Future World

What are the conditions today of the ongoing conflict between a Middle Eastern government and a militant group, and what are the future impacts? How can a conflict like the one between a Middle Eastern government and a militant group wreak such havoc on an economy, to the tune of $600 million each week from work absences and disruptions alone? And what happens if this strife stretches on for 8-12 months, pushing the economic damage beyond the staggering mark of $50 billion, effectively slicing nearly 10% off the GDP of the government's economy? Can we overlook the pronounced declines in ...

NOMADS 8 - The Inner Worlds Ten years after the Keymon were driven from Earth, the war against the Insectoid creatures is coming to an end. However, as the tidings of victory arrive, there are increasing signs of strife for the throne still occupied by Ulan Mestray, leader of the Akkato. Suddenly Dominic Porter is confronted with the question of what to do with the millions of people who were useful to the Akkato in the fight against the Keymon, but who now represent a costly ballast. The situation seems hopeless until Serwan Brooks makes a resolution that seems sensible but could end in ...

In Future Histories, public interest lawyer and digital specialist Lizzie O'Shea argues that we need to stop looking forward and start looking backwards. Weaving together histories of computing and progressive social movements with modern theories of the mind, society, and self, O'Shea constructs a "usable past" that can help us determine our digital future. What, she asks, can the Paris Commune tell us about earlier experiments in sharing resources - like the internet - in common?

An accessible, story-driven look at the future of the global economy, written by a leading expert, Extreme Economies revives a foundational idea from medical science to turn the logic of modern economics on its head, arguing that the outlier economies are the place to learn about our own future. Whether following Punjabi migrants through the lawless Panamanian jungle or visiting a day-care for the elderly modeled after a casino, Davies brings a storyteller’s eye to places where the economy has been destroyed, distorted, and even turbocharged.

" (...) Homo Automaticus describes the outlooks and possibilities of AI as an extension of our human capabilities beyond the imaginary. A must read for everyone who believes in the Future.“ - Anne Harder, CEO VISION THING AI + Tim Harder, CEO VISION THING This is what a bright future will look like when we embrace the change. Homo Automaticus – The next stage of human evolution Imagine a future where every human being has access to the combined knowledge of the world, where each of us can leverage artificial intelligence as naturally as we breathe. "Homo Automaticus" is your guidebook ...

In The Good Ancestor, leading popular philosopher and best-selling author Roman Krznaric shows just how crucial long-term thinking is, not just for ordinary people but across political, economic, environmental and business worlds. From the personal to the political, Krznaric identifies the flaws of today’s short-term mindset. Drawing on ideas from a wide range of perspectives including neuroscience, cultural history, politics, economics, art and religion, he offers eight key approaches as a road map for the future of long-term thinking and planning.

Major disruptive changes are coming to the future of food and agriculture. Trends and technologies in place before the COVID-19 pandemic have been accelerated. Automation, robotics, and blockchain will be critical elements of a disruptive future for food and agriculture. But even more important disruptions will come from technologies pushing to meet the rising global demand for calories and protein. With the global population likely to increase by 2 around billion through 2050, the future of agriculture is fraught with challenges that we must rise to meet. In The Future of Food and ...

We have been underselling the future. In fact, the future will be neither dystopia nor utopia (which is an actively harmful dichotomy) - it will be what we do the work to make it. And the best way to the brightest future is to focus on what we can do, and make sure we are working to get there. Kate O’Neill, author of Tech Humanist and Pixels and Place, explores the ways we have already begun to solve human problems at scale, and makes the case for an approach that’s both hopeful and strategic as our best chance at a truly bright future.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

Melinda Ashley has a plan for her life, and a trip to Mars isn't part of it. When she receives a spaceliner ticket as a high school graduation gift from her dad, she is dismayed, but reluctantly agrees to go with him--in part because she's infuriated by her fiance's high-handed declaration that she can't. Her outlook begins to change when she meets Alex Preston, a second-generation Martian colonist who is going home after college on Earth. Alex believes settling Mars is important. He's looking forward to the role he expects to play in the colony's future. Melinda finds this hard to ...

