Future Politics

Drawing from exclusive and unprecedented access to the main players, from polarizing activist-turned-tech CEO Josh Tetrick to lobbyists and regulators on both sides of the issue, Billion Dollar Burger follows the people fighting to upend our food system as they butt up against the entrenched interests fighting viciously to stop them. The stakes are monumentally high: Cell-cultured meat is the best hope for sustainable food production, a key to fighting climate change, a gold mine for the companies that make it happen, and an existential threat for farmers and meatpackers.

Those of you living through the next 30 years will become the most powerful creatures that have ever existed. You will have the opportunity and the duty to create a decidedly better world. Experience and maturity alone cannot provide the required wisdom fast enough. You will need to maximize your innate potential to accelerate wisdom. The Potentialist: Your Future in the New Reality of the Next Thirty Years explains the first steps to achieve your potential and accelerate wisdom. You will discover how forces of change create a New Reality by breaking down the one we know.

Let's take stock of young America. Compared to previous generations, American youth have more schooling (college enrollments have never been higher); more money ($100 a week in disposable income); more leisure time (five hours a day); and more news and information (Internet, The Daily Show, RSS feeds). What do they do with all that time and money? They download, upload, IM, post, chat, and network. (Nine of their top ten sites are for social networking.) They watch television and play video games (2 to 4 hours per day).

Robin Wright first landed in the Middle East on October 6, 1973, the day the fourth Middle East war erupted. She has covered every country and most major crises in the region since then, through to the rise of al Qaeda and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For all the drama of the past, however, the region's most decisive traumas are unfolding today as the Middle East struggles to deal with trends that have already reshaped the rest of the world.

When the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, no one envisioned mass atrocities on the scale we are witnessing today. No one foresaw the displacement of millions that would dramatically reshape regional demographics. No one imagined that children would become the victims of chemical weapons, or that the Mediterranean Sea would become their graveyard. Today, more than half of the Syrian population has been displaced, a phenomenon almost without precedent in human history.

Silicon Valley is imperializing the planet. With nearly bottomless supplies of cash and ambition, a small group of companies have been gradually seizing symbolic and practical civic leadership in America and worldwide. But Silicon Valley does not answer to the electorate; nor have they been voted into office. And the perils of their influence are only now making themselves known.

The Democratic Party left rural America behind. This urgent rallying cry shows how Democrats can win back and empower overlooked communities that have been pushing politics to the right—and why long-term progressive political power depends on it.

From leading global futurist and advisor James Canton, the acclaimed author of The Extreme Future and Technofutures, comes Future Smart: the essential blueprint on what's coming next. It details the key changes--in health and medicine, technology and communication, the global economy, the Earth's climate, energy, and business--that every person, company, and government must understand in order not only to adapt accordingly but to thrive in the coming decades.

This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.

Since cities emerged 10,000 years ago, they have become one of the most impressive artifacts of humanity. But their evolution has been anything but linear - cities have gone through moments of radical change, turning points that redefine their very essence. In this book a renowned architect and urban planner who studies the intersection of cities and technology argues that we are in such a moment. The authors explain some of the forces behind urban change and offer new visions.

In The Future We Need, Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta bring a novel perspective to building worker power and what labor organizing could look like in the future, suggesting ways to evolve collective bargaining to match the needs of modern people, not only changing their wages and working conditions, but being able to govern over more aspects of their lives.

The history of the American gun is intricately entwined with the history of America itself, and the potential future developments in gun technology could change the world. However, the radical anti-gun lobby stands between innovation and the American people. Bestselling author Frank Miniter describes amazing breakthroughs waiting to happen in gun technology - and how gun grabbers threaten to stop progress in its tracks.

Pope Francis met with French reporter and sociologist Dominique Wolton for an unprecedented series of 12 fascinating and timely conversations - open dialogues revolving around the political, cultural, and religious issues dominating communication and conflict around the world - now published in A Future of Faith: The Path of Change in Politics and Society.

Scholars have often claimed that democracies, whatever their virtues, are functionally short-sighted. The evidence is clear: We have been unable to manage many long-term issues, including climate change, nuclear waste disposal, natural disaster preparedness, infrastructure maintenance, and budget deficits. To solve long-term problems, do we need political systems that are less democratic, or even authoritarian?

The world is changing so fast that it's hard to know how to think about what we ought to do. David Edmonds has put together a philosophical task force to get to grips with these challenges. Twenty-nine philosophers present provocative and engaging pieces about aspects of life today, and life tomorrow—birth and death, health and medicine, brain and body, personal relationships, wrongdoing and justice, the internet, animals, and the environment. The future won't look the same when you've finished this book.

Former Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. His 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur was critical in helping advance the conversation around the Internet, which has now morphed from a tool providing efficiencies and opportunities for consumers and business to an elemental force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world.

Future Imperfect describes and discusses technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain.

From the printing press to the television, social movements have leveraged communications technologies to advance change. In this moment of rapidly evolving communications, it's imperative to assess the role that the internet, mobile devices, and social media can play in promoting social justice. But first, we must look to the past, to examples of movements throughout American history that successfully harnessed communications technology, thus facilitating positive social change.

Welcome to the electrifying world of K-pop! From its origins in a once-overlooked corner of Asia to today's global superstars like BTS and BLACKPINK, discover how South Korea built an entertainment empire that's revolutionizing modern culture. This comprehensive guide reveals the fascinating story behind K-pop's meteoric rise and lasting impact.

Are you overwhelmed by the thought of estate planning? Does the very mention of trusts, wills, beneficiaries, probate, and taxes make you cringe? If so, you're not alone—67% of Americans don’t have an estate plan in place. They just don’t know where to begin. But it doesn't have to be this way. This book is your comprehensive solution to turning a complex process into a manageable task.