Future Politics

Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a 10th that of White Americans, and over recent decades, White families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of Black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities - a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality".

From ventilators to brain implants, medicine has been blurring what it means to die. In a lucid description of modern neuroscientific thinking, Zeleznikow-Johnston explains that death is not the loss of breath, but of personal identity – that the core of our identities is our minds, and that our minds are encoded in the structure of our brains. On this basis, he explores how recent discoveries now offer us all the chance of preserving our minds for future revival. Whether they discovered cures or fought for justice, we are grateful to those of our ancestors who helped craft a kinder world.

We live in a culture of casual certitude. This has always been the case, no matter how often that certainty has failed. Though no generation believes there's nothing left to learn, every generation unconsciously assumes that what has already been defined and accepted is (probably) pretty close to how reality will be viewed in perpetuity. And then, of course, time passes. Ideas shift. Opinions invert. What once seemed reasonable eventually becomes absurd, replaced by modern perspectives that feel even more irrefutable and secure - until, of course, they don't.

The economy says we must always consume more. The planet says we consume too much. Addressing this paradox head-on, acclaimed journalist J. B. MacKinnon asks, What would really happen if we simply stopped shopping? Is there a way to reduce our consumption to Earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse? Drawing from experts in fields ranging from climate change to economics, MacKinnon investigates how living with less would change our planet, our society, and ourselves. Along the way, he reveals just how much we stand to gain.

What does it mean to be a human in a world that is increasingly built by and for machines? In Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose lays out a hopeful, pragmatic vision of how people can succeed in the machine age by making themselves irreplaceably human. He shares the secrets of people and organizations that have survived technological change, and explains how we can protect our own futures.

A Century of Tomorrows offers an illuminating account of how the world was transformed by the science (or is it?) of futurecasting. Beneath the chaos of competing tomorrows, Adamson reveals a hidden order: six key themes that have structured visions of what’s next. Helping him to tell this story are remarkable characters, including self-proclaimed futurologists such as Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, as well as an eclectic array of other visionaries who have influenced our thinking about the world ahead.

In her gripping, necessary, and deeply humane follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Dopesick, journalist Beth Macy brings us to the next frontier of the opioid crisis, telling the story of the everyday heroes fighting to stem the tide of drug overdose in communities that are too often left to fend for themselves, and of the activists and relatives of the dead who are still struggling for accountability in America’s courts. Like the treatment innovators she profiles, Beth Macy meets the opioid crisis where it is—not where we think it should be or wish it was.

How will we live well in a super-networked, information-soaked, yet predictably irrational world? The only way to know is to understand how the way we think is changing. As economist Tyler Cowen boldly shows in Create Your Own Economy, the way we think now is changing more rapidly than it has in a very long time. Not since the Industrial Revolution has a man-made creation - in this case, the World Wide Web - so greatly influenced the way our minds work and our human potential.

In How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges, brain-computer interfaces, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence to address the world’s problems.

From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the 12 technological imperatives that will shape the next 30 years and transform our lives. Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives - from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture.

THE EARLY 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era.

From the author of the New York Times best seller Prisoners of Geography, the highly anticipated follow-up that uses 10 maps of crucial regions around the globe to explain the geopolitical strategies of today’s world powers and what it means for our future.

The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.

A rousing defense of public education as the cornerstone of American democracy, by the woman attacked by the far right as “the most dangerous person in the world” Attacks on schools and teachers have long been a hallmark of fascist regimes: Throughout history, as many dictators rose to power they began banning books and controlling curriculum. Fascists fear teachers because teachers foster an educated and empowered population that can see past propaganda and scare tactics. Fascists fear teachers because they teach young people how to think for themselves.

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: The union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.

The widening wealth gap is all too familiar to many Millennials and GenZers, especially when home ownership and the lack of debt seem like faraway fantasies. And it's no surprise when they only hold about 4.6% of the country's wealth while Boomers held 22% at around the same age. So what happened to the promise of the American Dream? In this entry of his celebrated Hidden History series, Thom Hartmann uncovers the rise of the American middle class through the progressive policies of FDR, through to its downfall with the increasing privatization and economic deregulations of the Reagan era.

Who Owns the Future? is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries - from media to medicine to manufacturing - we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth. But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future....

In this groundbreaking and provocative treatise, Alexander C. Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies, and Nicholas W. Zamiska, head of corporate affairs at the company, offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of creative and cultural ambition. They argue that in order for the West to maintain its geopolitical advantage—and the freedoms that we take for granted—the software industry must redirect its attention to our most urgent challenges and rebuild its relationship with government.

Beginning with contemporary efforts to reckon with the legacy of white supremacy in America, Jones returns to the fateful year when a little-known church doctrine emerged that shaped the way five centuries of European Christians would understand the “discovered” world and the people who populated it. From this vantage point, Jones illuminates how the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin but, rather, the continuation of acts of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.

In Spies, Lies, and Algorithms, Amy Zegart separates fact from fiction as she offers an engaging and enlightening account of the past, present, and future of American espionage as it faces a revolution driven by digital technology. Drawing on decades of research and hundreds of interviews with intelligence officials, Zegart provides a history of US espionage, gives an overview of intelligence basics and life inside America's intelligence agencies, and explores the vexed issues of traitors, covert action, and congressional oversight.