doesn't seem to matter which party is in power in many European or North American nations (which are the focus in this book).

Overall, not a horrible book. Some interesting ideas. Some areas needed more fleshing out (the 3 different 2-page education sections most definitely were lacking a lot of information and analysis, which I thought would've been more abundant).

I actually found this quite endearing? Perhaps because it reminded me so much of things like Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic. I liked a lot of the paranormal elements and a lot of the witchcraft. It was a good read for a couple days, honestly. Pretty engaging!

The things I shaved my rating down for include:

1. I'm not a fan of the "I can do everything on my own" sorts of characters. Putting two people helping you the most TO SLEEP after they actually start really helping you, even if it's to "protect" them? I'm not so sure about that.

2. Love triangle but with GHOST. I'm never a fan of how love triangles play out in most books; they always hit the wrong note for me, and they're hyper-predictable (regardless of how alive everyone in the triangle is). It's one of the tropes that I wish were less common in books because, while it's something that can be quite relatable? It's always played in such ridiculous ways.

This is a rather well-written memoir by one of the last students to go through Madame Mao's dance academy and his journey to 'leave the well'. Quite enjoyable and well-written.

For me, one of the things I find interesting to read about is how people grapple with the propaganda they grew up with and the reality of the world they experience. It's really overt in China (especially because of how often we hear about it), so these narratives often come from a lot of people who grew up under and left/escaped totalitarian governments (we could just as easily write something about being an American who escaped the propaganda machine, but that probably wouldn't sell well in America). I like that, in some ways, he explains that the stuff they did in school was definitely propaganda but that it was comforting in some ways and terrifying in others; it shows that the way things were done were never black-and-white, and I think that's an important take-away, even if it isn't the primary goal of the book.

There was also one passage that I found incredibly powerful within the context but is something that can be seen in so many contexts outside of a peasant child in a Chinese commune:

I felt apprehensive. School meant the end of my carefree days. It meant that I had to wear shoes and conform to rules. School would teach me to read and write, but deep down, like my dia and my brothers, I wondered what use an education would be to a peasant boy destined to work in the fields. How would school help my family's food shortages? I didn't need education to be a good peasant.

Hearing this, especially with regards to children in poor and struggling communities, is something we need to hear more frequently (and, really, we do hear it a lot -- we need to listen). If we can't deal with those basic issues (food shortages, in this case; clean water, in others), why are we pushing them through a system that can do nothing to fix it?

This book is incredibly annoying. For all the times they say that educators are involved, one educator is involved twice and another two (maybe three) people who have actually been in educational facilities exist.

Mostly, this is a book for non-education professionals BY non-education professionals. I'm not against this on principle, but I find it condescending to assume that people who really aren't in schools on a regular basis have any real knowledge about problems IN schools. Teachers should've been centered more often than they were.

Robots, on the other hand, should've bee LESS centered.

Here's a run-down of a longer review I did elsewhere:

This book likes to pretend that it has a lot of different goals and topics to discuss, but it doesn’t. It starts off claiming that we are “implementing ‘strict discipline procedures’” but then complaining about how we won’t let children have gum in the classroom (because many students put it under desks and chairs, and that’s kind of unhygienic) or how we won’t let them use their phones as calculators (but forgets to consider either distraction or cheating).

But ignoring the silly complaints about so-called strict discipline (while they ignore genuine examples of over-the-top discipline, particularly against children of colour), their main premises seem to be:

• We need to be training children for the workforce, and we need to make sure that they are capable of working with an “always innovating world.”
• We are not preparing our children for the workforce properly, and many companies do not like their “lack of skills.”
• We need to figure out what the purpose of education is because no one seems to know anymore.
• We are going to be dominated by automation and artificial intelligence (AI).
• Education policy is “too ideological.”

All of these ignore the realities in which we live. Teachers are told to prepare students for "jobs of the future," but no one knows what these jobs are beyond speculation; we're told to prepare students with the skills they need, but the skills we know they will need are the ones discouraged the most (critical and creative thinking, analysis, transfer).

It pretends that any policy will be apolitical, and that's not possible. Anything dictated by policy is inherently political, and politics inherently have an ideology supporting them. These are the classic white people wanting an apolitical world but not realising that being apolitical is a political stance (one that ignores the world).