Jonathan Franzen
Brief Bio: American novelist and essayist.
Lived: 1959-
For further info: en.wikipedia.org
Quotes:
“Liberation from the tasks that had given meaning to life”
The aim of the Internet and its associated technologies was to “liberate” humanity from the tasks — making things, learning things, remembering things — that had previously given meaning to life and thus had constituted life. Now it seemed as if the only task that meant anything was search-engine optimization.
2015 from the book Purity
“Nature made a mockery of information technology”
Down in the meadow by the river rapids, by the tumble of wet boulders, a large woodpecker was drumming on a hollow tree. A buzzard eagle soared past the vertical face of a red pinnacle. Warm late-morning air currents were stirring the woods along the road, creating a tapestry of light and shadow so fine-grained and chaotic in its shiftings that no computer on earth could have modeled it. Nature even on the most local of scales made a mockery of information technology. Even augmented by tech, the human brain was paltry, infinitesimal, in comparison to the universe.
2015 from the book Purity