Maciej Ceglowski
Our Comrade the Electron
Radio in the 1920’s played a role analogous to the Internet in our day. Everyone could see that a suite of new technologies was about to change the world, but this advance knowledge somehow made the future more uncertain. Meanwhile, a group of technically-minded Utopians had convinced themselves that technology could radically transform human nature, and were determined to demonstrate it to a skeptical world. A meditation on the surveillance state, interface design, tech culture, and the dangers of thinking you know what will happen next, told through the astonishing life of Lev Termen.