An Optimist's View of A Dark Future
920848
Kunstler's World Made By Hand isn't primarily comprised of action, though it has its fair share of physical conflict. The draw of this story comes from its richly broken characters who work together to make a tableau of a post-civilization village. The protagonist is a carpenter turned handyman who eventually becomes a believably reluctant leader. Many characters in the story are stuck to their slightly warped senses of the world. From this discontinuity, Kunstler derives most of his drama.

It's not a perfect book, but it's a good one. Among the fast growing genre of post-civilization/post-apocalypse stories, this book is special. It takes parts of human communities and examines them in a strange world where many of the things we take for granted (and the characters took for granted) are now gone, different. We see religion, greed, apathy, weariness and solace in new contexts.

If you're an avid reader of post-civilization works, or if stories of a community mentality compel you: I strongly recommend this novel.
2471643
Yuval carefully ventures into a future world where we become a new creation and the socioeconomic divide, despite previous assurances of egalitarian distribution of medical and scientific benefits to the masses, widens. It is difficult to mount an impassioned defense to Yuval's thesis due to the depth and breath of his analysis. The reader who is handicapped by a penchant to believe in the best of all possible outcomes for our future as a species will be sorely chastened by the irrestible arguments presented here. A needed corrective to the naive musings of the Pollyanna class. Take heart however as the author is quick to offer the possibility that we, as an adaptable species, might--just might-- take measures to parent our scientific and technological progress toward a more measured and balanced future where most, if not all, benefit from the fount of wonders the future holds for all of us. Some books may be read, or not, without missing too much of importance. This isn't one of those.
1461126
A good read for those who wish to get a glimpse of our future.  This is not a fantasy novel but a prediction based on facts.  Our species is very close to shedding our caveman body design and become 2.0.
593469
This is an excellent book. If you are into knowing what future technologies will be like in the near future, you will like knowing what will be in store for the human mind.
3212036
The author puts forth a vision of what a future free society would likely look like, while offering a mechanism to bring it into being.  His ideas are well worth consideration.  His devotion to bringing about that glorious, marvelously beneficial future is beyond question.
1066529
This book displays Gore's broad and deep knowledge, as he considers the trends that will influence our future. At times exhilarating, at times terrifying, this book challenges us to consider the future and how we will interact with it.
I believe the book is ultimately hopeful posing the huge challenges ahead in the context of the wonderful possibilities and potential that we as humans can access.
The book is written in entertaining prose and it is a delight to see Gore's intellect in action. I was inspired, scared, motivated and challenged. To call it thought provoking is a disservice to the intellectual nourishment available here.
3960609
John Urry's "What is the Future?" isn't the easiest of read. Not because Urry writes so far above the reader that it is hard to follow but rather the opposite.  He makes it very clear that it is a little uncomfortable reading in a scary kind of way. The future has many potholes to be fixed and big questions to be answered. Sometimes it isn't so far into the future but Urry examines many scenarios. It is an insightful, thoughtful and (again) uncomfortable read, but well worth it.
4688603
I am a big sci fi buff and one of my most favorite genres is the utopia/dystopia, which Netopia belongs to.

In a way similar to Peter Watt's examination of consciousness in Blindsight, Netopia examines how ambition and the need for social recognition may lead our society to disintegrate (and doing so without relying on AIs and vampires, since the only monsters in Netopia are people). It is a criticism of social networks, magnified through the lens of a fantastic world building.

Netopia is a very dark work, filled with haunted characters driven by personal ambitions. It is special in many ways, but I won't go into it to avoid spoiling the book for you. I will say that for me, the plot built up slowly, thread after thread and layer after layer, but climaxed strong and hard, leaving me shaken.

If you're looking for something unique to read, give this book a chance.
2509591
Isaac Asimov is my favorite author and that makes it difficult to say anything negative about his work... So I won't.

This work takes you back in time so you can see the future, a future that is yet beyond tomorrow, in a different light than you can see it in today.

