Social forecasting, future studies Books

Book SynopsisAs his health begins to fail, a historian in the year 2084 sets out to document the irreparable damage climate change has wrought on the planet over the course of his life. He interviews scientists, political leaders and ordinary people all around the world who have suffered its catastrophic effects, from devastating floods and mass droughts to war and famine. In a series of short chapters, we learn that much of New York has been abandoned, 50 million Bangladeshis are refugees and half of the Netherlands is under water. This is all fiction. But it is rooted in scientific fact. Written by a professor of geochemistry, James Lawrence Powell, The 2084 Report accurately chronicles the future we will face if nothing is done to address the climate crisis. A vivid portrait of climate change and its tangible impact on our lives, The 2084 Report is a powerful prophecy and urgent call to action.Trade Review'This is a sobering and scary (and fascinating) book-a look at where we're going if we don't quickly get our act together. And it's replete with clues about how we could indeed make the changes that would make this fiction, not prophecy' -- Bill McKibben, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out'The 2084 Report is probably the most important literary work on climate change - because by dressing such a necessary message in "disaster movie" clothes, Powell ensures a wider audience than a conventional scientific work.' * The Herald Glasgow *

Read more less

Book SynopsisTechnology moves fast - so where will it have taken us by 2050? How will it affect the way we live? And how far are we willing to let it go? In Megatech, distinguished scientists, industry leaders, star academics and acclaimed science-fiction writers join journalists from The Economist to explore answers to these questions and more. Twenty experts in the field, including Nobel prize-winner Frank Wilczek, Silicon Valley venture-capitalist Ann Winblad, philanthropist Melinda Gates and science-fiction author Alastair Reynolds identify the big ideas, fantastic inventions and potentially sinister trends that will shape our future. Join them to explore a brave new world of brain-computer interfaces, vat-grown cruelty-free meat, knitted cars and guided bullets. The writers predict the vast changes that technology will bring to everything from food production to health care, energy output, manufacturing and the military balance. They also consider the impact on jobs, and how we can prepare for the opportunities, as well as the dangers, that await. Thought-provoking, engaging and full of insight from the forefront of tech innovation, Megatech is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand tomorrow's world.Trade ReviewA fascinating book ... the fact that every idea, no matter how awe-inspiring, is grounded in realism, makes this release a resounding success. * How It Works *With Contributions from: Professor Frank Wilczek Dr Rob Carlson Alastair Reynolds Professor Giannico Farrugia Ann Winblad Tom Standage Melinda Gates -- and morePraise for Megachange: 'If you want to know what the future may look like, here it is. A brilliantly well informed guide - all I can say is wow.' -- Chris Patten

Read more less

Book SynopsisInternet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. His 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur was critical in helping advance the conversation around the Internet, which has now morphed from a tool providing efficiencies and opportunities for consumers and business to a force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world. In his new book, How to Fix the Future, Keen focuses on what we can do about this seemingly intractable situation. Looking to the past to learn how we might change our future, he describes how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which, like its digital counterpart, demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments and altered the business world beyond recognition. Travelling across the globe, from India to Estonia, Germany to Singapore, he investigates the best (and worst) practices in five key areas - regulation, innovation, social responsibility, consumer choice and education - and concludes by examining whether we are seeing the beginning of the end of the America-centric digital world.Powerful, urgent and deeply engaging, How to Fix the Future vividly depicts what we must do if we are to try to preserve human values in an increasingly digital world and what steps we might take as societies and individuals to make the future something we can again look forward to.Trade ReviewA truly important book and the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature in which technology's smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it. * Fortune *How to Fix the Future, by longtime tech critic Andrew Keen, avoids simplistic condemnations, offering instead a progressive plan to ease the growing discomfort with emerging technologies that only a few years ago were being celebrated. The book provides compelling examples of ongoing experiments addressing new ways of developing and integrating socially responsible technology into our lives, especially in media, government, and education . . . Keen genuinely believes that, yes, we can fix the future. -- Larry Downes * Washington Post *With his new book, Keen switches from sarcasm to a kind of pragmatic optimism . . . Like Churchill, he offers mostly blood, sweat and tears; but at least he has a program of what needs to be done . . . It makes sense, as Keen seeks to do, to take the long view of our current dilemmas. -- John Naughton * Observer *In [Keen's] acerbic, articulate global survey of human-centered solutions, he examines best practice in consumer choice, education, innovation, regulation and social responsibility . . . An invigorating mix of principle and vision. * Nature *After years of giddiness about the wonders of technology, a new realization is dawning: the future is broken... In this bracing book, Keen offers tools for righting our societies and principles to guide us in the future. * Walter Isaacson *In this engaging, provocative book, [Keen] outlines five strategies - regulation, competitive innovation, consumer choice, civic responsibility, and education - that, working in collaboration, can help ensure an open, decentralized digital future... Valuable insights on preserving our humanity in a digital world. * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *Keen, has spent his career warning of the dangers of the Internet, takes a more positive turn in this complex yet accessible study. Comparing our current situation to the Industrial Revolution, he stresses the importance of keeping humanity at the center of technology. * Booklist *Eschewing much of the over-the-top luddism that now fills the New York Times, the Guardian, and other mainstream media outlets, Keen proffers practical solutions to a wide range of tech-related woes. * TechCrunch *

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne of the German-speaking world's leading young sociologists lays out modern Germany's social and political crisis and its implications for the future of the European hegemon. Upward social mobility represented a core promise of life under the "old" West German welfare state, in which millions of skilled workers upgraded their VWs to Audis, bought their first homes, and sent their children to university. Not so in today's Federal Republic, however, where the gears of the so-called "elevator society" have long since ground to a halt. In the absence of the social mobility of yesterday, widespread social exhaustion and anxiety have emerged across mainstream society. Oliver Nachtwey analyses the reasons for this social rupture in post-war German society and investigates the conflict potential emerging as a result, concluding that although the country has managed to muddle through the Eurocrisis largely unscathed thus far, simmering tensions beneath the surface nevertheless threaten to undermine the German system's stability in the years to come.Nachtwey's book was recipient of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's 2016 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis for Economic Writing.Trade ReviewAn insightful account of the crises threatening German stability. * Morning Star *Nachtwey's book addresses a glaring absence in contemporary political and academic debate, takes up urgent questions and puts forward compelling arguments. In this sense, the book was long overdue, and represents a real advance in understanding the trajectory of social inequality in modern Germany. -- Marcel van der LindenNachtwey makes the convincing argument that the downwardly mobile society is not without alternative, but rather has been vehemently criticized and opposed from the outset by substantial layers of society. For this and other reasons, it ought to be read by anyone who feels like they no longer understand modern society. -- Wolfgang StreeckIt would be difficult to find a comparatively accessible, precisely formulated and cogent explanation of the crisis on the German book market today. -- Jens Bisky * Süddeutsche Zeitung *Critical theory has rarely been more illuminating. -- Eva Thöne * Literatur Spiegel *The book poses the question of class in a surprising and intelligent way. A well-founded explanation of the present. -- Urs Hafner * Neue Zürcher Zeitung *Rarely has such a precisely argued, elegantly formulated and resolutely steadfast piece of academic writing on the complex topic of social structure analysis appeared in the German-speaking world. -- Christian Baron * konkret *The newest Frankfurt School: Nachtwey investigates how capitalism's liberalization over the last forty years has transformed our lives. Oliver Nachtwey may not have an answer, but he asks the right questions. -- Joachim Gaertner * hr fernsehen *In this comprehensive sociological study, the author assembles sobering news from Germany, a country the elites of which routinely pride themselves of presiding over a stable, prosperous, and socially inclusive society. To which there is even some truth, comparatively speaking. Yet capitalism thrives on credible promises and on hopes being redeemed. As elsewhere in the West, German elites are increasingly distrusted and hopes frustrated, giving rise to virulent fears and anxieties. As private and public debt, near-stagnation and growing inequality shape gloomy perceptions, a disjunction occurs between ongoing technical and economic modernization, on the one hand, and the notion of "progress" that used to be associated with it. This is a condition for which Nachtwey coins the term "regressive modernity". Among its characteristics are a decline of collective action and public goods production and the "de-institutionalization" of social and economic conflict. Instead of anything resembling organized class struggle, we see symptoms of diffuse and "anomic" rebelliousness ranging from short-lived "occupy"-style mobilizations to the outbursts of rightist mobs. Nachtwey has written a lucid analysis highlighting the social causes of our current perplexities. -- Claus OffeIt needs at once sociological imagination, an interpretive sense for statistics and explanatory sharpness to be able to decipher the anxious and conflict-laden atmosphere in a country that looks extremely well-ordered, affluent and healthy from the outside. Oliver Nachtwey, impressively combining these three talents, has managed to prompt such a necessary change of perspective with regard to contemporary Germany: In his fascinating study he not only informs us about how downward mobility, precariousness and polarization have grown over the last decades in Germany, but also about how people suffering from these developments fight against the downgrading of their lives - be it by inventing new forms of protest, be it by joining nationalist movements. A must to read for everyone interested in the dark side of the economic wealth of Western countries. -- Axel HonnethA true masterpiece. Focusing on the case of Germany - which has long been mispresented and misperceived as a paragon of economic success and political stability - Oliver Nachtwey offers a detailed account of the crisis of contemporary capitalism. Moving at the forefront of leading theories of political economy, the book develops an empirically grounded synthetic perspective on "regressive modernity", a concept of which much can be expected for future progress in the study of capitalist development. -- Wolfgang StreeckA major critical review of Europe's most important country, its socio-economics, its politics, and its self-diagnoses. -- Göran TherbornOliver Nachtwey has written an empirically grounded book of great topicality. He focuses on Germany, but his analysis is of much wider relevance. Nachtwey reveals that the 'elevator effect', which reduces the significance of social distinctions, is finished. A 'downward escalator effect' now makes class disparities visible again. Growing insecurity, increasing inequality and swelling precarianization lead to a renaissance of both left-wing revolts and right-wing authoritarianism. -- Marcel van der LindenNachtwey's book provides a detailed analysis of postwar developments in Germany from a left-wing, working-class, and sociology-based perspective. I can highly recommend it to everyone interested in the past, present, and future of this crucially important country, many of whose problems face other Europeans and people in the United States as well, in particular the danger of some variant of fascism, most alarmingly in case of a repetition of the 2008 crisis-perhaps a far more serious one. -- Victor Grossman * Monthly Review *

