Best of
Futurism

2015

The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence


Tim Urban - 2015
    The topic everyone in the world should be talking about.

CUNNING PLANS: Talks By Warren Ellis


Warren Ellis - 2015
    CUNNING PLANS collects several of NYT-bestselling author Warren Ellis' lectures on the nature of the haunted future and the secrets of deep history, given in recent years at events in London, New York, Los Angeles and Berlin.

Breaking Smart - Season 1


Venkatesh G. Rao - 2015
    Season 1, comprising 20 essays totaling approximately 30,000 words, is written by Venkatesh Rao and illustrated by Grace Witherell. This inaugural season is an in-depth exploration of Marc Andreessen’s observation that “software is eating the world.”

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World


Peter H. Diamandis - 2015
    Part One focuses on the exponential technologies that are disrupting today’s Fortune 500 companies and enabling upstart entrepreneurs to go from "I’ve got an idea" to "I run a billion-dollar company" far faster than ever before. The authors provide exceptional insight into the power of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, robotics, networks and sensors, and synthetic biology. Part Two of the book focuses on the Psychology of Bold, drawing on insights from billionaire entrepreneurs Larry Page, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos. In addition, Diamandis reveals his entrepreneurial secrets garnered from building fifteen companies, including such audacious ventures as Singularity University, XPRIZE, Planetary Resources, and Human Longevity, Inc. Finally, Bold closes with a look at the best practices that allow anyone to leverage today’s hyper-connected crowd like never before. Here, the authors teach how to design and use incentive competitions, launch million-dollar crowdfunding campaigns to tap into ten’s of billions of dollars of capital, and finally how to build communities—armies of exponentially enabled individuals willing and able to help today’s entrepreneurs make their boldest dreams come true.Bold is both a manifesto and a manual. It is today’s exponential entrepreneur’s go-to resource on the use of emerging technologies, thinking at scale, and the awesome power of crowd-powered tools.

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future


Martin Ford - 2015
    In Rise of the Robots, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford argues that this is absolutely not the case. As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making “good jobs” obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart software. As progress continues, blue and white collar jobs alike will evaporate, squeezing working- and middle-class families ever further. At the same time, households are under assault from exploding costs, especially from the two major industries—education and health care—that, so far, have not been transformed by information technology. The result could well be massive unemployment and inequality as well as the implosion of the consumer economy itself.In Rise of the Robots, Ford details what machine intelligence and robotics can accomplish, and implores employers, scholars, and policy makers alike to face the implications. The past solutions to technological disruption, especially more training and education, aren't going to work, and we must decide, now, whether the future will see broad-based prosperity or catastrophic levels of inequality and economic insecurity. Rise of the Robots is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what accelerating technology means for their own economic prospects—not to mention those of their children—as well as for society as a whole.

The Hedonistic Imperative


David Pearce - 2015
     The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture - a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event. Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in the technically advanced nations take its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as psychological pain, too, could ever be banished is equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and ethical choice.

Ccru: Writings 1997-2003


Ccru - 2015
    Contents include Cthulhu Club and Cybergothic commentary, a multitude of hyperstitional portraits, theory-fiction diagonals, Mu ethnography, a detailed elaboration of the Pandemonium system, The Book of Paths, Axsys-AOE exposures, and more.

After Progress: Reason and Religion at the End of the Industrial Age


John Michael Greer - 2015
    Most people believe in its inherent value as enthusiastically and uncritically as medieval peasants believed in heaven and hell. Our faith in progress drives the popular insistence that peak oil and climate change don't actually matter—after all, our lab-coated high priests will surely bring forth yet another miracle to save us all.Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth.After Progress addresses this looming paradigm shift, exploring the shape of history from a perspective on the far side of the coming crisis. John Michael Greer's startling examination of the role our belief systems play in the evolution of our collective consciousness is required reading for anyone concerned about making sense of the future at a time when we must seek new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.John Michael Greer is a scholar of ecological history and an internationally renowned futurist whose blog, The Archdruid Report, has become one of the most widely cited online resources dealing with the fate of industrial society. He is the author of over thirty books, including Green Wizardry and The Long Descent.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future: A 29-Minute Summary.


