Showing results for "life-" in Politics & Government

Bostrom’s previous book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (OUP, 2014) sparked a global conversation on AI that continues to this day. That book, which became a surprise New York Times bestseller, focused on what might happen if AI development goes wrong. But what if things go right? Suppose we develop superintelligence safely and ethically, and that we make good use of the almost magical powers this technology would unlock.

Kamal Ravikant knows misery well. In 2011, the company Kamal had spent the last 10 years of his life nurturing and growing suddenly and embarrassingly went under. He experienced a profound depression, the kind that made him physically ill and bedridden. The only source of light in this darkest moment was a meditation, a chant that came to him and provided the only source of comfort he could muster: I love myself.

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization. Here, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Embracing a panoramic view of carbon’s omnipresence, he explores how this ubiquitous and essential element extends into every aperture of existence and shapes the entire fabric of life.

Acclaimed as a public scientist and as a spokesperson on pressing environmental and equity issues, delivering his message from the classroom to 60 Minutes, Paul R. Ehrlich reflects on his life, including his love affair with his wife, Anne, his scientific research, his public advocacy, and his concern for global issues.

Through historical records, revealing interviews, and unflinching statistics, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, hosts of the podcast The War on Cars, and former host Aaron Naparstek unpack the scale of damage that cars cause, the forces that have created our current crisis and are invested in perpetuating it, and the way that the fight for better transportation is deeply linked to the fight for a more equitable and just society.

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

One of the classic volumes of autobiography, My Early Life is a lively and colourful account of a young man's quest for action, adventure and danger. Churchill's schooldays are undistinguished, but he is admitted to Sandhurst and embarks on a career as a soldier and a war correspondent, seeing action in Cuba, in India, in the Sudan - where he took part in the battle of Omdurman, of which he gives us a stirring account - and finally in South Africa.

The first major new biography of Martin Luther King Jr in over 40 years, Jonathan Eig's superb King is based on years of research, hundreds of interviews with those who knew him and many thousands of previously unreleased documents, including a huge cache from the FBI. Eig reveals King's story to be more compelling and more complex than we knew. Eig's fascinating biography not only shines new light on King's remarkable career, but also humanises him so that he becomes more than a symbol of hope and defiance, but a man with flaws, a sense of humour, as a father and a husband.

Amaryllis Fox was recruited by the CIA at the age of 21 in the aftermath of 9/11. After an intense training period - where she learns how to master a Glock, get out of flexicuffs while in the trunk of a car, withstand torture, and commit suicide in case of captivity - she is sent undercover to keep nuclear, biological and chemical weapons out of the hands of terror groups. Posing as an art dealer, she is sent on countless dangerous missions around the globe. Each time, the stakes become even higher and the risks more terrifying.

As one of al-Qaeda's most respected bomb-makers, Aimen Dean rubbed shoulders with the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden himself. As a double agent at the heart of al-Qaeda's chemical weapons program, he foiled attacks on civilians and saved countless lives, brushing with death so often that his handlers began to call him their spy with nine lives. This is the story of how a young Muslim, determined to defend his faith, found himself fighting on the wrong side - and his fateful decision to work undercover for his sworn enemy.

Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian. Interwoven with Abed's odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge.

The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk....

Having entered the British Navy at the age of 12, Horatio Lord Nelson achieved the rank of captain at the age of 20. As captain, he was quickly recognized as a magnetic and controversial figure. He triumphed at Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, but failed at Tenefife and Boulogne. With the glories of Copenhagen and Trafalgar yet ahead of him, his ardent passion for Emma Hamilton, the wife of a British Ambassador, cast a heavy shadow over his career.

When Lisa Najeeb Halaby was 26, her father introduced her to King Hussein of Jordan. Within a year, she became his fourth wife. Born in 1951 to a distinguished Arab-American family, Lisa was unsure what her role would be. King Hussein was not only the head of state in Jordan but also considered the spiritual leader of all Muslims. This memoir provides a vital perspective on 30 years of turbulent world history from the Arab point of view.

Described as the 'most beautiful princess in Europe', and a woman 'capable of arousing profane passion', this is the story of a woman whose life combined privilege and tragedy, love and riches, conviction and courage, humanity and inhumanity.

Megan Rapinoe, Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women's World Cup champion, reveals for the first time her life both on and off the field. Guided by her personal journey into social justice, brimming with humor, humanity, and joy, she urges all of us to ask ourselves, What will you do with your one life?

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."

A powerful ruler, an alluring young woman, a scandal that would rock the nation: Anne Boleyn’s life story sounds more like a juicy TV docu-drama than a chapter of English history. Although she is not of noble birth or even especially beautiful, Anne Boleyn manages to rise to the very pinnacle of the English aristocracy. Renowned for her extraordinarily vivid recreations of historical events, Carolly Erickson brings out the full fascinating story of the enigmatic Anne Boleyn.