Read more less

Book SynopsisWlliam Gladwell meets Alvin Toffler in this lively, provocative and witty look at our possible futures. Filled with provocative forecasts about how the world might change in the next half century, Future Files examines emerging patterns and developments in society, technology, economy, and business, and makes educated speculations as to where they might take us. It is indispensable to business analysts, strategists and organisations who need to stay ahead of the game as well as providing rich and fascinating material for dinner party conversations. Will machines become more intelligent than humans, and even be able to 'read' our minds? Will food in our fridge speak to each other using radio waves, then come up with options for tonight's menu? Is there a looming environmental crisis where Planet Earth is doomed? Would you like a pill that improves your memory? ...Or a moistened tissue that could erase a bad day? Would you feel safer if your front door could tell you whether the person knocking is not a stranger? These are just some of the provocative forecasts about how the world might change in the next half century which Richard Watson explores in "Future Files".Trade ReviewCheaper than a crystal ball and twice as fun...Part Jules Verne, part Malcolm Gladwell, Watson has a puckish sense of humor and his book is a thought-provoking, laughter-inducing delight. * Publishers Weekly *A must read. Well written and concise predictions. * MediaFuturist *Futurologist Richard Watson takes us on a thought-provoking journey into tomorrow's world. -- Ellen Sideri, Founder & CEO, ESP Trendlab, New York * Daily Telegraph *

Read more less

Book SynopsisMEGACITY brings together new writing from some of the most impenetrable corners of the world today with creativity, resilience and beautifully black humour. COVID-19 has thrived in megacities and poses unique challenges to the world’s densest urban hubs. Beat lockdown by travelling virtually, into the homes and lives of global megacity writers from Karachi, Paris, Manila, Lagos, Tokyo and others.Absurd, extreme, pleasure-filled, crime-ridden. Sky-high meccas of opportunity, vast swathes of squalor.This is the megacity and this, in many ways, is our future. Not long ago these massive urban hubs with over 10 million people were an anomaly - in 1950 only New York and Tokyo could claim the title. Now, eight of the world's population live in thirty-three megacities with many more predicted to arrive and make these places their home in the coming years.MEGACITY brings together twenty-two individual, creative responses to the megacity, infiltrating some of the densest, most difficult corners of the world today. From the tightly packed slums of Delhi and the violent favelas of São Paulo, to eye-watering London property prices and Chinese megacities constructed seemingly overnight - if you boggle at how anyone negotiates today’s rampant, unchecked city growth, this book is for you.Witchcraft, terrorism, chemical swamps, modern slavery, and corpses for rent are all day to day events within these pages. Translated from native languages such as DRC’s Lingala to Portuguese written in deepest Brazilian slang, this collection goes to places which are, for most of us, completely impenetrable.Some of today’s most renowned scientists, economists, architects and urban planners have turned their attention to the megacity in order to understand pressing contemporary dilemmas. It can be difficult, however, when we read their criticism of demographics, economics, infrastructure and environment, to imagine the individual amongst the teeming masses. MEGACITY redresses this problem: giving the reader a many-faceted sense of the megacity character, their stories and their settings.“Megacities are the super-novas of human social evolution, non-encompassable in their totality but fertile with conflicting futures. In this stunning anthology, local writers describe life within these gigantic urban landscapes as paradoxes of paradise and the inferno” - Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of the SlumsContributing authorsDele Adeyemo, Kunlé Adayemi, Jessica Zafra, Richard Ali A Mutu, Uday Prakesh, Diego Gerard, Emily Ruth Ford, Liza Alexandrova-Zorina, Deepti Kapoor, Ayodele Olofintuade, Wu Jun, Anna Pook, Daniel Saldaña París, Hideo Furukawa, Ahmed Naji, Ferréz, Bilal Tanweer, Sheyla Smanioto, Montasser Al-Qaffash, and Jeffrey Pascual Yap

Read more less

Book Synopsis"The future" plays a dominant role in everybody's lives. But for many, it is a blur and mystery, a wall of fog in which we struggle to see beyond what is immediately in front of us. By leading futurist Magnus Lindkvist, this book provides the means and tools to plan for and navigate a path into the long term to your advantage. Anyone who wants to have a better, more inspiring life in the future has to plan for it - to future-proof it. In this powerful little book, Lindkvist presents a set of practical and easy-to-apply tools that will help you to create a mindset and path for tomorrow.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe prospects are clear: we will probably live longer. The number of people aged 65 and up will increase enormously over the next few decades. Society will change as a result, but in what manner? Europe and, in fact, probably the world faces the challenge of preventing loneliness and isolation amongst a growing group of senior people. The oldest part of the population is at particular risk of becoming isolated and lonely as they grow older and their work-related networks erode. While working in the field of technology and aging, the authors discovered that there is a whole new field to be explored, namely the phenomenon of connectedness.This book is written by a group of authors with very different backgrounds, varying from business, ICT, marketing, anthropology, medicine, design and computer interaction. They all felt the urge to explore this field of connectedness and they discovered new opportunities for the emerging market of aging-driven design . By unfolding the very nature of relationships and age-based transitions in life, the authors invite the reader to join them in an effort to design for connectedness: to reframe the picture, rethink our options and reinvent how to connect!

Read more less

Book SynopsisAugmented Reality is fast becoming one of the most important emerging technologies, with unprecedented investment growth and interest from big tech platforms and accelerator industries. It will most certainly become THE new platform and standard for content creation and experience generation. Its use will make it an essential resource, with a societal impact that can only be compared to the World Wide Web’s global influence. This book provides a ‘wide lens’ perspective of the potential, challenges and impact that the widespread implementation of Augmented Reality will bring. The book introduces Augmented Reality’s core concepts and potential to newbies and experts alike. Looking at the impact of the technology as it matures into a ground-breaking platform, it goes beyond function to explore the context of the technology’s implementation – through social, commercial and behavioural lenses.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at British Academy Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Tipping points are zones or thresholds of profound changes in natural or social conditions with very considerable and largely unforecastable consequences. Tipping points may be dangerous for societies and economies, especially if the prevailing governing arrangements are not designed either to anticipate them or adapt to their arrival. Tipping points can also be transformational of cultures and behaviours so that societies can learn to adapt and to alter their outlooks and mores in favour of accommodating to more sustainable ways of living.This volume examines scientific, economic and social analyses of tipping points, and the spiritual and creative approaches to identifying and anticipating them. The authors focus on climate change, ice melt, tropical fTable of Contents1. Tipping points and critical thresholds: metaphors and systemic change ; 2. Earth system tipping points ; 3. The culture dimensions: editorial introduction ; 4. Food security, biodiversity and degradation: editorial introduction ; 5. The Spiritual Dimensions: editorial introduction ; 6. Politics, the markets and business: editorial introduction ; 7. Communicating tipping points and resilience: editorial introduction ; 8. A precarious future

