Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway

Rating:
Summary: The Art and Science of Logic Takes a Fatal Blow
Review: This book contains a veritable catalogue of every fallacy known to the art and science of logic. As a treatise meant to persuade the reader, its reasoning and language is nothing short of ridiculous. He fails to establish any sort of common ground or reliability. Then he wallows in abusive Ad Hominum, discrediting pro-technology positions by insulting those who hold it. He introduces a dozen red herrings, wasting time justifying conclusions irrelevant to the issues at hand. The book erects an army of straw men as it attempts to justify its rejection of positions by creating then discrediting different and usually weaker positions. More than anything it is a gallery of appeals to emotion, attempting to rationalize its conclusions by appealing to the sentiment of the audience. (There is enough thickly sweet sentiment in every chapter to make Cicero proud.) I could go on, but I'm already leaving this review barren of specific examples in order to deliver as much warning as I can in as few words: this book is nothing more than an irrational emotional outburst against computers and the Internet. It contains no compelling argument, and will drown you in sentimental prose as eye-rolling as any grocery store romance novel. Do not expect Stoll to be your rational, level-headed guide to the dangers of technology. Do not expect thoughtfully compiled evidence, articulate and clever argument, and a reasonable conclusion. Should he have had anything to say, he abandoned it from the first sentence of his project to a weak, wandering essay on "feelings" alone.