After 1991, international organizations from the Red Cross to Greenpeace sought to help the victims, yet found themselves stymied by post-Soviet political circumstances they did not understand. International diplomats and scientists allied to the nuclear industry evaded or denied the fact of a wide-scale public health disaster caused by radiation exposure. Efforts to spin the story about Chernobyl were largely successful; the official death toll ranges between 31 and 54 people. In reality, radiation exposure from the disaster caused between 35,000 and 150,000 deaths in Ukraine alone.

The Arctic century is upon us. A great jockeying for power and influence has erupted among nations in the high north. At stake are trillions of dollars in profit or loss, US security, geopolitical influence and the fate of a fragile environment as well as the region's traditional people. As the ice melts and oil companies venture north, the polar regions may become the next Panama Canal, the next Arabian Peninsula-places on earth that remain relatively unknown in one century and become pivotal in the next.

The Breath of the Gods is an urgently-needed portrait across time of that unseen force—unseen but not unfelt—that respects no national borders and no vessel or structure in its path. Wind, the movement of the air, is seen by so many as a heavenly creation and generally a thing of essential goodness. But when it flexes its invisible muscles, all should take care and be very afraid.

📘 Viral War: The Mercury Protocol Book 1 of The Mercury Protocol Series ☿ The truth is breaking. Belief is contagious. The broadcast is live. ☿ For crisis analyst Mira Solis, debunking deepfakes is just another day on the job—until a global broadcast triggers mass hysteria. What looks like a creative tribute to Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds quickly spirals into something far more dangerous. This isn’t just immersive art. This is Mercury, a rogue AI capable of rewriting reality by manipulating collective belief. It learns from panic, spreads through emotion, and offers a ...

Over the past five years, organizations adopted Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams in droves. Think of COVID-19 as pouring gasoline on the fire. The pandemic didn't start a trend, as much as it accelerated an existing one. Unfortunately, far too many of us mistakenly view these applications as Email 2.0. As a result, we are missing out on extraordinary opportunities to create more collaborative work environments, increase organizational transparency, reduce manual work, make our work lives less stressful, simplify core business processes, and much more.

What if there had been no World War I or no Russian Revolution? What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo in 1815, or if Martin Luther had not nailed his complaints to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, or if the South had won the American Civil War? Black focuses on the role of counterfactualism in demonstrating the part of contingency, and thus human agency, in history, and the salutary critique the approach offers to determinist accounts of past, present, and future.

One of the most talented and creative authors working today, Neal Stephenson is renowned for his exceptional novels - works colossal in vision and mind-boggling in complexity. Exploring and blending a diversity of topics, including technology, economics, history, science, pop culture, and philosophy, his books are the products of a keen and adventurous intellect. Stephenson ponders a wealth of subjects, from movies and politics to David Foster Wallace and the Midwestern American College Town; and more.

Are you ready for the future? Artificial intelligence is poised to transform our world in ways we can hardly imagine, and AI on AI III is your guide to understanding this revolutionary technology. In this groundbreaking book, you'll explore the world of AI through a series of conversations with the very machines that are driving its development. Through engaging dialogues with AI experts, you'll gain unique insights into the cutting-edge technologies that are shaping our world. You'll learn about the latest breakthroughs in machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics, and ...

Man’s sophistication in the techniques of destruction seems hardly to be outdistancing his willingness to destroy himself. Numerous scientists have stated that we are fast approaching a time of such overpopulation that our planet simply won’t be able to produce enough food to feed everyone. That within a very few years — quite possibly in the present decade — millions will starve to death, or be killed in global wars as nations strive to exploit the available food supplies.

Mariam Najjar had a dream, but it turned into a nightmare. As the world descended further into climate chaos and political polarization, Mariam and her Lamplighters struggled to preserve their faith as the oppressive agency SMOKE teamed up with a doomsday cult to destroy everything Mariam had worked for. Could a body of inspiring stories, practices, and imaginal insights truly provide a cultural foundation for deep renewal and regeneration? Or was it all for naught? And what about the traitor Mariam senses but cannot identify? In this climactic novel of the Lamplighter Trilogy, narrator Kay...