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the decades after the Civil War, the world experienced monumental changes in industry, trade, and governance. As Americans faced this uncertain future, public debate sprang up over the accuracy and value of predictions, asking whether it was possible to look into the future with any degree of certainty. In Looking Forward, Jamie L. Pietruska uncovers a culture of prediction in the modern era, where forecasts became commonplace as crop forecasters, weather prophets, business forecasters, utopian novelists, and fortune-tellers produced and sold their visions of the future. Private and government forecasters competed for authority as well as for an audience and a single prediction could make or break a forecaster's reputation. Pietruska argues that this late nineteenth-century quest for future certainty had an especially ironic consequence: it led Americans to accept uncertainty as an inescapable part of both forecasting and twentieth-century economic and cultural life. Drawing together histories of science, technology, capitalism, environment, and culture, Looking Forward explores how forecasts functioned as new forms of knowledge and risk management tools that sometimes mitigated, but at other times exacerbated, the very uncertainties they were designed to conquer. Ultimately Pietruska shows how Americans came to understand the future itself as predictable, yet still uncertain.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA memoir of postmodern times, cast as a history. This book is narrated by a far-future historian, Peter Jensen, who leaves this account of the world from the 1990s to the opening of the 23rd century as a gift to his granddaughter. It is a combination of fiction and scholarship.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn ambitious, intelligent, and very readable guide to understanding our present and our future. -Harry Beckwith, author of Selling the Invisible No one can foretell the future. Or can they? There are many who purport to-and they are making a fortune.Trade Review"All in all, The Fortune Sellers is a very interesting and valuable book - well-written, well-documented, with an abundance of graphical illustrations and an extensive bibliography for those who wish to pursue the subject further."--Knight-Ridder News ServiceTable of ContentsThe Second Oldest Profession. When Chaos Rains. The Dismal Scientists. The Market Gurus. Checking the "Unchecked Population". Science Fact and Fiction. The Futurists. Corporate Chaos. The Certainty of Living in an Uncertain World. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOffering a probing look into how modern technologies will affect the future of organizations, this book compares recent technology advances with growth spurts from the past and charts how organizations will be redefined in light of todaya s advances and other changes on the horizon.Table of ContentsAn Archaeology of Wonder. The Age of Invention. Creativity and Decay. Tools that Talked. Willing Cogs in the Machine? Totally Free to Fly and Totally Free to Fall. Escapes from the Here and Now. Cyberia: First Steps. Shared Nightmares, Shared Dreams. Within these Walls. The Rise and Demise of Nations. Out Island Earth. Tools of the Overlord. Monoliths of Stone. Of Networks and Cocoons. The Future Mindset. Epilogue. Further Reading. References and Notes to All Chapters. Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisLays out a picture of impending planetary crisis - a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century - that would dwarf any in our previous experience. This book describes a dangerous confluence of shortages - of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge - combined with the increased demand created by population and economic growth.Trade Review"The sheer number of terrifying facts make the book gripping." -- Mark Bittman New York Times Book Review "All of us interested in a sustainable food system should read this book and become part of the conversation to determine how we can best redesign the global food system to meet the challenges ahead." Audubon Magazine "Makes clear just how intertwined global warming is with food security." Chronicle Of Higher Education "Cribb ... advocates making much better use of our brains and investing much more in improving both small and large-scale agriculture." -- Stephen Booth Law Society Journal "Presents a smart and compelling description of the challenges our children will likely face as the world's growing population and our shrinking resources collide. " National Catholic ReporterTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface 1 What Food Crisis? 2 Food ... or War? 3 The Well Runs Dry 4 Peak Land 5 Nutrients--The New Oil 6 Troubled Waters 7 Losing Our Brains 8 Eating Oil 9 The Climate Hammer 10 Elephants in the Kitchen 11 A Fair Deal for Farmers 12 Food in the Future List of Conversions Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world's first laboratory-created hamburger. Since then,the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread like wildfire through the media. Meanwhile,cultured meat researchers race against population growth and climate change in an effort to make sustainable protein.Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the laba substance sometimes called cultured meatand asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food. Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spentfive years researching the phenomenon. InMeat Planet, hereveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political, and it demands that we examine questions of justice and desirable modes of living in a shared and finite world. Benjamin Wurgaft tells a story that could utterly transform the way we think of animals, the way we relate to farmland, the way we use water, and the way we think about population and our fragile ecosystem's capacity to sustain life. He argues that even if cultured meat does not succeed, it functionsmuch like science fictionas a crucial mirror that we can hold up to our contemporary fleshy dysfunctions. Trade Review “A balm for those weary of the lab meat bluster—people tired of the endless promises, and done waiting for the better days ahead.” * New Food Economy *“Historian Benjamin Wurgaft explores [the] 'small, strange world' [of lab-grown meat] in a thoughtful study mixing science reportage with philosophical meditations." * Nature *Chosen as one of the “Big Indie Books of Fall 2019." * Publishers Weekly *"A thoughtful examination of the technological, ethical, and cultural issues swirling around the development of artificial flesh. It’s a quick-witted, journalistic survey of lab-cultured meat—how it’s made, financed, and branded. Overlaying this complex brew are nuanced ruminations about the future of food and problems with industrialized agriculture, like the spread of zoonotic disease, environmental damage, and antibiotic resistance. . . . Dense but never dry, abstract questions and large ideas are interspersed with lively and fascinating conversations with rabbis about whether artificial meat is kosher and with tissue engineers about the possibilities of replacing organs in humans and leather in fashions. Rarified subcultures of venture capitalism and futurism are also penetrated.” * Foreword *“Wurgaft’s investigation into cellular-grown meat’s various industrial and cultural issues should stand as an essential introduction to the subject.” * Publishers Weekly *"A fascinating, thought provoking book." * New York Journal of Books *“An engrossing read for anyone curious about the future of our planet’s food.” -- Jamie Drummond * Good Food Revolution *“Erudite, eloquent, and funny, Wurgaft makes an excellent guide. He leads the reader through focus groups, art installations, panel discussions, and even the odd laboratory. Wurgaft embarks on fascinating explorations of the powerful hold that notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘natural’ have on the cultured meat movement.” * Public Books *"Jung makes a powerful intervention into the historiography of anti-Asian racism, which is often located within stories of white nativist anger and Asian victimhood of legal and extralegal violence." * Public Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 • Cyberspace/Meatspace 2 • Meat 3 • Promise 4 • Fog 5 • Doubt 6 • Hope 7 • Tree 8 • Future 9 • Prometheus 10 • Memento 11 • Copy 12 • Philosophers 13 • Maastricht 14 • Kosher 15 • Whale 16 • Cannibals 17 • Gathering/Parting 18 • Epimetheus Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world's first laboratory-created hamburger. Since then,the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread like wildfire through the media. Meanwhile,cultured meat researchers race against population growth and climate change in an effort to make sustainable protein.Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the laba substance sometimes called cultured meatand asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food. Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spentfive years researching the phenomenon. InMeat Planet, hereveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political, and it demands that we examine questions of justice and desirable modes of living in a shared and finite world. Benjamin Wurgaft tells a story that could utterly transform the way we think of animals, the way we relate to farmland, the way we use water, and the way we think about population and our fragile ecosystem's capacity to sustain life. He argues that even if cultured meat does not succeed, it functionsmuch like science fictionas a crucial mirror that we can hold up to our contemporary fleshy dysfunctions.

Read more less

Book SynopsisLooks at changes in technology, policy, economy and society, and makes an argument for a future where, by necessity, the car system will be re-designed and re-engineered. This book suggests that there are some hugely bleak dilemmas facing the twenty first century. It lays out what the authors' consider to be possible 'post-car' future scenarios.Trade Review"Dennis and Urry show us how to do social science: how to move effortlessly between the macro and the micro,how to integrate problem spaces we once thought incommensurate, how to understand how we got to where we are and where we might be going."Journal of Sociology "Dennis and Urry exhibit a refreshing understanding of the sheer inefficiency and inconvenience of cars."Lynsey Hanley, The Guardian "One great aspect of this book is that it manages to build some possible and realistic view of the future without neglecting its unpredictability. After the Car is a very inspiring book that we would recommend to all people interested in the future of transportation systems – especially those convinced by the importance of carfree perspectives in building it."Carbusters "One of the toughest things to do is to anticipate discontinuity, to envisage a world - a life - beyond the car. The authors practice this art of the impossible in a fascinating way, opening up the social and sociological imagination for alternative paths of modernization."Ulrich Beck, University of Munich "A persuasive and readable summary of why motoring as we know it is doomed. The authors systematically chart the new technologies, oil shortages, environmental and other pressures changing the way we travel and the world we live in. If you want to know what the future might look like, this book is for you. Jeremy Clarkson is an endangered species!"Steven Joseph, Executive Director, Campaign for Better Transport "After the Car is a useful contribution to the debate about the role of the car which poses some interesting questions about its future."Tony Bosworth, Friends of the EarthTable of ContentsPreface vi 1 Changing Climates 1 2 The Century of the Car 27 3 Systems 47 4 Technologies 62 5 Organizations 93 6 Models 109 7 Scenarios 131 Notes 165 Index 203

Read more less

Book SynopsisCountering colonial ideas about Indigenous peoples being frozen in time and without a future, this provocative book explores the ways in which members of the Haida Nation are shaping myriad possible futures to address the dilemmas that come with life under settler colonialism.Trade Review[Shaping the Future] is a thought-provoking read, offering many important table-turning insights relevant to reconciliation and understanding any society’s resiliency through times of economic, political, and environmental uncertainties. -- Gillian Crowther * Canadian Journal of Native Studies *Weiss’s respect and relationships with the residents of Gaw and his commitment to ethical, reciprocal, and meaningful research comes through in this intriguing book. -- Molly Clarkson, Haida Gwaii resident * The Ormsby Review *Table of ContentsPart 1: Pasts and Futures1 An Introduction to Haida Future-Making in Old Massett2 The Everyday Temporalities of Life on Haida GwaiiPart 2: Home3 Coming Home to Haida Gwaii: Haida Departures and Returns in the Future Perfect4 Of Hippies and Haida: Fantasy, Future-Making, and the Allure of Haida GwaiiPart 3: Care5 Leading “from the Bottom of the Pole”: Care and Governance in the Haida World6 Precarious Authority: Endangerment and the Political Promise to Protect Haida GwaiiConclusion: Unsettling FuturesNotes; References; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisBrings together leading scholars to offer competing perspectives on capitalism's past incarnations, present conditions, and possible futures. Some contributors reassess classic theorizations of capitalism in light of recent trends. Others examine Marx's writings, unemployment, hoarding, capitalist realism, and coyote (trickster) capitalism, among many other topics.Trade Review"Imagination and passion fuel these essays, which confront the worst of capitalism’s violence and the terrors of capitalism’s aftermath. A timely and well-edited collection, After Capitalism begins a crucial conversation among political economics, representation and imaging, and geopolitical mapping." -- Amy Villarejo * Cornell University *"After Capitalism powerfully extends the horizon of capitalism's conceptualization, and is essential reading for anyone interested in critiques of globalization, culture and economics or the cultural politics of recession." -- Lisa Parks * coeditor of Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures *Table of Contents AcknowledgmentsIntroduction Patrice Petro and Kennan FergusonPart IFinancialization, Creditocracy, AusterityChapter 1 Capital, after Capitalism Geoff MannChapter 2 Restoration of the Rentier and the Turn to Lifelong Extraction Andrew RossChapter 3 The Subprime Subject of Ideology Ivan AscherChapter 4 Social Democracy and its Discontents: The Rise of Austerity Jeffrey SommersPart IIMedia/ArtChapter 5 Austerity Media Patrice PetroChapter 6 Imagining Beyond Capital: Representation and Reality in Science Fiction Film Sherryl VintChapter 7 Mistaken Places: Unemployment, Avant Gardism, and the Auto da Fé Marcus BullockChapter 8 Liquid, Crystal, Vaporous: The Natural States of Capitalism Esther LesliePart III BelongingChapter 9 Cuban Filmmaking and the Post-Capitalist Transition Cristina VenegasChapter 10 “Neither Eastern nor Western”: Economic and Cultural Policies in Post-Revolutionary Iran Niki AkhavanChapter 11 Differentiating Citizenship A. AneeshChapter 12 Gaming the System: Imperial Discomfort and the Emergence of Coyote Capitalism Bernard C. Perley Notes on Contributors Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAll Societies Die is judiciously researched and expertly written, and its philosophical insights could potentially make the difference between utopia and dystopia in both the present and the future. Highly recommended, especially for public and college library Social Issues collections. * Midwest Book Review *This exciting and thought-provoking book provides a brief historical analysis of the causes of death of great civilizations by depicting factors that led to the collapse of powerful empires. * Social Forces *In this highly accessible and thought-provoking book, Cohn addresses the factors that contribute to societal collapse with the aim of identifying what needs to be collectively addressed to avoid the collapse of today's global society. Informed by historical and contemporary sources, this is an important contribution to historical and political sociology collections. * Choice *Table of ContentsTHE REALITY OF SOCIETAL DEATH 1. All Societies Die 2. Is a Fall Really a Fall? 3. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: The Greatest Story You've Never Heard 4. The End Comes to Byzantium 5. The Environmental Causes of Violence in the Middle East 6. The French Revolution: Fighting about Taxes at the Worst Possible Time 7. How States Actually Die: The Real-Life Death of Somalia 8. Somalia after the Fall 9. What Links These Stories? TEMPTING FALSE STEPS 10. Rethinking Ecological Catastrophe 11. Rethinking Moral Crisis THINKING BIG ABOUT THINKING BIG 12. Networks of Cooperation 13. Why Bigger Is Better 14. Legitimation: So Hard to Earn, So Precious to Have 15. Psychological Foundations of Societal Survival WHAT WOULD BE LOST 16. Progress That Is Real: The Reduction of Poverty 17. Progress That Is Real: The Improvement in Health 18. Progress That Is Real: The Reduction of Violent Crime THE SEEDS OF TROUBLE 19. The Motivation to Not Cooperate: The Origins of Civilization in Raiding 20. Primitive Accumulation Today: Raiding Is Not Dead 21. he Motivation to Not Cooperate: How Europe Historically Underdeveloped Much of the World 22. What Can Go Wrong When Western Companies Invest in Poor Nations 23. Cycles of Catastrophic Debt THE HIDDEN SOURCE OF STRENGTH 24. East Asian Secrets of Economic Growth 25. Big Government and Prosperity in the United States 26. The Miracle of Airports 27. The Origins of National Technological Advantage 28. The Economic Returns to Funding Scientific Research 29. The Tax Revolt: How the Conservative Middle Class Became the Revolutionary Class of Capitalism 30. Why Tax Cuts Do Not Create Jobs CRIME, CORRUPTION AND VIOLENCE 31. The Explosion of Crime in the Global South 32. The Parallel Power: The Criminal Second State 33. A Guide to Corruption for Naive Idealists 34. Technical Demoralization 35. What It Takes to Clean Up Corruption 36. Ethnic Violence: The Economic Basis of Hatred 37. Working at Creating a Culture of Hatred 38. Landlessness and Political Violence 39. Landlessness and Political Violence: The Evidence 40. The Global Land Grab 41. Population Growth and Landlessness TRIGGERS OF DESTRUCTION 42. Triggers of Destruction 43. Long-Term Booms and Busts in Capitalism 44. Technological and International Causes of Stagnation 45. Will There Be a Sixth Mensch Cycle? 46. Ever-Expanding Frontiers of Ecological Destruction 47. Why Women's Power Matters 48. Patriarchy Redux? THE CIRCLE OF SOCIETAL DEATH 49. The Circle of Societal Death 50. Triggering the Circle of Societal Death CHANGING THE CULTURE, CHANGING THE WORLD 51. Creating a Culture of Societal Survival 52. Changing the Culture of One-Third of the World: How Christianity Spread from Palestine 53. Creating a Culture of Caretaking: Women in Ancient Rome and 2000's Uganda 54. Creating Lasting Meaningful Social Reform: The Abolition of Slavery I 55. Creating Lasting Meaningful Social Reform: The Abolition of Slavery II 56. Doing the Right Thing under Impossible Conditions: Saving the Jews under Nazism 57. What You Can Do to Save the World

