Yuk Hui: Recursivity and Contingency Yuk Hui‘s (@digital_objects) book pursues the ambitious task to provide an overview of Cybernetics and its philosophical predecessors by discussing Luhmannian system theory, Heideggerian phenomenology, German Idealism, Kantian Critiques, Leibnizian rationalism and even the ancient Greeks on only 300 pages! The outline of the shift from “Organized Inorganic” to “Organizing Inorganic” serves as a general guiding indication on where this philosophical book may be situated within its field. And I would like to emphasize 'philosophical' in the sense that Hui provides a systematic view of the history of technology. This is certainly a philosophical book, not a history of philosophy. Its density may certainly make it better suited for advanced readers; however, that may provide a broad enough overview to suggest what is worth reading next or even where to begin. The mention of Mauss and his study of the Polynesian gift economy came as a, to me positively reassuring, surprise at the very end of the book. Also, the seemingly paradoxical problem of growing purposelessness, the Heideggerian “Not der Notlosigkeit”, due to technological progress, is as prevalent as it is of interest. “Through the systematization and planetarization of tools—especially automation—it will finally lead to the complete liberation of human beings from production—or, in economic terms, mass unemployment.”