
Filterworld
How Algorithms Flattened Culture
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kaleo Griffith
-
By:
-
Kyle Chayka
About this listen
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.
"[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture…[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live."—Ezra Klein
From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.
This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.” Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.
In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?
To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Power of Flexing
- How to Use Small Daily Experiments to Create Big Life-Changing Growth
- By: Susan J. Ashford
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Addressing diverse issues depends on improving your soft skills - such as time management, team-building, communication and listening, creative-thinking, and problem-solving. But this isn’t as easy as it may seem. Sue Ashford has the solution. In this timely book, she introduces Flexing - a technique individuals, teams, and entire organizations can use to learn, grow, and develop their skills and knowledge with every new project, work assignment, and problem. Flexing empowers you to embrace any challenge and adapt to any change, yielding valuable takeaways that ensure growth.
-
-
Flexing changed everything
- By H. Hendricks on 03-18-22
By: Susan J. Ashford
-
From Startup to Exit
- An Insider's Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business
- By: Shirish Nadkarni
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tech entrepreneurs, make your startup dreams come true by utilizing this invaluable, founder-to-founder guide to successfully navigating all phases of the tech startup journey. With the advent of the internet, mobile computing, and now AI/Machine learning and cloud computing, the number of new startups has accelerated over the last decade across tech centers in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, and China.
-
-
Start to finish everything
- By SEIJAL GAUTAM on 05-10-24
By: Shirish Nadkarni
-
Dream Cities
- Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World
- By: Wade Graham
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way—as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the stories of the real architects and thinkers whose imagined cities became the blueprints for the world we live in.
-
-
MID
- By Amazon Customer on 09-07-24
By: Wade Graham
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
-
Dumbing Us Down (25th Anniversary Edition)
- The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
- By: John Taylor Gatto
- Narrated by: Michael Puttonen, Adam Farnsworth
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throw off the shackles of formal schooling and embark upon a rich journey of self-directed, life-long learning After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine.
-
-
Provoke Critical Thinking Surrounding Education
- By Marinna on 12-21-24
-
The Hunt for History
- On the Trail of the World's Lost Treasures - from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings On-Board JFK's Air Force One
- By: Nathan Raab, Luke Barr
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity.
-
-
I wished it was longer
- By NANAS on 04-15-20
By: Nathan Raab, and others
-
The Power of Flexing
- How to Use Small Daily Experiments to Create Big Life-Changing Growth
- By: Susan J. Ashford
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Addressing diverse issues depends on improving your soft skills - such as time management, team-building, communication and listening, creative-thinking, and problem-solving. But this isn’t as easy as it may seem. Sue Ashford has the solution. In this timely book, she introduces Flexing - a technique individuals, teams, and entire organizations can use to learn, grow, and develop their skills and knowledge with every new project, work assignment, and problem. Flexing empowers you to embrace any challenge and adapt to any change, yielding valuable takeaways that ensure growth.
-
-
Flexing changed everything
- By H. Hendricks on 03-18-22
By: Susan J. Ashford
-
From Startup to Exit
- An Insider's Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business
- By: Shirish Nadkarni
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tech entrepreneurs, make your startup dreams come true by utilizing this invaluable, founder-to-founder guide to successfully navigating all phases of the tech startup journey. With the advent of the internet, mobile computing, and now AI/Machine learning and cloud computing, the number of new startups has accelerated over the last decade across tech centers in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, and China.
-
-
Start to finish everything
- By SEIJAL GAUTAM on 05-10-24
By: Shirish Nadkarni
-
Dream Cities
- Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World
- By: Wade Graham
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way—as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the stories of the real architects and thinkers whose imagined cities became the blueprints for the world we live in.
-
-
MID
- By Amazon Customer on 09-07-24
By: Wade Graham
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
-
Dumbing Us Down (25th Anniversary Edition)
- The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
- By: John Taylor Gatto
- Narrated by: Michael Puttonen, Adam Farnsworth
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throw off the shackles of formal schooling and embark upon a rich journey of self-directed, life-long learning After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine.
-
-
Provoke Critical Thinking Surrounding Education
- By Marinna on 12-21-24
-
The Hunt for History
- On the Trail of the World's Lost Treasures - from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings On-Board JFK's Air Force One
- By: Nathan Raab, Luke Barr
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity.