Bern Bolo - 2015
     This summary will let you taste on “how and what” Elon musk struggles to show his “SPARKS” in levels, Why his capable and legendary “like “ the famous Edison, Ford and Jobs. Based from the original book of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance, tell you his experience in conversation with Musk. Important Lessons in this Elon Musk Summary • How to get the most out of people who work for you. • How to understand the value of making your own stuff, than buying them. • How to be brave in going out from your comfort zone. • How to treat challenges that comes your way as an opportunity. • How to believe in your dreams, and then make others believe after. • How to spot an opportunity when it comes your way. • How to keep yourself open to achieve bigger and greater things, and ultimately, your fullest potential. • How to dream big and then chase it. • How to give the value your family deserves. • How to appreciate the value of caring for Mother Earth and exercise ways to protect her and lessen the damage she has to take. • How to address issues and conflicts. • How to be persistent in your endeavors. More inside in this Biographies & Memoirs Summary • A brief yet accurate summary on the life of Elon Musk, detailed out in individual chapters. • Correct and concise synopsis of the various chapters of the book. • Silly and charming quotes that will tickle your fancy at the start of each chapters. • Personal and professional lessons from the life of Elon Musk on how to dare dream big and conquer your fears. Why you musy by this summary My team and I will let you sift through Elon’s captivating world in 29 minutes by reading this synopsis. “I like to be involved in things that change the world.” – Elon Reeve Musk. Surely, what Elon Musk had been doing in his companies have changed the world in so many ways. He has broken through the norm and boring routine practices to come up with technologies that has never before been seen by anyone. This summary show many things on how Elon Musk proved that he did changed the world. From his ancestors to his early life in Africa, to his great migrations, to the funding of his first start-up businesses and to his eventually discovery of his vision and mission in life, this book will satiate your curiosity as to who Musk really is and what he is capable of doing. PLEASE NOTE: This is a 29-minute summary of Elon Musk and NOT the original book. Bern Bolo "The Bathroom Genius”

Obsidian Worlds


Jason Werbeloff - 2015
    Obsidian Worlds brings together his 11 best-selling sci-fi shorts into a mind-bending philosophical anthology.In Your Averaged Joe, a man’s headache is large enough to hold the multiverse. Q46F is an obsessive-compulsive android who finds love in a zombie-embroiled apocalypse. The end of the world isn’t all that bad – The Experience Machine will fulfil your every desire (and some you hadn’t considered). A sex bot dares to dream of freedom in Dinner with Flexi. But mind what you eat, because The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost. Don’t fret though: The Cryo Killer guarantees that your death will be painless, or your money back when you’re thawed. Unless, that is, you’re The Man with Two Legs.Plug into Obsidian Worlds for these and other immersive stories, including the hilarious Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer. Your brain will never be the same again.

How Long Will South Africa Survive?: The Looming Crisis


R.W. Johnson - 2015
    Now, after more than twenty years of ANC rule, he believes the situation has become so critical that the question must be posed again. He moves from an analysis of Jacob Zuma's rule to the increasingly dire state of the South African economy, concluding that the country is heading towards a likely International Monetary Fund bail-out which will in turn lead to a regime change of some kind. Johnson's analysis is strikingly original and cogently argued. He has for several decades now been a senior international commentator on South African affairs, known for his lucid analysis and complete lack of deference towards the conventional wisdom. He writes without fear or favour. This is a book for every South African.

Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World


Martin Adams - 2015
    Acknowledging the difficulties of overturning our prevailing economic models, Adams challenges the reader to think of new ways to understand our relationship to the limited resources of our earth, and proposes a shift away from land ownership to land stewardship. Marshaling carefully conceived economic analysis on monopoly, profit, wealth concentration, and taxation, the author advances an idea he calls land use contributions--entailing meaningful policy change that enables the value of land to be shared by communities, both urban and rural. Martin offers a vision for bringing about humanitarian policy changes through individual awareness, education, and legislative advocacy.Broadly speaking, there are only two ways human beings can make an income: They can either make an income by contributing to society, or they can extract an income from society. When people make money from land and other gifts of nature, they extract resources from society and consequently leave less resources behind for people who add value to society. However, when people rent land from their local communities, they pay a market value for the benefits they receive from their own communities.There are very few books on the market that go into great detail about how our present tendency to profit from land causes wealth inequality, poverty, economic depressions, social decline and environmental destruction. The vast majority of those books that do tie land profiteering to those effects have either been written by economists in a technical language inaccessible to the general population, or in language too vague to be easily understood by the uninitiated.The writing in Land, however, is surprisingly accessible. Aimed at readers interested in safeguarding the environment and living in a more beautiful and sustainable world, the book explores the hidden causes of social issues with logical reasoning and contagious passion. The second part explores an economic solution so radical yet so easily understandable that the reader cannot help but be transformed.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1Part I: The Cost of Ignorance1. The Production of Wealth 72. The Value of Location 103. The Free Market 134. Social Decline5. Business Recessions6. Ecocide7. Earth, Our Home8. Déjà Vu, AgainPart II: A Humanitarian Perspective9. Restoring Communities10. Keep What You Earn, Pay for What You Use11. Local Autonomy12. Affordable Housing13. Thriving Cities14. Sustainable Farming15. The Price of Peace16. Lasting Prosperity17. A New ParadigmEpilogue: A Personal NoteAcknowledgmentsAppendix: The Math Behind the ScienceReferences & Suggestions for Further ReadingEndnotes

The True Story of Human Evolutionary Genesis


Elvis Newman - 2015
    The view that the Earth was the physical and the biological center of the Universe was one such failed theory, one that cost many famous scientists most of their lives, and held back societies everywhere for decades or hundreds of years behind what is now considered a given truth. In the current work under consideration, religion and evolution theories come under scrutiny in light of recent scientific facts that dispute their most important claims about the origins of the species. In The True Story of Human Evolutionary Genesis, Elvis Newman presents both astounding facts and findings about the human genome, as well as paradigm-shifting theories emanating from Zecharia Sitchin's work around the Sumerian clay tablets. About the Author A futurist researcher with an MBA, Elvis Newman has worked as a ghost writer and researcher for well-known new age and futurist gurus of our times. He professes to insatiable interests in humanity's progress into the future and past lessons from history, because we all know that our most outrageous imaginations of the past will quickly become our most indispensable realities. His website is www.ElvisNewman.com.

