The religion of technological progress cedes control of our lives to machines and money. Dmitry Orlov tells us how to return human values, pleasures, and freedoms to the driver’s seat.
Shrinking the Technosphere is part self-help book, part philosophical tour de force. It is both entertaining and shockingly eye-opening; it is a book that liberates the mind.
---Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute
This book is simply essential reading. It will jolt you out of your comfort zone, but do not let that put you off. We absolutely need to take a critical look at our world and the assumptions upon which our lives and society are based. And we need to work out where we go from here, individually and, more importantly, collectively. Dmitri Orlov guides us through this process more effectively, and entertainingly, than almost anyone else writing today.
---Nicole Foss, senior editor, The Automatic Earth
Dmitry Orlov has written a clear and compelling exploration of what is wrong with the technosphere, and what we can do about it. This book needs to be read and understood by policy-makers as well as the rest of us. It is a valuable contribution to the resistance to the sacrifice of the living planet on the altar of the machine.
---Derrick Jensen, author of Endgameand The Myth of Human Supremacy.
It was Ivan Illich who first described how our doctors induce illness, our teachers dumb down our kids, our judges institutionalize injustice, and our “defense” establishment makes us insecure. Dmitry Orlov now tells us our most beloved tools make us incompetent. Written with delicious humor, this is an absolutely essential guide to avoiding Revenge of the Idiots.
--- Albert Bates is an Emergency Planetary Technician and author of The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook, The Biochar Solution, and The Paris Agreement.
A brilliant new book on a crucially important theme. Our dignity, our autonomy, and quite possibly the survival of our species depends on our willingness to extract ourselves from the dysfunctional and metastatic mess that modern technology has become, and craft a new relationship with technology and the world. Shrinking the Technosphere marks an important step in that necessary direction.
-- John Michael Greer, author of After Progress and Dark Age America
