The Every by Dave Eggers should be required reading about where we are going before we get there! The satire is so close that at times it feels like a documentary. Sections that describe a trip out of campus and the future of marking in universities are disturbingly close to life experienced, and the plethora of insightful observations is alarming - Capital-P Play was last year’s management theory, following multitasking, single tasking, grit, learning-from-failure, napping, cardio working, saying no, saying yes, the wisdom of the crowd, trusting one’s gut, Viking management theory, Commissioner Gordon workflow theory, X-teams, B-teams, embracing simplicity, pursuing complexity, seeking similarity, creativity through radical individualism, creativity through groupthink, creativity through the rejection of groupthink, organizational mindfulness, organizational blindness, microwork, macro sloth, fear-based camaraderie, love-based terror, working while standing, working while ambulatory, learning while sleeping, and, most recently, limes.
Subjectivity is just objectivity waiting for data. “You hear about the art students?” he asked. She had. A growing number of undergraduate and graduate art students were lobbying for the Hermosa app to be given equal or greater power than the subjective assessments and grades traditionally given by their professors. Fairness and Objectivity in Beauty, these students insisted in a fast-moving meme, quickly nicknamed FOB. Humans are error-prone knots of biases, they insisted, and should not be involved in determining what was beautiful or good.