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century


Ronald Bailey - 2015
    They have universally been proven wrong. Meanwhile, those who have bet on human resourcefulness have almost always been correct.In his widely praised book Ecoscam, Ronald Bailey strongly countered environmentalist alarmism, using facts to demonstrate just how wildly overstated many claims of impending ecological doom really were. Now, twenty years later, the Reason Magazine science correspondent is back to assess the future of humanity and the global biosphere. Bailey finds, contrary to popular belief, that many present ecological trends are quite positive. Including: Falling cancer incidence rates in the United States. The likelihood of a declining world population by mid-century. The abundant return of agricultural land to nature as the world reaches peak farmland. A proven link between increases in national wealth and reductions in air and water pollution Global warming is a problem, but the cost of clean energy could soon fall below that of fossil fuels.In The End of Doom, Bailey avoids polemics and offers a balanced, fact-based and ultimately hopeful perspective on our current environmental situation. Now isn't that a breath of fresh air?

Why Socialism?


Party for Socialism and Liberation - 2015
    The starting point is that for millions of people in the United States and around the world-for the vast majority, in fact-this capitalist system is not working. Why Socialism? It is a question that takes on greater urgency with every passing day in the United States and around the world. This book takes for granted that revolutionary change is needed. In that sense, the starting points for this discussion are the Pentagon's rule over oppressed people in other countries, mass incarceration and racist police murder here in the United States, and an economic system based on greed and exploitation. The Party for Socialism and Liberation was founded for this purpose: to intervene in a world struggle between the exploiters and the exploited. It is for the liberation of the majority-the workers and oppressed. It is for our future. To build a new society based on cooperation and revolutionary ideology to root out the scourges of capitalism: racism, war and injustice. If this is the type of future you envision, read this book.

The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Apocalypse


Phil Torres - 2015
    The world is cluttered with increasingly powerful advanced technologies. Global warming and biodiversity loss are unchecked catastrophes that will likely push society to the brink of collapse. How are we to respond to this situation? What can we do to maximize the probability of a positive outcome for our species? The End surveys the expanding wilderness of big-picture hazards before us. It offers a comprehensive and detailed analysis of our evolving existential predicament, which includes risks from synthetic biology, nanotechnology, nuclear weaponry, and (possibly, soon) superintelligence. But understanding the science of risks isn't enough to effectively mitigate them: one must also understand the social, political, and especially religious contexts in which advanced technologies are being developed. The End provides this knowledge by showing how faith-based belief in religious eschatologies (or end-times narratives) is inching us ever closer to a secular apocalypse. Action needs to be taken immediately to avert a disaster. The question is whether humanity will choose reason over faith, observation over revelation, and science over religion.

Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future


Michael Bess - 2015
    In the coming decades, advanced pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetic interventions will boost human physical and mental performance to unprecedented levels. People will have access to pills that make them stronger and faster, informatic devices will interface seamlessly with the human brain, and epigenetic modification may allow people to reshape their own physical and mental identity at will.  The results will no doubt be mixed. People will live longer, healthier lives and will generate staggeringly complex forms of knowledge. But these technologies also threaten to widen the rift between rich and poor, to generate new forms of social and economic division, and to force people into constant upgrades merely to keep up. Individuals may acquire such extreme capabilities that they will no longer be recognized as unambiguously human.  Award-winning historian Michael Bess provides a clear, nontechnical overview of cutting-edge biotechnology and paints a vivid portrait of a near-future society in which bioenhancement has become a part of everyday life. He surveys the ethical questions raised by the enhancement enterprise and explores the space for human agency in dealing with the challenges that these technologies will present.

Lincoln's Ethics


Thomas L. Carson - 2015
    Lincoln's Ethics addresses the question of whether Lincoln deserves his reputation as a moral exemplar. It discusses some of his morally controversial policies and presents the evidence for thinking he was morally virtuous in many important respects.

There's no time like the present


Paul B. Rainey - 2015
    A ‘Doctor Who’ devotee…A collector of cult paraphernalia…An excessive consumer of dairy products…An agoraphobic who has never met his best friends…Seemingly set in a world just like yours, this is the story of a group of friends and their relationships.Except the world now has access to the ultranet and can, if it wants to, download music that hasn’t been written yet, movies that haven’t been filmed yet and even, if it’s not too careful, learn the exact date and time of its own demise.In a world where time travel has at last been discovered, how is it that everyone’s life is more the same than ever before?