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Uncertainty by Design Limor Samimian-Darash presents cases of the use of scenario technology in the fields of security and emergency preparedness, energy, and health by analyzing scenario narratives and practices at the National Emergency Management Authority in Israel, the World Health Organization''s Regional Office for Europe, and the World Energy Council. Humankind has long struggled with the uncertainty of the future, with how to foresee the future, imagine alternatives, or prepare for and guard against undesirable eventualities. Scenarioor scenario planningemerged in recent decades to become a widespread means through which states, large corporations, and local organizations imagine and prepare for the future. The scenario technology cases examined in Uncertainty by Design provide a useful lens through which to view contemporary efforts to engage in an overall journey of discovering the future, along with the modality of goveTable of ContentsIntroduction: Uncertainty, Scenarios, and the Future 1. Chronicity: The Problematization of Scenario Thinking 2. Narrative-Building: Imagining Plausible Futures 3. Exercising: Practicing the Unexpected 4. Subjectivation: Embracing Uncertainty 5. Simulations: Possibilities and Responses 6. Scenarios, Temporality, and Uncertainty Conclusions and Critical Limitations Epilogue: Scenarios and the Dynamics between Science and Imagination

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn today’s world, numbers are in the ascendancy. Societies dominated by star ratings, scores, likes and lists are rapidly emerging, as data are collected on virtually every aspect of our lives. From annual university rankings, ratings agencies and fitness tracking technologies to our credit score and health status, everything and everybody is measured and evaluated. In this important new book, Steffen Mau offers a critical analysis of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon. While the original intention behind the drive to quantify may have been to build trust and transparency, Mau shows how metrics have in fact become a form of social conditioning. The ubiquitous language of ranking and scoring has changed profoundly our perception of value and status. What is more, through quantification, our capacity for competition and comparison has expanded significantly – we can now measure ourselves against others in practically every area. The rise of quantification has created and strengthened social hierarchies, transforming qualitative differences into quantitative inequalities that play a decisive role in shaping the life chances of individuals. This timely analysis of the pernicious impact of quantification will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, as well as anyone concerned by the cult of numbers and its impact on our lives and societies today.Trade Review ‘In this brilliant book, Steffen Mau does not simply demonstrate the distortions that occur when excessive reliance is placed on statistical indicators, but shows how the current mania for measurement and quantification eats away at social relationships and even our sense of ourselves.’Colin Crouch, Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick ‘Mau, a leading expert on inequality in Europe, is tackling a question of growing significance: the relationship between quantification, status comparison and social competition. His probing analysis offers a fresh perspective for understanding the brave new world of self-monitoring we live in. It offers convincing explanations for current anxieties of performance that are fed by growing inequality and neoliberalism. Influential in Germany, this excellent book should find a wide readership in the English-reading public.’Michèle Lamont, past President, American Sociological Association "A timely, informative and appropriately pessimistic book."Morning Star ‘A wide-ranging tour through rankings and ratings, stars and points, charts and graphs… the metric society may prove a means for faraway data overlords to capture power and entrench inequality in the guise of efficiency. It risks descending into a 21st-century dystopia that is almost as bleak, in its impersonal way, as those imagined in the darkest novels of the 20th.’The Economist"The book is well grounded in a vast and relevant literature and covers an extensive array of topics, from academic rankings to actuarial justice, through to credit scores, travel reviews, professional assessment, and reputation building through social media, among others. In the process, it offers important insights and raises relevant questions, many of which have a clear Foucaultian inspiration."Sociological Research OnlineTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 1 The Measurement of Social Value 10 What does quantification mean? 12 The calculative practices of the market 15 The state as data manager 17 Engines of quantification: digitalization and economization 21 2 Status Competition and the Power of Numbers 26 Dispositives of comparison 28 Commensurability and incommensurability 31 New horizons of comparison 33 Registers of comparison and investive status work 35 3 Hierarchization: Rankings and Ratings 40 Visibilization and the creation of difference 40 On your marks! 43 University rankings 47 Here today, gone tomorrow: the market power of rating agencies 53 4 Classification: Scoring and Screening 60 Credit scoring 63 Quantified health status 67 Mobility value 71 ‘Boost your score’ – academic status markers 74 Social worth investigations 78 5 The Evaluation Cult: Stars and Points 81 Satisfaction surveys 82 Evaluation portals as selectors 84 Peer-to-peer ratings 87 Professions in the evaluative spotlight 89 Like-based reputations on social media 93 6 The Quantified Self: Charts and Graphs 99 Health, exercise and mood 101 The collective body 104 Motivation techniques 106 7 The Power of Nomination 111 The nomination power of the state 112 Performance measurement and the framing of competition 115 The nomination power of experts 119 Algorithmic authority 123 Critique of nomination power 125 8 Risks and Side-Effects 129 Reactive measurements 129 Loss of professional control 133 Loss of time and energy 135 Monoculture versus diversity 137 9 Transparency and Discipline 141 Normative and political pressure 144 The power of feedback 147 Technological surveillance in the workplace 149 The new tariff systems 151 The interdependence of self- and external surveillance 153 The regime of averages, benchmarks and body images 155 10 The Inequality Regime of Quantification 158 Establishment of worth 160 Reputation management 162 Collectives of non-equals 166 From class conflict to individual competition 168 Inescapability and status fluidity 170 Self-reinforcing effects 174 Bibliography 177 Index 196

