The Problem with Solutions
eBook - ePub

The Problem with Solutions

Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Problem with Solutions

Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food

About this book

A concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises.

Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today's myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.

The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector's ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.

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Yes, you can access The Problem with Solutions by Julie Guthman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Agricultural Public Policy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. Preface
  5. Introduction: The Origins of Solutions
  6. 1. Silicon Valley and the Urge to Make the World a Better Place
  7. 2. Agrifood Solutions before Silicon Valley
  8. 3. Silicon Valley Bites Off Agriculture and Food
  9. 4. Alternative Protein and the Nothing Burger of the Techno-Fix
  10. 5. Digital Technologies and Plowing Through to the Problem
  11. 6. Silicon Valley Thinking Comes to the University
  12. 7. Big Ideas and Making Silicon Valley–Style Solution-Makers
  13. Conclusion: The Pessimism of Solutions and the (Cautious) Optimism of Response
  14. Acknowledgments
  15. Glossary of Terms
  16. Notes
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index