In this decentralization manifesto, futurist Max Borders shows that humanity is already building systems that will “underthrow” great centers of power. Exploring the promise of a decentralized world, Borders says we will: - Reorganize to collaborate and compete with AI; - Operate within networks of superior collective intelligence; - Rediscover our humanity and embrace values for an age of connection. With lively prose, Borders takes us on a tour of modern pagan festivals, cities of the future, and radically new ways to organize society. In so doing, he examines trends likely to revolutionize the ways we live and work. Although the technological singularity fast approaches, Borders argues, a parallel process of human reorganization will allow us to reap enormous benefits. The paradox? Our billion little acts of subversion will help us lead richer, healthier lives—and avoid the robot apocalypse.

    Economist Tyler Cowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a plurality of co-existing artistic visions, providing a steady stream of new and satisfying creations, supporting both high and low culture, helping consumers and artists refine their tastes, and paying homage to the past by capturing, reproducing, and disseminating it. Contemporary culture, Cowen argues, is flourishing in its various manifestations, including the visual arts, literature, music, architecture, and the cinema.Successful high culture usually comes out of a healthy and prosperous popular culture. Shakespeare and Mozart were highly popular in their own time. Beethoven's later, less accessible music was made possible in part by his early popularity. Today, consumer demand ensures that archival blues recordings, a wide array of past and current symphonies, and this week's Top 40 hit sit side by side in the music megastore. High and low culture indeed complement each other.Cowen's philosophy of cultural optimism stands in opposition to the many varieties of cultural pessimism found among conservatives, neo-conservatives, the Frankfurt School, and some versions of the political correctness and multiculturalist movements, as well as historical figures, including Rousseau and Plato. He shows that even when contemporary culture is thriving, it appears degenerate, as evidenced by the widespread acceptance of pessimism. He ends by considering the reasons why cultural pessimism has such a powerful hold on intellectuals and opinion-makers.

    When McLuhan's groundbreaking Understanding Media was published in 1964, the media as we know it today did not exist. But McLuhan's argument, that the technological extensions of human consciousness were racing ahead of our ability to understand their consequences, has never been morecompelling. And if the medium is the message, as McLuhan maintained, then the message is becoming almost impossible to decipher. In The Global Village, McLuhan and co-author Bruce R. Powers propose a detailed conceptual framework in terms of which the technological advances of the past two decades may be understood. At the heart of their theory is the argument that today's users of technology are caught between two verydifferent ways of perceiving the world. On the one hand there is what they refer to as Visual Space--the linear, quantitative mode of perception that is characteristic of the Western world; on the other hand there is Acoustic Space--the holistic, qualitative reasoning of the East. The medium ofprint, the authors argue, fosters and preserves the perception of Visual Space; but, like television, the technologies of the data base, the communications satellite, and the global media network are pushing their users towards the more dynamic, many-centered orientation of Acoustic Space. The authors warn, however, that this movement towards Acoustic Space may not go smoothly. Indeed, McLuhan and Powers argue that with the advent of the global village--the result of worldwide communications--these two worldviews are slamming into each other at the speed of light, asserting thatthe key to peace is to understand both these systems simultaneously. Employing McLuhan's concept of the Tetrad--a device for predicting the changes wrought by new technologies--the authors analyze this collision of viewpoints. Taking no sides, they seek to do today what McLuhan did so successfully twenty-five years ago--to look around the corner of the comingworld, and to help us all be prepared for what we will find there.

    But his penetrating work of political philosophy - now fully revised and with a new introduction for this edition - opened up questions about the nature of statecraft and society that influenced governments across the world.

    While liberals of all stripes have held to some very basic values-liberty, individuality, and the critical use of intelligence-earlier forms of liberalism restricted the state function to protecting its citizens while allowing free reign to socioeconomic forces. But, as society matures, so must liberalism as it reaches out to redefine itself in a world where government must play a role in creating an environment in which citizens can achieve their potential. Dewey's advocacy of a positive role for government-a new liberalism-nevertheless finds him rejecting radical Marxists and fascists who would use violence and revolution rather than democratic methods to aid the citizenry.