-
-
I wished it was longer
- By NANAS on 04-15-20
By: Nathan Raab, and others
-
Amusing Ourselves to Death
- Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.
-
-
Excellent Content Read at Warp Speed
- By chaoticmuse on 03-17-11
By: Neil Postman
-
First Steps
- How Upright Walking Made Us Human
- By: Jeremy DeSilva
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.
-
-
Mammalian Bipedalism's Many Layers
- By Sarah C. on 06-07-22
By: Jeremy DeSilva
-
How Money Became Dangerous
- The Inside Story of Our Turbulent Relationship with Modern Finance
- By: Christopher Varelas, Dan Stone
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a veteran of the trade, a provocative and entertaining voyage into the turbulent heart of modern money that sheds new light on the rise of our threatening and complicated financial system, how money became our adversary, and why finding a new course is crucial to a healthy society.
-
-
Many-sided, thoughtful, very listenable
- By Philo on 02-06-20
By: Christopher Varelas, and others
-
A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
-
-
an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
-
Monsters
- A Fan's Dilemma
- By: Claire Dederer
- Narrated by: Claire Dederer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
-
-
Adresses my many questions
- By Syd Young on 11-01-23
By: Claire Dederer
-
Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
-
-
Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
-
Never Play It Safe
- A Practical Guide to Freedom, Creativity, and a Life You Love
- By: Chase Jarvis
- Narrated by: Chase Jarvis
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Photographer, entrepreneur, and bestselling author, Chase Jarvis has collaborated with some of the world’s most successful athletes, entrepreneurs, performers, and artists. What’s the secret to a good life? he’s asked them. Is it having enough money in the bank? Chasing the right dream? Surrounding themselves with the right people? What are the secrets not just of success but of fulfillment? In Never Play It Safe, Jarvis reveals the surprising answer: It’s not a new gadget, technique, or life-hack. It’s something much simpler
-
-
Honest reflections and thoughts that helped the author.
- By Nicholas Gonzalez on 11-24-24
By: Chase Jarvis
-
The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition)
- The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
- By: Tom Nichols
- Narrated by: Tom Nichols
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.
-
-
Listen twice, there's SO MUCH great information
- By CharlieSeymourJr on 02-17-25
By: Tom Nichols
-
Is Earth Exceptional?
- The Quest for Cosmic Life
- By: Mario Livio PhD, Jack Szostak PhD
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, scientists have wondered how life has emerged from inanimate chemistry, and whether Earth is the only place where it exists. Charles Darwin speculated about life on Earth beginning in a warm little pond. Some of his contemporaries believed that life existed on Mars. It once seemed inevitable that the truth would be known by now. It is not. For more than a century, the origins and extent of life have remained shrouded in mystery. But, as Mario Livio and Jack Szostak reveal in Is Earth Exceptional?, the veil is finally lifting.
-
-
Authoritative story about origin of life
- By churab on 10-07-24
By: Mario Livio PhD, and others
-
Roman History
- Volume One
- By: Appian of Alexandria
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Appian of Alexander was a Greek historian who lived at the height of the Roman Empire during the first half of the 2nd century AD, having been born around AD 95 and died about AD 165. Very little is known about him beyond what he reveals about himself, along with the fact that he lived in Alexandria. He was a Roman citizen and held several senior-level public offices, both in Alexandria and in Rome.
-
-
Another Epic Title by Charlton Griffin!
- By Jim Davis on 02-15-22
-
This Is What It Sounds Like
- What the Music You Love Says About You
- By: Ogi Ogas, Susan Rogers
- Narrated by: Susan Rogers
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When you listen to music, do you prefer lyrics or melody? Intricate harmonies or driving rhythm? The “real” sounds of acoustic instruments or those of computerized synthesizers? Drawing from her successful career as a music producer (engineering hits like Prince’s “Purple Rain”), professor of cognitive neuroscience Susan Rogers reveals why your favorite songs move you. She explains that we each possess a unique “listener profile” based on our brain’s reaction to seven key dimensions of any record: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre.
-
-
Needed to include the music
- By Sarah on 01-18-23
By: Ogi Ogas, and others
-
Mood Machine
- The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist
- By: Liz Pelly
- Narrated by: Liz Pelly
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on over a hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.