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn today’s world, numbers are in the ascendancy. Societies dominated by star ratings, scores, likes and lists are rapidly emerging, as data are collected on virtually every aspect of our lives. From annual university rankings, ratings agencies and fitness tracking technologies to our credit score and health status, everything and everybody is measured and evaluated. In this important new book, Steffen Mau offers a critical analysis of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon. While the original intention behind the drive to quantify may have been to build trust and transparency, Mau shows how metrics have in fact become a form of social conditioning. The ubiquitous language of ranking and scoring has changed profoundly our perception of value and status. What is more, through quantification, our capacity for competition and comparison has expanded significantly – we can now measure ourselves against others in practically every area. The rise of quantification has created and strengthened social hierarchies, transforming qualitative differences into quantitative inequalities that play a decisive role in shaping the life chances of individuals. This timely analysis of the pernicious impact of quantification will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, as well as anyone concerned by the cult of numbers and its impact on our lives and societies today.Trade Review‘In this brilliant book, Steffen Mau does not simply demonstrate the distortions that occur when excessive reliance is placed on statistical indicators, but shows how the current mania for measurement and quantification eats away at social relationships and even our sense of ourselves.’Colin Crouch, Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick ‘Mau, a leading expert on inequality in Europe, is tackling a question of growing significance: the relationship between quantification, status comparison and social competition. His probing analysis offers a fresh perspective for understanding the brave new world of self-monitoring we live in. It offers convincing explanations for current anxieties of performance that are fed by growing inequality and neoliberalism. Influential in Germany, this excellent book should find a wide readership in the English-reading public.’Michèle Lamont, past President, American Sociological Association "A timely, informative and appropriately pessimistic book."Morning Star ‘A wide-ranging tour through rankings and ratings, stars and points, charts and graphs… the metric society may prove a means for faraway data overlords to capture power and entrench inequality in the guise of efficiency. It risks descending into a 21st-century dystopia that is almost as bleak, in its impersonal way, as those imagined in the darkest novels of the 20th.’The Economist"The book is well grounded in a vast and relevant literature and covers an extensive array of topics, from academic rankings to actuarial justice, through to credit scores, travel reviews, professional assessment, and reputation building through social media, among others. In the process, it offers important insights and raises relevant questions, many of which have a clear Foucaultian inspiration."Sociological Research OnlineTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 1 The Measurement of Social Value 10 What does quantification mean? 12 The calculative practices of the market 15 The state as data manager 17 Engines of quantification: digitalization and economization 21 2 Status Competition and the Power of Numbers 26 Dispositives of comparison 28 Commensurability and incommensurability 31 New horizons of comparison 33 Registers of comparison and investive status work 35 3 Hierarchization: Rankings and Ratings 40 Visibilization and the creation of difference 40 On your marks! 43 University rankings 47 Here today, gone tomorrow: the market power of rating agencies 53 4 Classification: Scoring and Screening 60 Credit scoring 63 Quantified health status 67 Mobility value 71 ‘Boost your score’ – academic status markers 74 Social worth investigations 78 5 The Evaluation Cult: Stars and Points 81 Satisfaction surveys 82 Evaluation portals as selectors 84 Peer-to-peer ratings 87 Professions in the evaluative spotlight 89 Like-based reputations on social media 93 6 The Quantified Self: Charts and Graphs 99 Health, exercise and mood 101 The collective body 104 Motivation techniques 106 7 The Power of Nomination 111 The nomination power of the state 112 Performance measurement and the framing of competition 115 The nomination power of experts 119 Algorithmic authority 123 Critique of nomination power 125 8 Risks and Side-Effects 129 Reactive measurements 129 Loss of professional control 133 Loss of time and energy 135 Monoculture versus diversity 137 9 Transparency and Discipline 141 Normative and political pressure 144 The power of feedback 147 Technological surveillance in the workplace 149 The new tariff systems 151 The interdependence of self- and external surveillance 153 The regime of averages, benchmarks and body images 155 10 The Inequality Regime of Quantification 158 Establishment of worth 160 Reputation management 162 Collectives of non-equals 166 From class conflict to individual competition 168 Inescapability and status fluidity 170 Self-reinforcing effects 174 Bibliography 177 Index 196

Read more less

Book SynopsisTranshumanism posits that humanity is on the verge of rapid evolutionary change as a result of emerging technologies and increased global consciousness. However, this insight is dismissed as a naive and controversial reframing of posthumanist thought, having also been vilified as “the most dangerous idea in the world” by Francis Fukuyama. In this book, Andrew Pilsch counters these critiques, arguing instead that transhumanism’s utopian rhetoric actively imagines radical new futures for the species and its habitat.Pilsch situates contemporary transhumanism within the longer history of a rhetorical mode he calls “evolutionary futurism” that unifies diverse texts, philosophies, and theories of science and technology that anticipate a radical explosion in humanity’s cognitive, physical, and cultural potentialities. By conceptualizing transhumanism as a rhetoric, as opposed to an obscure group of fringe figures, he explores the intersection of three major paradigms shaping contemporary Western intellectual life: cybernetics, evolutionary biology, and spiritualism. In analyzing this collision, his work traces the belief in a digital, evolutionary, and collective future through a broad range of texts written by theologians and mystics, biologists and computer scientists, political philosophers and economic thinkers, conceptual artists and Golden Age science fiction writers. Unearthing the long history of evolutionary futurism, Pilsch concludes, allows us to more clearly see the novel contributions that transhumanism offers for escaping our current geopolitical bind by inspiring radical utopian thought. Trade Review"I know of no other work that provides such a detailed and penetrating analysis of a cultural trend—transhumanism—that promises, like it or not, to be of increasing importance in the near future."—Jeff Pruchnic, author of Rhetoric and Ethics in the Cybernetic Age: The Transhuman Condition"Pilsch’s book offers a positive outlook of the posthumanist ethos and a nuanced consideration of transhumanism, contributing an important and lucid analysis of the movement’s evolution and a theoretical engagement with transhumanism’s rhetoric that will prove fascinating to anyone thinking about technology and the human limit."—Project MuseTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. An Inner Transhumanism: Modernism and Cognitive Evolution2. Astounding Transhumanism! Evolutionary Supermen and the Golden Age of Science Fiction3. Toward Omega: Hedonism, Suffering, and the Evolutionary Vanguard4. Transhuman Aesthetics: The New, the Lived, and the CuteConclusion: Acceleration and Evolutionary Futurist Utopian PracticeAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisTranshumanism posits that humanity is on the verge of rapid evolutionary change as a result of emerging technologies and increased global consciousness. However, this insight is dismissed as a naive and controversial reframing of posthumanist thought, having also been vilified as “the most dangerous idea in the world” by Francis Fukuyama. In this book, Andrew Pilsch counters these critiques, arguing instead that transhumanism’s utopian rhetoric actively imagines radical new futures for the species and its habitat.Pilsch situates contemporary transhumanism within the longer history of a rhetorical mode he calls “evolutionary futurism” that unifies diverse texts, philosophies, and theories of science and technology that anticipate a radical explosion in humanity’s cognitive, physical, and cultural potentialities. By conceptualizing transhumanism as a rhetoric, as opposed to an obscure group of fringe figures, he explores the intersection of three major paradigms shaping contemporary Western intellectual life: cybernetics, evolutionary biology, and spiritualism. In analyzing this collision, his work traces the belief in a digital, evolutionary, and collective future through a broad range of texts written by theologians and mystics, biologists and computer scientists, political philosophers and economic thinkers, conceptual artists and Golden Age science fiction writers. Unearthing the long history of evolutionary futurism, Pilsch concludes, allows us to more clearly see the novel contributions that transhumanism offers for escaping our current geopolitical bind by inspiring radical utopian thought. Trade Review"I know of no other work that provides such a detailed and penetrating analysis of a cultural trend—transhumanism—that promises, like it or not, to be of increasing importance in the near future."—Jeff Pruchnic, author of Rhetoric and Ethics in the Cybernetic Age: The Transhuman Condition"Pilsch’s book offers a positive outlook of the posthumanist ethos and a nuanced consideration of transhumanism, contributing an important and lucid analysis of the movement’s evolution and a theoretical engagement with transhumanism’s rhetoric that will prove fascinating to anyone thinking about technology and the human limit."—Project MuseTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. An Inner Transhumanism: Modernism and Cognitive Evolution2. Astounding Transhumanism! Evolutionary Supermen and the Golden Age of Science Fiction3. Toward Omega: Hedonism, Suffering, and the Evolutionary Vanguard4. Transhuman Aesthetics: The New, the Lived, and the CuteConclusion: Acceleration and Evolutionary Futurist Utopian PracticeAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first English-language collection to establish curiosity studies as a unique field From science and technology to business and education, curiosity is often taken for granted as an unquestioned good. And yet, few people can define curiosity. Curiosity Studies marshals scholars from more than a dozen fields not only to define curiosity but also to grapple with its ethics as well as its role in technological advancement and global citizenship. While intriguing research on curiosity has occurred in numerous disciplines for decades, no rigorously cross-disciplinary study has existed—until now. Curiosity Studies stages an interdisciplinary conversation about what curiosity is and what resources it holds for human and ecological flourishing. These engaging essays are integrated into four clusters: scientific inquiry, educational practice, social relations, and transformative power. By exploring curiosity through the practice of scientific inquiry, the contours of human learning, the stakes of social difference, and the potential of radical imagination, these clusters focus and reinvigorate the study of this universal but slippery phenomenon: the desire to know. Against the assumption that curiosity is neutral, this volume insists that curiosity has a history and a political import and requires precision to define and operationalize. As various fields deepen its analysis, a new ecosystem for knowledge production can flourish, driven by real-world problems and a commitment to solve them in collaboration. By paying particular attention to pedagogy throughout, Curiosity Studies equips us to live critically and creatively in what might be called our new Age of Curiosity.Contributors: Danielle S. Bassett, U of Pennsylvania; Barbara M. Benedict, Trinity College; Susan Engel, Williams College; Ellen K. Feder, American U; Kristina T. Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Narendra Keval; Christina León, Princeton U; Tyson Lewis, U of North Texas; Amy Marvin, U of Oregon; Hilary M. Schor, U of Southern California; Seeta Sistla, Hampshire College; Heather Anne Swanson, Aarhus U.Table of ContentsContentsForewordPamela Grossman and John L. Jackson Jr.Introduction: What Is Curiosity Studies?Perry Zurn and Arjun Shankar Part I. Interrogating the Scientific Enterprise1. Exploring the Costs of Curiosity: An Environmental Scientist’s DilemmaSeeta Sistla2. Curious Ecologies of Knowledge: More-than-Human AnthropologyHeather Anne Swanson3. Curiosity, Ethics, and the Medical Management of Intersex AnatomiesEllen K. FederPart II. Relearning How We Learn4. A Network Science of the Practice of CuriosityDanielle S. Bassett5. Why Should This Be So? The Waxing and Waning of Children’s CuriositySusan Engel6. The Dude Abides, or, Why Curiosity Is Important for Education TodayTyson Lewis7. “The Campus is Sick”: Capitalist Curiosity and Student Mental HealthArjun ShankarPart III. Reimagining How We Relate8. Autism, Neurodiversity, and CuriosityKristina T. Johnson9. Obstacles to Curiosity and Concern: Exploring the Racist ImaginationNarendra Keval10. Curious Entanglements: Opacity and Ethical Relation in Latina/o AestheticsChristina León11. Transsexuality, the Curio, and the Transgender Tipping PointAmy MarvinPart IV. Deconstructing the Status Quo12. Peeping and Transgression: Curiosity and Collecting in English LiteratureBarbara M. Benedict13. Curiosity and Political ResistancePerry Zurn14. Curiosity at the End of the World: Women, Fiction, ElectricityHilary M. SchorConclusion: On Teaching CuriosityArjun Shankar and Perry Zurn AfterwordHelga NowotnyAcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat are the implications of how we talk about apocalypse? A new philosophical field has emerged. “Existential risk” studies any real or hypothetical human extinction event in the near or distant future. This movement examines catastrophes ranging from runaway global warming to nuclear warfare to malevolent artificial intelligence, deploying a curious mix of utilitarian ethics, statistical risk analysis, and, controversially, a transhuman advocacy that would aim to supersede almost all extinction scenarios. The proponents of existential risk thinking, led by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, have seen their work gain immense popularity, attracting endorsement from Bill Gates and Elon Musk, millions of dollars, and millions of views. Calamity Theory is the first book to examine the rise of this thinking and its failures to acknowledge the ways some communities and lifeways are more at risk than others and what it implies about human extinction.Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.Table of ContentsIntroduction: What Is Existential Risk?1. Endgame Philosophy2. Probability and Speculation3. The Existential Roots of Existential RiskConclusion: Opening the “Letter from Utopia”Acknowledgments

