Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech

A generation older and a gender apart from most whiz kids with stock options, Borsook, a former contributing editor at Wired, has a good vantage point from which to anatomize ""high-tech's default political culture of libertarianism."" Her examination of Wired's early years shows a party line lauding technology and libertarianism--while the industry is actually full of ""technolumpen"" and ""free agents"" who rarely receive medical or retirement benefits from the companies for which they work. She criticizes the philanthropic aversion of many industry magnates, who disdain the messy, nonquantifiable nature of human service charities. The emerging moguls she met favored bionomics, a Darwinian view of economic competition that manages to ignore the necessary role of government (which invented the Internet, she reminds us). Meanwhile, the ""cypherpunk"" privacy advocates she meets refuse to acknowledge countervailing government interest, maintaining ""an angry adolescent's view of all authority as the Pig Parent."" The private sector, she warns, can't support fundamental research the way the government can. In her view, the people who tell her that ""government interferes too much in our lives"" suffer from a selective view of history. Her analysis focuses on the mid-1990s rather than the present--and on Silicon Valley rather than Seattle--which detracts somewhat from her message (e.g., Wired has turned some corners, and Bill Gates has given away billions). Still, her critique serves as a welcome corrective to the gung-ho chronicles of the new economy. (June)