-
-
Vocal fry
- By Anonymous User on 01-19-25
By: Liz Pelly
Critic reviews
“Trying to quiet 'algorithmic anxiety’ and 24-7 digital overwhelm, Chayka posits, we tend to take refuge in the average. [Filterworld] urges us to throw off the blanket some influencer has convinced us is a necessity…Unlike the cascade of content from strangers on the internet, Filterworld, as a proper book will, evokes less transient impulses than genuine, lingering feelings: depression about our big-box corporate dystopia and admiration for Chayka’s curiosity and clear writing style.” —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review
“Necessary reading for anyone who has wondered just how, in expanding our world, the internet has ended up emptying our experience of it. Chayka's wide-ranging anatomy of algorithmic curation—which, he argues, is increasingly the cultural substitute for human choice itself—makes a bracing case not only for creativity exercised beyond the confines of digital constriction, but also against the dehumanizing sameness algorithms have introduced into our societies and lives. Timely, erudite, important.” —Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Homeland Elegies
“Filterworld is a vital interrogation of algorithmic technology and its unrelenting power in shaping both our online and offline experiences. Chayka deftly explains how today’s social media ecosystem operates and, more importantly, reveals a way out of the ever-tightening grip of this stifling digital filtration.” —Taylor Lorenz, author of Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Traffic
- Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral
- By: Ben Smith
- Narrated by: Ian Putnam, Ben Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The origin story of the post-truth age: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Nick Denton of Gawker Media and Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society.
-
-
WHY THIS NARRATOR??
- By J E on 05-15-23
By: Ben Smith
-
Limitarianism
- The Case Against Extreme Wealth
- By: Ingrid Robeyns
- Narrated by: Rachel Bavidge
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This will be the first authoritative trade book to unpack the concept of a cap on wealth, where to draw the line, how to collect the excess, and what to do with the money. In the process, Robeyns ignites an urgent debate about wealth, one that calls into question the very forces we live by (capitalism and neoliberalism) and invites us to a radical reimagining of our world.
-
-
How important it is for everyone to read this book!
- By MSH on 02-27-24
By: Ingrid Robeyns
-
Character Limit
- How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
- By: Kate Conger, Ryan Mac
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before.
-
-
Depressing but engrossing
- By Jason Jablonski on 10-25-24
By: Kate Conger, and others
-
The Loom of Time
- Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Middle East—the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia—existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability. Robert D. Kaplan explores Greater Middle East through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.
-
-
detailed primer on the greater 'Middle East'
- By Stevon on 02-01-24
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
The Longing for Less
- Living with Minimalism
- By: Kyle Chayka
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kyle Chayka is one of our sharpest cultural observers. After spending years covering minimalist trends for leading publications, he now delves beneath this lifestyle’s glossy surface, seeking better ways to claim the time and space we crave. He shows that our longing for less goes back further than we realize. His search leads him to the philosophical and spiritual origins of minimalism and to the stories of artists such as Agnes Martin and Donald Judd; composers such as John Cage and Julius Eastman; architects and designers; visionaries and misfits.
-
-
An enlightening and provocative perspective.
- By Steve Ferrier on 01-22-21
By: Kyle Chayka
-
Status and Culture
- How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
- By: W. David Marx
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Status signaling isn’t just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It’s what’s behind “cool” and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and dog breeds—and even the outsize influence of unpopular things with the “right” audience.
-
-
Superb
- By Josiah Potter on 12-09-22
By: W. David Marx
-
Traffic
- Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral
- By: Ben Smith
- Narrated by: Ian Putnam, Ben Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The origin story of the post-truth age: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Nick Denton of Gawker Media and Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society.
-
-
WHY THIS NARRATOR??
- By J E on 05-15-23
By: Ben Smith
-
Limitarianism
- The Case Against Extreme Wealth
- By: Ingrid Robeyns
- Narrated by: Rachel Bavidge
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This will be the first authoritative trade book to unpack the concept of a cap on wealth, where to draw the line, how to collect the excess, and what to do with the money. In the process, Robeyns ignites an urgent debate about wealth, one that calls into question the very forces we live by (capitalism and neoliberalism) and invites us to a radical reimagining of our world.
-
-
How important it is for everyone to read this book!
- By MSH on 02-27-24
By: Ingrid Robeyns
-
Character Limit
- How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
- By: Kate Conger, Ryan Mac
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before.
-
-
Depressing but engrossing
- By Jason Jablonski on 10-25-24
By: Kate Conger, and others
-
The Loom of Time
- Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Middle East—the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia—existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability. Robert D. Kaplan explores Greater Middle East through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.