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collective engages and mirrors the critical need for energy justice and transformation Solarities considers the possibilities of organizing societies and economies around solar energy, and the challenges of a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Far from presenting solarity as a utopian solution to the climate crisis, it critically examines the ambiguous potentials of solarities: plural, situated, and often contradictory. Here, a diverse collective of activists, scholars, and practitioners critically engage a wide range of relationships and orientations to the sun. They consider the material and infrastructural dimensions of solar power, the decolonial and feminist promises of decentralized energy, solarian relations with more-than-human kin, and the problem of oppressive and weaponized solarities. Solarities imagines—and demands— possibilities for energy justice in this transition.Trade Review "Hope is abundant in these pages. Readers are electrified with ideas for equitable energy regimes, mirroring the excited electrons that ambulate to generate electricity in solar panels. "—Antipode

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores ecological impasses and opportunities of our fossil-fueled civilization It is more and more obvious that our fossilized civilization has no sustainable future. It is an ecological Ponzi scheme stealing away the lives of countless species and the wellbeing of future generations in exchange for contemporary conveniences and the luxuries of a small subset of the human population. Yet a civilization wholly beyond fossils still seems difficult to grasp. In No More Fossils, Dominic Boyer tells the story of the rise of fossil civilization through successive phases of sucropolitics (plantation sugar), carbopolitics (industrial coal), and petropolitics (oily automobility and plasticity), showing what tethers us to the ecocidal trajectory of petroculture today and what it will take to overcome the forces that mire us in place. He also looks ahead toward the world that the rapid electrification of vehicles, buildings, and power is creating. What can we do to make electroculture more just and sustainable than the petroculture we are leaving behind?

Read more less

Book SynopsisEnvironmentalism and social sciences appear to be in a period of disorientation and perhaps transition. In this innovative collection, leading international thinkers explore the notion that one explanation for the current malaise of the "politics of ecology" is that we increasingly find ourselves negotiating "technonatural" space/times. International contributors map the political ecologies of our technonatural present and indicate possible paths for technonatural futures. The term "technonatures" is in debt to a long line of environmental cultural theory from Raymond Williams onwards, problematizing the idea that a politics of the environment can be usefully grounded in terms of the rhetoric of defending the pure, the authentic, or an idealized past solely in terms of the ecological or the natural. In using the term "technonatures" as an organizing myth and metaphor for thinking about the politics of nature in contemporary times, this collection seeks to explore one increasingly pronounced dimension of the social natures discussion. Technonatures highlights a growing range of voices considering the claim that we are not only inhabiting diverse social natures but that within such natures our knowledge of our worlds is ever more technologically mediated, produced, enacted, and contested.Trade Review"Environmental sociologists and geographers will find this book entertaining and enlightening as well as sugggestive of new ways of looking at the environment." -- A.A. Hickey, Western Carolina University -- CHOICE, April 2010, 201004"This anthology probes the changing relationships between society and the natural environment. It examines the popular sense that environmentalists have lost their way. How have they failed to appeal to broad publics? Why have public perceptions of environmental risk and climate change not been translated into political will? Technonatures shows the different ways that nature increasingly reflects human interventions--from medical innovations to agricultural and conservation practice to the continental scale of the impacts of human-introduced pests. This is a book that offers lucid insights and will appeal to a broad audience." -- Rob Shields, Henry Marshall Tory Research Chair, Departments of Sociology andArt and Design, University of Alberta. He is the founding editorof Space and Culture. -- 200905Table of ContentsTable of Contents for Technonatues: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-first Century , edited by Damian F. White and Chris Wilbert Introduction: Inhabiting Technonatural Space/Times | Damian F. White and Chris Wilbert Part One: Conceptualizing Technonatural Time/Spaces Chapter One: Governing Global Environmental Flows: Ecological Modernization in Technonatural Time/Spaces | Peter Oosterveer Chapter Two: Circulations and Metabolisms: (Hybrid) Natures and (Cyborgs) Cities | Erik Swyngedouw Chapter Three: The Cellphone-in-the-Countryside: On Some of the Ironic Spatialities of Technonature | Mike Michael Chapter Four: Living Cities: Towards a Politics of Conviviality | Steve Hinchcliffe and Sarah Whatmore Part Two: Experiencing Technonatural Cultures Chapter Five: Boundaries and Border Wars: DES, Technology, and Environmental Justice | Julie Sze Chapter Six: Critical Mass: How Built Bodies Can Help Forge Environmental Futures | Fletcher Linder Chapter Seven: Living Betwwen Nature and Technoogy: The Suburban Constitution of Environmentalism in Australia | Aidan Davison Part Three: Technonatural Present-Futures Chapter Eight: The Property Boundaries/Boundary Properties in Technonatural Studies: âInventing the Futureâ | Timothy W. Luke Chapter Nine: Fluid Architectures: Ecologies of Hybrid Urbanism | Simon Guy Chapter Ten: A Post-industrial Green Economy: The New Productive Forces and the Crisis of the Academic Left | Brian Milani Contributors Index Contributors Aidan Davison is a lecturer in human geography and environmental studies at the University of Tasmania. His interdisciplinary research interests arise at intersections of socio-cultural themes of nature, technology, and sustainability. The author of Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001), he has published many articles and book chapters on topics such as public perceptions of biotechnology, Australian environmentalism, and education for sustainability. Simon Guy is a professor of architecture at the University of Manchester. His research aims to critically understand the co-evolution of design and development strategies and socio-economic processes shaping cities. His publications include (with S. Moore) Sustainable Architectures: Cultures and Natures in Europe and North America (Oxford: Spon, 2005) and (with Elizabeth Shove) A Sociology of Energy, Buildings, and the Environment: Constructing Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2000). Steve Hinchliffe is a reader in environmental geography and director of research for geography at the Open University. He works on the geographies of nature, non-humans, and environments. He is author and editor of numerous books and articles on issues ranging from risk and food to biosecurity, urban ecologies, and nature conservation. His research focuses on the âmaking of things in practicesâ and draws together insights from science and technology studies (STS) and geography. His publications include Geographies of Nature: Societies, Environments, Ecologies (London: Sage, 2007); and (with Kathryn Woodward) The Natural and the Social: Change, Risk and Uncertainty , second edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Fletcher Linder is an associate professor of anthropology at James Madison University. He has studied and published across a variety of topics, including sports and aesthetics, illness experience and care, interpersonal violence, and environmental politics. He has conducted ethnographic, epidemiological, urban-landscape, and community-based intervention research in such areas as the American South, California, Canada, and Australia. He is presently completing a monograph titled âWaiting for Arnold: Image, Body Discipline, and Late Capitalism.â Timothy W. Luke is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He also is the Program Chair for Government and International Affairs in the School of Public and International Affairs, and founding Director of the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Social Theory (ASPECT) in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.His publications include Capitalism, Democracy and Ecology: Departing from Marx (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1999); The Politics of Cyber Space (co-edited with Chris Toulouseâ New York: Routledge, 1998); and Eco Critique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy and Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). The author of more than 150 journal articles and edited book chapters, he writes extensively on the politics of museums as well environmental politics, international affairs, and social theory. Mike Michael is a professor of sociology of science and technology, and director of the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process, in the sociology department, Goldsmiths, University of London. His research is concerned with a number of areas, notably the public understanding of science; the sociology of mundane technologies; the sociology of biomedical innovation; the sociology of everyday life; animals and society; and materiality and sociality. He is the author of Technoscience and Everyday Life: The Complex Simplicities of the Mundane (Bristol: Open University Press, 2006); Science, Social Theory, and Public Knowledge (with Alan IrwinâBristol: Open University Press, 2003); Reconnecting Culture, Technology, and Nature: From Society to Heterogeneity (London: Routledge, 2002); and Constructing Identities: The Social, the Nonhuman, and Change (London: Sage, 1996). Brian Milani is an associate of the Transformative Learning Centre and coordinator of the Business and Environment Program at York Universityâs Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is author of Designing the Green Economy (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) and a member of the Coalition for a Green Economy. His focus for more than two decades has been on creating grassroots ecological alternatives through community development, construction, education, and general trouble making. He was co-founder of Green City Construction and is the director of Torontoâs long-running course on green economic alternatives, âThe Green Economy at the Labour Education Centre,â featuring Torontoâs cutting-edge eco-innovators.He has also been involved with green labour activities at the Labour Council of Toronto and Carpenters Local 27. Peter Oosterveer is a senior lecturer in environmental policy in the Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen University. He has published extensively on globalization and the sustainability of food production and consumption; the labelling and certification of food; environmental policy and management in Africa; and social theory and âa sociology of flows.â Erik Swyngedouw is a professor of geography at the University of Manchesterâs School of Environment and Development. From the late 1980s until 2006 he taught at Oxford University, latterly as Professor of Geography, and was a Fellow of St. Peterâs College. His research focuses on political-economic analysis of contemporary capitalism. He has produced several major works on economic globalization, regional development, finance, and urbanization. Recently his interests have turned to political-ecological themes and the transformation of nature, notably water issues, in Ecuador, Spain, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe. His publications include Globalizations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004); Social Power and the Urbanization of Waterâ Flows of Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and (with F. Moulaert and A. Rodriguez, eds.), The Globalized City: Economic Restructuring and Social Polarization in European Cities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Julie Sze is associate professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis, as well as the founding director of the Environmental Justice project for UC Davisâs John Muir Institute for the Environment. Szeâs book, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice , won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, awarded annually to the best published book in American studies. Szeâs research investigates environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender, and power; and community health and activism. She has published on a wide range of topics such as energy and air polution activism; toxicity; the cultural politics of the Hummer, and on environmental justice novels and cultural production. Sarah Whatmore is a professor of geography and director of the International Graduate School at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment/ School of Geography. Her research focuses on relations between people and the mate

