Whatever else, I reckon Paul Mason's Clear Bright Future is the best radical left prescription for our ailing societies that I have seen. Why? Mason takes up the challenge of IT and what it might mean for humanity in the future. He is a lively writer, with a wide grasp of history. He explains his (nuanced) relationship to Marx in detail, rather than just assuming it. I confess to being sceptical about networkers ever playing the role once ascribed to the working class, but it does show Mason thinking afresh.

I do have criticisms - but my most important one begins with agreement. I agree with Mason's call for a global ethical control on thinking machines (if machines ever do think), but there is a serious gap in his thinking when he talks of applying virtue ethics. From his own point of view Mason needs to be careful about the choice of virtues for guiding machines. Victor Milan's cybernetic samurai (1985 - to his credit Mason makes use of science fiction; I do likewise) trained to follow the bushido code of absolute loyalty might be expected to appeal to just the far right authoritarians Mason (and I) want to see off. Some virtues connect with avoiding shame, and we should be clear that aggressive nationalism (or wealth accumulation) is one of the obvious ways people try to avoid shame (and humiliation). Peter Ustinov once said Hitler's greatest crime was to corrupt the virtues of service, but then power seekers and tyrants frequently do that.

This links to a curious minor failing in Mason's work. Despite his familiarity with many modern intellectual fads, he seems unaware of the vogue for virtue ethics in academic moral philosophy. Even more curious since he mentions Alasdair MacIntyre on several occasions that he does not seem aware that MacIntyre has been a prominent advocate of virtue ethics for 40 years.

I think these problems are worth pointing out precisely because Mason's is generally a good book and deserves people's attention even if they don't agree with him.

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