-
-
detailed primer on the greater 'Middle East'
- By Stevon on 02-01-24
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
The Longing for Less
- Living with Minimalism
- By: Kyle Chayka
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kyle Chayka is one of our sharpest cultural observers. After spending years covering minimalist trends for leading publications, he now delves beneath this lifestyle’s glossy surface, seeking better ways to claim the time and space we crave. He shows that our longing for less goes back further than we realize. His search leads him to the philosophical and spiritual origins of minimalism and to the stories of artists such as Agnes Martin and Donald Judd; composers such as John Cage and Julius Eastman; architects and designers; visionaries and misfits.
-
-
An enlightening and provocative perspective.
- By Steve Ferrier on 01-22-21
By: Kyle Chayka
-
Status and Culture
- How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
- By: W. David Marx
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Status signaling isn’t just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It’s what’s behind “cool” and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and dog breeds—and even the outsize influence of unpopular things with the “right” audience.
-
-
Superb
- By Josiah Potter on 12-09-22
By: W. David Marx
-
LikeWar
- The Weaponization of Social Media
- By: P. W. Singer, Emerson T. Brooking
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the Internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the Internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, “Twitter wars” produce real world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones.
-
-
Good Information Ruined by Whining Political Bias
- By Scott on 12-28-18
By: P. W. Singer, and others
-
99% Perspiration
- A New Working History of the American Way of Life
- By: Adam Chandler
- Narrated by: Adam Chandler
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison’s most famous quote, has been drilled into the minds of generations of Americans. A fairly straightforward iteration of the idea that innovation, discovery, and ingenuity are the result of drive and grit above all, it has also come to represent much darker myths: that hard work always leads to success and that achievement is the product of individuals and not communities.
-
-
Interesting
- By Ed Wojcicki on 03-21-25
By: Adam Chandler
-
Not the End of the World
- How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet
- By: Hannah Ritchie
- Narrated by: Hannah Ritchie PhD
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s become common to tell kids that they’re going to die from climate change. We are constantly bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won’t be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, and that we should reconsider having children.
-
-
Environmental Sustainability Analysis
- By RM on 04-16-24
By: Hannah Ritchie
-
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
- The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
- By: Shoshana Zuboff
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the 21st century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves.
-
-
Book Editors failed to trim the word count
- By Todd B on 07-14-19
By: Shoshana Zuboff
-
Digital Minimalism
- Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
- By: Cal Newport
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Cal Newport
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the best-selling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Aaron on 04-15-19
By: Cal Newport
-
The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
-
-
Insightful!
- By Face on 05-04-25
By: Christine Rosen
-
Tyranny of the Minority
- Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point
- By: Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?
-
-
Tyranny of the Minority
- By orders on 10-07-23
By: Steven Levitsky, and others
-
Superbloom
- How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
-
-
Humanity is really doomed, eh?
- By Classical Ideas Podcast on 02-14-25
By: Nicholas Carr
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
Read Write Own
- Building the Next Era of the Internet
- By: Chris Dixon
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, Chris Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection, and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen almost entirely under the control of a very small group of companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook. In Read Write Own, tech visionary Chris Dixon argues that the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrepreneurship doesn’t have to die and can, in fact, be saved with blockchain networks.
-
-
Future of the Web
- By S. Heller on 04-27-24
By: Chris Dixon
-
Capitalist Realism
- Is There No Alternative?
- By: Mark Fisher
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system–a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework.
-
-
Mind-blowing
- By John Erlandsen on 10-04-24
By: Mark Fisher
-
Technofeudalism
- What Killed Capitalism
- By: Yanis Varoufakis
- Narrated by: Yanis Varoufakis
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Technofeudalism says Yanis Varoufakis, is the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world, and is the greatest current threat to the liberal individual, to our efforts to avert climate catastrophe—and to democracy itself. It also lies behind the new geopolitical tensions, especially the New Cold War between the United States and China. Drawing on stories from Greek myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis explains this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power, and, ultimately, what it will take overthrow it.
-
-
The narration is literally the worst.