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe history of American elections changed profoundly on the night of November 4, 1952. An outside-the-box approach to predicting winners from early returns with new tools—computers—was launched live and untested on the newest medium for news: television. Like exhibits in a freak show, computers were referred to as “electronic brains” and “mechanical monsters.” Yet this innovation would help fuel an obsession with numbers as a way of understanding and shaping politics. It would engender controversy down to our own time. And it would herald a future in which the public square would go digital. The gamble was fueled by a crisis of credibility stemming from faulty election-night forecasts four years earlier, in 1948, combined with a lackluster presentation of returns. What transpired in 1952 is a complex tale of responses to innovation, which Ira Chinoy makes understandable via a surprising history of election nights as venues for rolling out

Read more less

Book SynopsisIt is a puzzle that while academic research has increased in specialization, the important and complex problems facing humans urgently require a synthesis of understanding. This unique collaboration attempts to address such a problem by bringing together a host of prominent scholars from across the sciences to offer new insights into predicting the future. They demonstrate that long-term trends and short-term incentives need to be understood in order to adopt effective policies, or even to comprehend where we currently stand and the sort of future that awaits us.Developing novel techniques to forecast global conditions, the authors tackle important questions such as: What does the future hold? How can we sustain prosperity? Are we likely to have less war and genocide? Are nuclear weapons destined to spread to unstable countries? What environmental scarcities and conflicts are we likely to face? Each chapter is built around cause and effect relationships based on empirical evidence that creates a unified predictive model of global economic and political conditions. The limits and possibilities of scientific prediction are also explored, as are the physical, biological, and social properties of the global system.This book will have a wide appeal among physical and social scientists interested in the linkages between scientific method and the prediction of future human behavior and global conditions.Contributors: R.D. Alexander, B. Bueno de Mesquita, J.D. Farmer, J. Geanakoplos, J. Holland, S. di Iorio, M.S. Karasik, U. Luterbacher, S.W. Polachek, D. Rohner, G. Schneider, J.D. Singer, D.F. Sprinz, A. Tago, F.W. Wayman, E. Wiegandt, D. Wilkinson, P.R. Williamson, E.O. WilsonTable of ContentsContents: Preface and Introduction: Overview of Why this Book Matters Frank W. Wayman, Paul R. Williamson, Solomon W. Polachek and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita PART I. THE PROMISE OF GLOBAL FORECASTING 1. Scientific Prediction and the Human Condition Frank W. Wayman 2. Organizing Diverse Contributions to Global Forecasting Paul R. Williamson PART II. HUMAN NATURE AND PREDICTION Editors' Introduction to Part II Frank W. Wayman 3. Consilience: the Role of Human Nature in the Emergence of Social Artifacts Edward O. Wilson 4. Darwin's Challenges and the Future of Human Society Richard Alexander PART III. THE VALUE OF THE FUTURE Editors' Introduction to Part III Frank W. Wayman 5. Properly Discounting the Future: Using Predictions in an Uncertain World J. Doyne Farmer and John Geanakoplos 6. Long-Term Policy Problems: Definition, Origins, and Responses Detlef F. Sprinz 7. Explaining and Predicting Future Environmental Scarcities and Conflict Urs Luterbacher, Dominic Rohner and Ellen Wiegandt PART IV. SOME PROBLEMS ADDRESSED VIA MODELING Editors' Introduction to Part IV Frank W. Wayman 8. Forecasting nuclear weapons proliferation: a hazard model Atsushi Tago and J. David Singer 9. Forecasting Political Developments with the Help of Financial Markets Gerald Schneider PART V. THE GLOBAL SYSTEM AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF PREDICTION Editors' Introduction to Part V Frank W. Wayman 10. Glimpses of the Future John Holland 11. Forecasting the Evolution of Cultural Collisions Using Annealing-Nucleation Models Myron S. Karasik 12. Power Structure Fluctuations in the "Longue Durée" of the World System David Wilkinson 13. From Altruism to the Future Frequency of War: How Consilient Explanation Differs from Prediction Frank W. Wayman 14. System Change and Richardson Processes: Application of Social Field Theory Paul R. Williamson 15. Computational Dynamic Modeling of the Global State Space Paul R. Williamson PART VI. NEW APPROACHES 16. Scientific Revolutions and the Advancement of Explanation and Prediction Frank W. Wayman 17. Innovations in Forecasting the Future that One Can Learn from Prediction Solomon W. Polachek 18. Predicting the Future to Shape the Future Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the same way as there are many futures, not just one, there are many ways to conceive and practice foresight. The challenge of the great turning point of our civilization is to free ourselves from our prejudices in order to imagine and build desirable futures. The process is, by nature, ethical and prospective. In a complex, uncertain and geopolitically transforming world, we must be open to the diversity of cultures and the different perceptions of the future. This requires us to reflect on the purpose and means of our societies. Futures proposes different cultural and ethical views on civilizational transformation by offering a rare, transnational panorama of the visions of the future in a European, American and Chinese context. Through numerous examples, this book illustrates how foresight is practiced and what this can achieve in strategic terms.Table of ContentsForeword by May East xi Foreword by Patrick Scauflaire xiii Author Biographies xvii Introduction xxvCarine DARTIGUEPEYROU and Michel SALOFF-COSTE Part 1 Epistemological Outlines 1 Chapter 1 Foresight and Civilization 3Michel SALOFF-COSTE 1.1 An unpredictable but interesting future 3 1.2 From the melting pot of popular media to the diversity of forward-looking points of view 5 1.3 Changing civilization, the dynamics of disruptions 5 1.4 Examples of megatrends structuring the future 7 1.5 Foresight epistemology and epistemology of foresight 8 Chapter 2 Cultures and Trajectories 11Jean-Éric AUBERT 2.1 Foundations of civilizations 11 2.2 The “sinicization” of the world and the exercise of power 14 2.3 The pressure on the West and the risks of disintegration 16 2.4 The South and the modernization of societies 17 2.5 Confrontations and conflicts 18 2.6 Facing climate change 19 2.7 Conclusion 21 Chapter 3 Forward-Looking Design of Evolution 23Francis JUTAND 3.1 The search to answer questions about the future 24 3.2 Foresight as the design of human society 25 3.3 History 26 3.4 The dynamics of collective forces 28 3.5 The spiritual questioning 29 3.6 The active imagination of the future 30 Part 2 Foresight at the Service of Action 33 Chapter 4 A European Perspective on Foresight 35Laurent BONTOUX 4.1 Understanding foresight applied to European policies 35 4.2 Foresight for European policies in practice 37 4.2.1 Context 37 4.2.2 Methods 39 4.2.3 A 2040 vision for the customs union 42 4.2.4 Reference scenarios for long-term strategic thinking 44 4.2.5 Foresight for better regulation 45 4.2.6 Short formats to engage decision-makers 45 4.3 How can “good” foresight be achieved? 46 4.4 Conclusion 46 Chapter 5 Foresight in Order to Act Ethically 49Carine DARTIGUEPEYROU 5.1 Analyzing megatrends to question the future 49 5.2 Defining possible bifurcations and disruptions in order to accelerate transitions 52 5.3 Acting on socio-economic trajectories in order to make choices 56 5.4 Conclusion 58 Chapter 6 Foresight at the Service of Innovation 59Nathalie POPIOLEK 6.1 The art of deciding in an uncertain world 60 6.1.1 The essence and role of foresight 60 6.1.2 A holistic and operational approach 61 6.2 Innovation strategy in companies in the context of transition 63 6.2.1 The new industrial and societal situation 64 6.2.2 The different innovation strategies 65 6.3 Foresight and support for innovation in companies 67 6.3.1 Analysis of the innovative ecosystem 67 6.3.2 Consequences of the innovative investment 68 6.3.3 Foresight approach and radical innovation 69 6.4 Conclusion 70 Chapter 7 Acting and Evaluating through Values in the Long Term 73Valérie KAUFFMANN 7.1 The question of foresight applied to territories 73 7.2 Initiating change with action research 74 7.2.1 Better understanding of the issues at work 74 7.2.2 From the initiation of the project to the collective construction process 75 7.2.3 Getting to grips with the subject: integrating biodiversity? Field surveys 75 7.3 The need for dialogue: the values approach 76 7.3.1 The value approach to biodiversity 77 7.3.2 The compass, a tool for territorial strategy through the means of values 77 7.3.3 Entry through values: deciphering 78 7.4 From principles to proposals and means of action 79 7.4.1 Biodiversity as a common good 79 7.4.2 The ethics of dialogue 80 7.4.3 Acting over time 80 7.4.4 Individual and collective responsibilities 81 7.4.5 Towards a compass for territorial foresight 81 Part 3 Scenarios for the Future 83 Chapter 8 Changing the Thinking Mode 85Zhouying JIN 8.1 The challenges facing human beings in the 21st century 85 8.2 Deep concern over the direction of human evolution as well as technological development 87 8.2.1 Concerns about the direction of human evolution 87 8.2.2 The imminent disaster facing science and technology 87 8.2.3 Are human beings ready for the negative impact of technological innovation? 88 8.3 The crisis of so-called human–machine civilization driven by the theory of scientific and technological omnipotence 89 8.3.1 An ideal outcome 89 8.3.2 A tragic outcome 90 8.3.3 Five “Wars” among three categories of species 91 8.4 A new understanding of technology 92 8.4.1 Soft technology that has been neglected for a long time 92 8.4.2 Soft technology, another paradigm of technology 92 8.4.3 Human beings must regulate technology 93 8.4.4 It is not enough just to regulate and control 94 8.5 What kind of civilization should human beings pursue? 95 8.5.1 The essence of Industrial Civilization 95 8.5.2 Exploring the future evolution of humanity from social-humanity perspectives – the sublimation and perfection of human nature 95 8.5.3 Global Civilization 96 8.6 The difficult task of creating a “Global Civilization” 97 8.7 Beyond Global Civilization – paradigm shift: from Global civilization to Great Civilization 97 8.7.1 Human beings should pursue a higher level of civilization than Global Civilization – Great Civilization 97 8.7.2 The significance of Great Civilization 98 8.8 Can humans eventually create a Great Civilization? 98 8.9 Sustainable development – paradigm shift of human survival and development 99 8.10 Changing the thinking mode is the key for paradigm shift 100 Chapter 9 Foresight Shock, Facing the Inevitable Impact of the Climate Crisis 103Herman GYR and Lisa FRIEDMAN 9.1 Looking back to look forward 105 9.2 When foresight becomes shocking: tipping points 107 9.3 The race is on 108 9.4 A profound leadership moment 109 9.5 From foresight shock to climate action 109 9.6 The emergence of the regenerative era 110 9.7 Positive signals of the emerging regenerative era 112 9.8 From foresight shock to mobilizing action at scale: leadership practices 113 9.9 Three leadership practices for building the regenerative era 113 9.9.1 Visionary strategic leadership: from signals to strategy 115 9.9.2 Innovation leadership: from strategy to impact 117 9.9.3 Emotional leadership 118 Chapter 10 Post-Covid-19 Governance: Two Scenarios 123Marc LUYCKX GHISI 10.1 Our approach to foresight 123 10.2 The shock strategy 124 10.2.1 The possibility of a major economic crisis in the near future 124 10.2.2 The two possible scenarios 127 10.3 Conclusion 133 Postface 135Pierre GIORGINI References 145 List of Authors 161 Index 163

