Esther Dyson is eminently reasonable in Release 2.0, her primer for the digital age. Given her background, that should come as no surprise. Daughter of famed scientist Freeman Dyson, she grew up at the top of the academic ivory tower. Dyson then parlayed her intelligence and curiosity into a career as a high tech analyst and gadfly, publishing the insidery Release 1.0 newsletter and searching Eastern Europe for hot start-ups. Now Dyson uses her best professorial tone as she gives her thoughts on what the future holds.
Admittedly, sometimes her views on how we will live in cyberspace are so reasonable that they seem downright banal. As when she argues that - surprise! - anonymity is a double-edged sword. Or when she tells us that, in the future, workers who can think quickly will be sought. But her views often seem correct and wise.
Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age covers how the Net will affect different aspects of our lives. Discussing the future of education, for example, Dyson strikes a reasonable balance between wariness and embracing technology. She argues that connecting schools to the Internet contributes to a better education by linking kids to the best resources available. Yet, in what sounds like a page from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, she argues that multimedia is deleterious to reasoned thought: "Images may sell, but they don't enlighten."
This tone may not have you jumping out of your chair, but when pundits on both sides are foaming at the mouth, whether it's cheerleader George Gilder or doomsayer Cliff Stoll, a little reasonableness is worth a lot.
##### Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age, by Esther Dyson: US$25. Broadway Books: (800) 323 9872.
STREET CRED
From Apple to Zapruder Friend or Foe?
A Reasonable Release
