Showing titles in Future Studies

The digital age we live in is as transformative as the Industrial Revolution, and Joshua Cooper Ramo explains how to survive. If you find yourself longing for a disconnected world where information is not always at your fingertips, you may eventually be as useful as the carriage maker post-Henry Ford. It's practically impossible to know where the marriage of imagination and technology will take us (sorry, Betamax and Kodak), and the only certainty is that in the networked world we will only become more intertwined.

The human brain is perhaps the most powerful and mysterious arrangement of matter in the known universe. New discoveries that unravel this mystery and let us tap into this power offer almost limitless potential - the ability to reshape ourselves and our thought processes, to improve our health and extend our lives, and to enhance and augment the ways we interact with the world around us. In The NeuroGeneration, award-winning inventor Tan Le explores exciting advancements in brain science and neurotechnology that are revolutionizing the way we think, work, and heal.

David Rowan travels the globe in search of the most exciting and pioneering start-ups building the future. He’s got to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Xiaomi, Didi, Nest, Twitter and countless other ambitious entrepreneurs disrupting businesses in almost every sector. And yet too often the companies they’re disrupting don’t get it. They think they can innovate through jargon: with talk of change agents and co-creation gurus, ideas portals and webinars, make-a-thons and hackfests, paradigm shifts and pilgrimages to Silicon Valley.

Spiritual and community lessons for embracing collective care, co-creating sustainable worlds, and responsibly meeting uncertain futures—a Zen and Indigenous take on building better, more balanced ways of being.

Über das letzte Jahrhundert hinweg hat sich die Menschheit Hunger, Seuchen und Kriegen erfolgreich gestellt. Aus Erfolg wird Ehrgeiz: als nächstes stehen Unsterblichkeit, grenzenloses Glück und gottgleiche Schöpfungskräfte auf der To-Do-Liste. Die Verfolgung dieser Ziele wird die meisten Menschen allerdings überflüssig machen. Also bleiben Fragen: Wohin führt unser Weg? Wie können wir unsere Zukunft bestmöglich beeinflussen?

Our world is in a mess. The challenges of climate change, inequality, hunger and a global pandemic mean our way of life seems more imperilled and society more divided than ever; but economics can help! From parenting to organ donation, housing to anti-social behaviour, economics provides the tools we need to fix the biggest issues of today. Far from being a means to predict the stock market or enrich the elite, economics provides a lens through which we can better understand how things work.

Look around you and think for a minute: Is America too crowded? For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that's busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. It's all bunk. The population bomb never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we've been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies.

Estamos perdiendo nuestra capacidad de no hacer nada. Nuestra existencia está completamente absorbida por la actividad y, por lo tanto, completamente explotada. Dado que solo percibimos la vida en términos de rendimiento, tendemos a entender la inactividad como un déficit, una negación o una mera ausencia de actividad cuando se trata, muy al contrario, de una interesante capacidad independiente.

Douglas Adams was a passionate technology enthusiast. His best-selling The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is full of futuristic tech, and in 1990 he predicted something very like the World Wide Web in the BBC2 film Hyperland. So in 1999, he was the natural choice to present Radio 4’s The Internet: The Last 20th Century Battleground. In it, he looked at the explosion in online communication, the evolution of cyberspace, and the risks and opportunities of the new virtual world.

Do you feel like we’re in a permacrisis? Chances are you feel some anxiety about the state of the world right now. Mohamed, Michael and Gordon certainly did. These three friends – who between them have almost a century of expertise in international economics, business and global government – began talking over zoom at the start of the pandemic. They wanted to discuss the challenges the world was facing: unanticipated shocks, poor policy responses, struggling coordination. But the more they talked, the more they realised there was nothing pre-ordained about the gloomy path we’re on now.

In Digital Mavericks, founder, NFT collector, and tech entrepreneur Debbie Soon delivers an exciting and eye-opening exploration of the seismic changes and tremendous opportunities that can be found at the intersection of creativity and technology. You'll learn about how blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are challenging the way we think about our careers and discover inspirational stories behind the personal triumphs and challenges experienced by successful artists, entrepreneurs, and technologists.

For decades we've delighted in dreaming about a sci-fi utopia, from flying cars and bionic humans to hoverboards; with driverless cars first proposed at the 1939 World's Fair. And why not? Building a better world, be it a free-flying commute or an automated urban lifestyle is a worthy dream. Given the pace of technological change, nothing seems impossible anymore. But why are these innovations always out of reach? Delving into the history of technology, this book also looks at what lies ahead, showing how the origins of our technology may provide insight into how it realistically evolves.

Flash crashes. Speed dating. Instant messaging. From the devices we carry to the lives we lead, everything is getting faster, faster. But where did this great acceleration come from? And where will it lead? In this vitally important new audiobook, Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley, the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life.

Politics, manners, humor, sexuality, wealth, even our definitions of success are periodically renegotiated based on the new values society chooses to use as a lens to judge what is acceptable. Are these new values randomly chosen or is there a pattern? Pendulum chronicles the stuttering history of western society; that endless back-and-forth swing between one excess and another, always reminded of what we left behind.

Humanity is on an astronomical trajectory and according to aerospace professional and popular science communicator Kellie Gerardi, that future doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of rocket scientists. Gerardi’s non-traditional path in the space industry shows us that humanity’s next giant leap will require the contributions of artists, engineers, and everyone in between. Gerardi takes us on a tour of this unique window in history and offers encouragement and advice for anyone who has ever dreamed of the stars and galaxies far, far away.

Every concerned American—and especially Christians—must study Future War to understand what is racing toward us, the dangerous threats each of us will face, and how Bible believing Christians must get respond to their obligation of engaging the world (Romans 13: 1–7).

From centres of antiquity like Athens or Rome to modern metropolises like New York or Shanghai, cities throughout history have been the engines of human progress and the epicentres of our greatest achievements. Now, for the first time, more than half of humanity lives in cities, a share that continues to rise. In the developing world, cities are growing at a rate never seen before. In this book, Professor Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin show why making our societies fairer, more cohesive and sustainable must start with our cities.

The challenges we face are daunting, but in Go Big, Ed Miliband shows that the scale of what is possible is far greater. We are at a rare moment in history when people everywhere see the need for big change. Meanwhile, practical and proven ways exist for tackling everything from inequality to the climate crisis - if you know where to look and have the courage to think big.

Former physicist Andrew Maynard threads together his love of science-fiction movies with his expertise on emerging technologies to engage, entertain, and make you think about the relationship between technology and society. Through the imagination and creativity of science-fiction movies, Maynard introduces listeners to the profound capabilities presented by new and emerging technologies, and the complex personal and societal challenges they present.

The long-awaited audio version of the seminal book by legendary space pioneer, Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill, credited with inspiring the likes of Jeff Bezos, Peter Diamandis, and Dylan Taylor.