If then : how the Simulmatics Corporation invented the future
(Audiobook CD)
Author
Contributors
Recorded Books, Inc., publisher.
Published
Prince Frederick, Md. : Recorded Books, [2020].
ISBN
9781705004630, 1705004636, 9781664603509
Status
Description
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Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Bedford Park Public Library District - Stacks | 006.312 LEPORE CD | On Shelf |
Homewood Public Library District - Stacks | CD BOOK 006.3 LEP | On Shelf |
La Grange Public Library - Stacks | CD BOOK 006.3 LEP | On Shelf |
Linda Sokol Francis Brookfield Library - Stacks | CD 006.312 LEP | Checked out |
Worth Public Library District - Stacks | CD SPOKEN NF LEP | On Shelf |
More Details
Published
Prince Frederick, Md. : Recorded Books, [2020].
Format
Audiobook CD
Physical Desc
9 audio discs (10 hr., 30 min.) ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
English
ISBN
9781705004630, 1705004636, 9781664603509
Notes
General Note
In container (17 cm.).
General Note
Title from container.
Participants/Performers
Narrated by the author.
Description
"The Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge -- decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Jill Lepore [came] across the company's papers in MIT's archives and set out to tell this forgotten history, the long-lost backstory to the methods, and the arrogance, of Silicon Valley. Founded in 1959 by some of the nation's leading social scientists, [Simulmatics] proposed to predict and manipulate the future by way of the computer simulation of human behavior. In summers, with their wives and children in tow, the company's scientists met on the beach in Long Island under a geodesic, honeycombed dome, where they built a 'People Machine' that aimed to model everything from buying a dishwasher to counterinsurgency to casting a vote. Deploying their 'People Machine' from New York, Washinton, Cambridge, and even Saigon, Simulmatics clients included the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign, the New York Times, the Department of Defense, and dozens of major manufacturers: Simulmatics had a hand in everything from political races to the Vietnam War to the Johnson administration's ill-fated attempts to predict race riots. The company's collapse was almost as rapid as its ascent, a collapse that involved failed marriages, a suspicious death, and bankruptcy. Exposed for false claims, and even accused of war crimes, it closed its doors in 1970 and all but vanished. Until Lepore came across the records of its remains. The scientists of Simulmatics believed they had invented 'the A-bomb of the social sciences.' They did not predict that it would take decades to detonate, like a long-buried grenade. But, in the early years of the twenty-first century, that bomb did detonate, creating a world in which corporations collect data and model behavior and target messages about the most ordinary of decisions, leaving people across the planet, long before the global pandemic, crushed by feelings of helplessness. This history has a past; 'If Then' is its cautionary tale"--,Provided by publisher.
Local note
AUDIOBOOK CD
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Citations
APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)
Lepore, J. (2020). If then: how the Simulmatics Corporation invented the future (Unabridged.). Recorded Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Lepore, Jill, 1966-. 2020. If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. Recorded Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Lepore, Jill, 1966-. If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future Recorded Books, 2020.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Lepore, Jill. If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future Unabridged., Recorded Books, 2020.
Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.
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