Read more less

Book SynopsisCOVID-19 wrecked the plans and strategies of organizations everywhere, while injecting greater uncertainty into a world already undergoing disruptive social and technological change. Strategic Foresight can help us navigate through the recovery and beyond. Strategic Foresight is a systematic, intelligence-gathering, vision-building process that helps us manage uncertainty by discerning plausible alternative futures and applying the insights to present-day planning. It is ideally suited to a world upended by the pandemic and rapid transformations in the way we live, work and interact. Using approachable language and a multitude of examples, Learning from Tomorrow shows how Strategic Foresight broadens our perspectives, exposes opportunities and risks, and opens our minds to innovation in a post-pandemic world. It is essential reading for organizational leaders and those responsible for developing strategies, scenarios, policies and plans.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAI and Popular Culture explores the development and social significance of artificial intelligence by looking at representations in fiction, film and television, as well as examining the effect of AI technologies on the way we consume culture. Lee Barron traces the evolution of AI – from the Turing Machine to deep learning, to interrogate the key issues and debates. He uses examples of AI from pop culture to help us understand how the technology is changing aspects of society from surveillance and work to human relationships with technology. AI and Popular Culture sheds light on how artificial intelligence has changed our world and helps you to understand where it might take us next. It also makes significant contributions to Media and Cultural Studies, Humanities, and Social Sciences, as well as to subjects such as AI Ethics and Society and Computing.Table of ContentsIntroduction- The Age of AI Technics Chapter 1. The Development of Artificial Intelligence and AI Debates Chapter 2. AI and Literature Chapter 3. AI and Film Chapter 4. AI and Television Chapter 5. AI Culture: Living with Artificial Intelligence Conclusion- AI Futures: The Terminator, Kurzweil or Machine Learning Scenario?

Read more less

Book SynopsisH.G. Wells has been branded as a novelist who betrayed his vocation. But Wells saw himself as what we would today call a public intellectual. How credible is this claim? And what happens when we look at him in this way? So typecast has Wells’s reputation become that neither of these questions has been previously asked, but when we look at Wells as a thinker we find a whole new quality to his later works, which have invariably been dismissed by literary scholars as of low quality or even not worth reading. In particular, Wells’s prescience as a prophet of our current environmental problems stands out - for example, he foresaw anthropogenic climate change as early as 1931. Popular conceptions of Wells as racist, imperialist and eugenicist are also challenged. What emerges is a new perspective on a significant public intellectual and- pioneering prophet of the twenty-first century.Table of ContentsForeword by Patrick Parrinder Introduction: H.G. Wells, the Disorderly Prophet Wells as Some Sort of Philosopher Days of Future Past: Wells as Historian and Prophet Should Wells Be Cancelled? The Dream of Cosmopolis: Wells and Politics God, Science and Mr Wells Wells and Human Ecology Appendix I: The Philosophical Works of H.G. Wells Appendix II: The Prophecies of H.G. Wells

Read more less

Book SynopsisSocial Impact Assessment (SIA) is the process of analysing and managing the intended and unintended consequences on the human environment of planned interventions (policies, programmes, plans, projects) so as to bring about a more sustainable and equitable biophysical and human environment. This important Handbook presents an indispensable overview of the range of new methods and of the conceptual advances in SIA.Recent increased attention to social considerations has led to substantial development in the techniques useful to, and the thinking in, SIA. A distinguished group of contributors provides an up-to-date and comprehensive account of the cutting-edge in SIA development.This Handbook outlines a new understanding and definition of SIA and, as such, will be an invaluable reference tool for both practitioners and scholars at different levels working in the fields of SIA and environmental studies (including both impact assessment and management).Trade Review'This book provides a valuable addition to the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) literature. While the volume addresses several good examples of "how to" case studies it also firmly addresses the importance of the need for firm conceptual and theoretical guidelines for SIA practice. . . the volume is an excellent contribution to the SIA literature and I highly recommend it to both practitioner and researcher alike.' -- Geoff Syme, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management'An innovative collection which takes social impact assessment to the frontiers of environmental and social policy and citizen awareness. Unusually, this collection includes both sophisticated quantitative tools and equally important chapters on participation, stakeholder involvement and environmental mediation. A most valuable source book.' -- Michael Redclift, King's College, London, UKTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Conceptual and Methodological Advances in Social Impact Assessment Frank Vanclay PART I: CONCEPTUAL ADVANCES IN SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2. Undertaking Longitudinal Research Nick Taylor, Colin Goodrich, Gerard Fitzgerald and Wayne McClintock 3. Using Local Knowledge James Baines, Wayne McClintock, Nick Taylor and Brigid Buckenham 4. Learning from Participatory Land Management Neil Powell and Janice Jiggins 5. Integrating Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Roel Slootweg, Frank Vanclay and Marlies van Schooten 6. Conceptualizing Social Change Processes and Social Impacts Marlies van Schooten, Frank Vanclay and Roel Slootweg 7. Integrating Health and Social Impact Assessment Robert Rattle and Roy E. Kwiatkowski 8. An Ecological Model of Wellbeing Davianna Pomaika’i McGregor, Paula Tanemura Morelli, Jon Kei Matsuoka and Luciano Minerbi PART II: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR BEST PRACTICE 9. Theory Formation and Application in Social Impact Assessment Henk Becker 10. Computer-based Qualitative Data Methods Gerard Fitzgerald 11. Assessing Gender Impacts Bina Srinivasan and Lyla Mehta 12. Socioeconomic Modelling for Estimating Intergenerational Impacts Gijs Dekkers 13. Using Geographic Information Systems for Cultural Impact Assessment Luciano Minerbi, Davianna Pomaika’i McGregor and Jon Kei Matsuoka 14. Vulnerability and Capacity Measurement Mark Fenton, Sheridan Coakes and Nadine Marshall 15. Citizen Values Assessment Annelies Stolp 16. Involving the Public Richard Roberts 17. Handling Complex Societal Problems Dorien DeTombe 18. Environmental Mediation Helen Ross Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe commons as a contested political idea has been continually articulated and reproduced in many disciplines and in relation to specific historical and geographical contexts. Since the 1960s, the concept of commons has started to play an increasingly important role in the field of urban studies. While commons are usually perceived as the material spaces of the city such as streets, parks, public spaces, etc., they are also perceived as the immaterial public realm—including subaltern and mainstream culture, knowledge, language, and modes of sociality. As the commoning process continuously involves the substance of urban spaces, be it physical or virtual, the concept of commons has actively contributed to reshaping spatial imaginaries such as urban islands, archipelagos, and thresholds.This issue of New Geographies proposes the concept of commons as a mode of thinking that challenges assumptions in the design disciplines such as public and private spaces, local and regional geographies, and capital and state interventions. It expands the production of space as the commons into a planetary territory all the way from the intimate and subjective scale of the body to the connected material and immaterial spaces. In doing so, NG 12 aims to foreground the significance of political thinking in the process of space production, and invites to imagine alternative social relations and modes of urbanization.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Arab region is in crisis and it is easy to succumb to pessimism about its future. This report, however, embraces a vision of hope: one that illustrates the many ways in which the region can act to ensure its future security and prosperity. It envisages a day when authoritarianism, occupation, foreign domination and all forms of discrimination end. A vision of human development and economic prosperity implies that citizens are free to voice their opinions and practice their beliefs without fear, the rule of law applies equally to all, and the basic necessities for a decent life are affordable even for the least fortunate. It calls for choices to be made in order to lay the foundations of an inclusive society, so as not to slip further into a spiral of deepening violence, instability and recession that would undermine development for generations to come.This report presents a vision of improved governance, advanced social justice and human well-being, transformed economies, and intensified regional integration; in short, an Arab region at peace, stable and prosperous.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMen are disadvantaged in the marriage markets of many Asian countries, and in some cases their response is to look abroad for a partner. Receiving countries for marriage migrants include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, while the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and parts of mainland China supply wives to these territories. In the absence of uniform international regulations concerning the rights and obligations of partners, such unions are treated differently in different jurisdiction. In extreme cases migrants or their children become stateless, and when marriages break down, migrants sometimes face major legal problems.In such circumstances, marriage migrants are often portrayed as powerless, uneducated victims. Rejecting this perspective, the authors in this volume explore the agency of women who migrate abroad to acquire opportunities unavailable to them in their homelands. They show that the trajectories of marriage migrants are often not a simple movement from home to destination but can involve return, repeated, or extended migrations, and that these transitions that can alter geographies of power in economics, nationality or ethnicity. Based on features shared by many marriage migrants, the book identifies them as an emerging minority at the frontier of the nation-state, a group whose status may well carry over to future generations.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less