Technological defeatism - a belief that, since a given technology is here to stay, there's nothing we can do about it other than get on with it and simply adjust our norms - is a persistent feature of social thought about technology. We'll come to pay for it very dearly.

In short, Google prefers a world where we consistently go to three restaurants to a world where our choices are impossible to predict.

I'm not on Facebook. I have a sort of anonymous account that I check, like, once every six months every time Facebook rolls out a new feature.

I went to SXSW in 2011. God, that was awful. I mean, I only went because my publisher wanted me to promote the book and the organizers invited me and it seemed silly not to go, especially for a relatively unknown first-time author. This is just not my cup of tea; the fewer such events I do on an annual basis, the happier I feel.

I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?'

In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.

In addition to their 'do no evil' motto, Googlers have always been guided by another, much less explicit philosophy: 'computational arrogance.'