A future visualized as having similar morals, social interaction and ideals based on and somewhat similar to those held by Americans of the past.

A dark future, full of bright possibility.
622519
The book was published posthumously and had been written mostly in the 1970s. It's largely a compilation of opinions and views on what impact man is having on the world and what it means for us.

The book is divided into three parts. Yesterday, where we were... Today, where we are..
Tomorrow - where we might go..

He quoted from George Gaylord Simpson, a paleontologist whose research contributed heavily to our understanding of evolution, "Man was certainly not the goal of evolution, which evidently had no goal".

He noted that one of the major challenges is population growth. He believed that the world's population was doubling every 30 years, although at 7 billion people today, it didn't quite double in the last 30 years (but almost).

He then went on to talk about the crowding problem: "One point on which there seems to be general agreement is that crowding enhances latent aggression or invokes aggression. This appears to be true for animals as well as man. Scarcity of room, resources or other vital ingredients is likely to lead to a tooth-and-claw ethics."

The book talks a lot about scarcity and the author calls himself a realistic pessimist and challenges unreasonable optimists. His view is the resources in the world are limited and that it's not likely technology will change this and it's likely the standard of living will reduce for all dramatically.

"Much of the confusion that exists can be traced back to what one can label "the battle of the optimists versus the pessimists." The optimists are more pleasant to listen to, while the pessimists are usually right. This, of course, in itself represents a biased statement. The optimists are those who believe the present status can be perpetuated, that growth can continue, and that technology -a little improved perhaps-can solve anything. The pessimists are those who hold that our present way of life is doomed and drastic changes, voluntary or impsed, are inevitable."

He devoted a whole chapter to the most devastating invention which was not the nuclear bomb, rather the television. "an instrument that destroys our most valuable assets of creativity and originality."

The clear message in the book is to strike a balance between doomsday pessimism and irresponsible optimism.

The book contains much fact intermixed with commentary on many areas of life from working mothers to leisure time, to consumer vs producers, to ego etc.

An interesting read.
416282
The future is coming and Carlo Rovelli can help us understand the nature of it.
3997558
A nuanced but gloomy look at the fundamental problems underpinning technology and futurism. The author makes many interesting points, but falls back a little too often on cherrypicked examples and proof by assertion. Nevertheless, a stimulating and provocative read, backed by extensive research and interviews. The irony that I read this on my Kindle was not lost on me. Bring on the Singularity!
385326
While not an economics book per se The Lights in the Tunnel  will not warm the hearts of those that believe giving money to the suppliers of goods will produce economic growth.  The author examines a future in which the Luddites may, in an age of computers, prove to have  been right. Given our current lackluster recovery and the stagnation of the middle class lifestyle Mr. Ford offers what may a logical explanation of these current facts.
In Mr. Martin's metaphor the Tunnel is our the world's economy and the Lights are those who spend and sell in that economy. Mr. Ford proposes a series of possible reforms for the Free Market which he regards as necessary to save the Free Market from our technological revolution.
2049237
For any thought leader in his/her business or industry, this is good reading.  Peter Frase lays out possible (he might say they are probable) scenarios for a future of abundance and equality.  Of course, future world equality implies better things for those below the line and worse things for those above the line, and the impact of these things are what Frase suggests people consider.  He paints four futures but doesn't "predict" the future--rather suggests it's in the hands, collectively, of readers to drive the future.

That's all good if his basic premise is correct and that's subject to conjecture.  Still, as one data point in thinking about business impact, it's a premise worth considering.  This book might actually be his Ph. D. Thesis and that's how I read it--interesting reading from a smart person, but only one smart person, as I contemplate the future.
3836345
The author of The Great Disruption, Paul Gilding, is a hard-headed realist and a utopian starry-eyed dreamer, all at the same time.  He predicts that a "great disruption" will occur sometime in the next few decades (due to resource shortages and global warming causing wide-spread famine), with this disruption being so massive, and so catastrophic, that the global economy will collapse and everybody will know something has happened that just can't be denied any longer (I'm with him so far on this one).  Gilding suggests that one way the great disruption will be realized is from repeated food harvest failures around the world, implying that perhaps billions of people will die.