- By Shakeiad on 09-24-24
By: Yanis Varoufakis
What listeners say about Filterworld
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-10-24
important book
important book about the effects of algorithm on culture...a must read. Should be taught im schools
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- kaimori kazoku
- 06-07-24
Excellent argument
I loved the idea behind this book, and agree with much of the supposition of the author. Though it did seem a bit nostalgic and pretentious. Overall good to ponder upon, but the author did meander a bit much.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rik
- 11-12-24
Important book for mondern times
If you want to learn about the stickiness of modern-day populism, the decay of democracy (potentially reaching T-Doom), and the internal mechanics of social media, this is a must-read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Art S.
- 10-24-24
Filterworld - A timely study of the reliance on AI algorithms over human curation of culture
This is a persuasive look at the pervasive role of AI algorithms in contemporary human affairs and how this trend “flattens” our cultural landscape by diminishing the role of human intervention. Now that human curation has ceded preeminence to algorithmic preference-setting, our choices tend to be weighted toward the least common denominator with results and suggestions being less unique and sometimes, even divergent from our inner tastes. This is especially apparent in the algorithmic curation of our musical selections.
On the contrary side, Chayka’s analysis sometimes dulls its keen edge through occasional prolixity and a tendency towards unnecessary repetition of certain terms that underpin his thesis (“flattening of culture”, “algorithmic fill-the-blank”). And while the author liberally shares his personal tastes in literature and music, almost in an attempt to revive curation-by-personal-suggestion, the practice verges on overbearing oversharing (Sorry, anime is just not my thing!)
Still, having seen first hand the transition from a “golden age” of human music curation, for instance, from late ‘50s to Top 40 radio, Motown, Stax, Scepter, Atlantic and so many other record label streams, British Invasion, classic and album-oriented rock (AOR) when it was simply rock, etc., I find it paradoxical that musical culture was also “flattened” in a sense, meaning a commonly shared point of reference for several generations was “baked into” the culture at large for the musically open, and, even as those of us lived it, it was a vital, magical time, with masterpieces seemingly coming from every direction. All was well, at least musically, until the social tumult and the human, creative losses and crises catalyzing in the late ‘60s gradually led to the almost inevitable fragmentation of culture on multiple modes and levels.
Ultimately, I agree with Chayka that algorithmic hegemony and AI infiltration of culture threatens the muse we thought was innately human, although perhaps it’s been a while since we had anything new, personal and exciting to express. Renaissance anyone, or has that boat forever sailed away?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Patrick
- 05-02-25
Interesting, but dense, in a good way
A new topic for me, and I was able to learn a lot from the audiobook!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marla Orgeron
- 03-18-24
Here’s my ironic review
This book has a beautiful way of delivering some horrifying subject matter, namely, how algorithms have slowly removed our uniqueness, our sense of cultural and artistic “taste,” and displaced art for the sake of art.
Writing a review at all, means acknowledging the algorithm’s power over us, and it’s tendency to push books that get more likes and, well, reviews. Ironically? (looking at you, Alanis), my hope is that writing this review will inspire more of my friends to read it, and thereby, decide to remove themselves from algorithms 😇
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marat Parkhomovsky
- 05-05-24
One of the most important books of this time
Profound, inspiring and very important for understanding the current state of our culture. A must. Thanks (to the algorithm?) that made me discover it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- bjorn
- 01-28-25
Everything has slowly become algorithm curated!
I found the info in this book to really shine a light on the thing that has been making me feel crazy. It has helped me deepen my understanding of what is happening when I get sucked into a doom scroll without realizing it. I espically enjoyed how the book ended on a positive hopeful note after bringing up all these issues that social media and algorithms create. Even at the end of the book audible suggested another book based on my listening habits! It’s everywhere!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bill Mansfield
- 04-17-25
Required reading (er. listening)
The awakening of the author to SM as to the algorithmic concoction of it is very important. His work has all manner of deep and well considered research. This book produced answers for those questions lingering to the rear of my conscious and discerning internal dialogue. The positive and the negative are considered thoroughly. Let use consider bypassing fast food word and cultivating feasts far more expressive and nourishing for our souls.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TM
- 02-07-24
Important Book for Our Times
Somewhat dry, but I think vital analysis of how social media platforms and their algorithms are changing (negatively) how we consume and create art, but also discusses other societal effects. If you are sick of SM, listen to this book and you’ll get a better understanding as to why, and what you can do about it.
Ironic that the narrator sounded like an AI. So robotic and unengaged from the material. Would have been better if read by the author.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!