Where the author leaves me behind is his next premise; that this "great disruption", will lead to a "great awakening", where we, as a human species, will begin to cooperate globally, cutting carbon emissions close to zero, re-working the global economy, and largely abandoning the overtly capitalistic models we are currently using.  I hope he's right, I really do, but I just do not envision this happening.  As the author states in the book "We may be slow, but we're not stupid".  I disagree, I think that as a species, we are both slow and stupid.

Still, the author does bring up some great points that historically, we have pulled together in order to fight a common enemy, and it is quite possible that we can pull together in the future against a common enemy of resource scarcity and global warming.  I just wonder how many Americans would have to personally suffer before we, as an American people, really "get what's happening".  I suspect that if Americans personally lost all their financial holdings, then we might understand.  I can envision a scenario where billions of third-world citizen starve to death, and we would still have people in America saying things like `well, those people weren't very good at their long-range planning for agricultural productivity anyways, I'm sure that the last 30 years of hot weather is just a natural phase".

Here's the deal - not all cultures have survived climate change.  According to the excellent non-fiction book "Collapse", by Jared Diamond, every single last Norwegian who lived in Greenland in the Middle Ages died of starvation when things cooled down, while apparently, the native Greenlanders survived.  Nobody really knows why, but it could be as simple as the apparent inability of the transplanted Norwegians to find and catch fish.  Additionally, around 1300, all the Anasazi left their homes in the American southwest after a decades-long drought.  Perhaps some survived, we don't really know, but we do know their entire culture died.

So, it's really up to us to decide whether to live or die as a species.  This book is great food for thought, and I really hope the author is right, when he states "We may be slow, but we're not stupid".
2961832
Haldeman's ingenuity delivers cutting-edge technological speculation and irresistibly compelling reading.  You can't wait to find out what happens next.  Each world the protagonist reaches is different than what comes before and you wonder if the future holds little in store for mankind; as Haldeman is quite pessimistic.  The ending could have been a book in itself but wasn't.  It was appropriate, if not suspense-laden.
161368
The year is 2080, the setting a very bleak future earth where the earth is environmentally ravaged, and mankind has quit trying to "rebuild, refurbish, or replenish."  The world went to war over water, and the surviving population is now controlled by the computer systems INFINTOR and MYKRONS, who have artificial intelligence (AI) that seems to be evolving. Through a network of micro surveillance cameras, the systems see all and in order to protect the people, no one has privacy of any kind. The internet has been taken away from average citizens, for their own safety.  As the systems get more powerful, a renegade force called The Underground, is attempting to take back control, but it terrorizes the night by harvesting organs and selling them on the black market (to the many people needing transplants due to the increased cancers and illnesses happening from the depleted ozone) to fund its rebellion.  The story pits Captain Matagon, the champion of the AI systems and the law against Razor King, the champion of The Underground and it's brilliant leader, Dr. Ozso Rukur.  As conditions get worse, the lines begin to blur: which cause is good? which is evil? can evil be used for good, or vice versa?

In a book that's sometimes reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (upon which the movie Blade Runner was based), author T. W. Moore has written an imaginative, highly technical story of a future that seems realistic and possible.  Moore provides extremely detailed scenarios of the states of technology, transportation, security, and medical advances that seem reasonable, though admittedly this reader isn't qualified to assess the legitimacy of any of the scientific verbiage and found it easiest -- and easy -- to read and accept what was presented.

Thank you to the author for providing me an eBook in exchange for my honest review. Visit my blog Hall Ways for a full review of this book, and book views, reviews, and news you can use - or not. http://kristinehallways.blogspot.com