Future Politics

Much has been written about the challenges tech presents to equality and democracy. But we can either criticize big data and automation or steer it to do better. Lobel makes a compelling argument that while we cannot stop technological development, we can direct its course according to our most fundamental values. With provocative insights in every chapter, Lobel masterfully shows that digital technology frequently has a comparative advantage over humans.

Philip Bump, a reporter as adept with a graph as with a paragraph, is popular for his ability to distill vast amounts of data into accessible stories. THE AFTERMATH is a sweeping assessment of how the baby boom created modern America, and where power, wealth, and politics will shift as the boom ends. Bump helps us navigate the flood of data in which our sense of the country now drowns. He fits numbers into a narrative about who we are (including what "we" really means), how we vote, where we live, what we buy—and what predictions we can make with any confidence.

In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humor and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels.

In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain.

The ideal of freedom is at the heart of our political and economic system. It is foundational to our sense of justice, our way of life, our conception of what it is to be human. But are we free in the way that we think we are? In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez brings together a torrent of mind-expanding ideas, facts and arguments to dismantle sacred myths central to our society - myths about free will, free markets, free media and free elections.

In this candid and engaging book, Margaret Trudeau, author of the number-one best-selling memoir Changing My Mind, offers women an inspirational and practical approach to creating a healthy, happy, secure, and satisfying future life. From dating and online romance, to health practices and financial planning, The Time of Your Life explores the fundamentals needed for the best future by discussing cornerstone issues such as housing, money, sex, friendship, and children.

The promise of green jobs and a clean energy future has roused the masses. But as Robert Bryce makes clear in this provocative book, that vision needs a major re-vision. We cannotand will notquit using carbon-based fuels at any time in the near future for a simple reason: they provide the horsepower that we crave. The hard reality is that oil, coal, and natural gas are here to stay.

Even the most well-adjusted moms and dads can experience peer pressure and conflicts with other adults that make them act like they're back in seventh grade. In Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, Rosalind Wiseman gives us the tools to handle difficult situations involving teachers and other parents with grace.

Who knows better about developing the talents of those with autism than Temple Grandin? This updated and expanded third edition of Developing Talents considers the continuing dismal employment statistics for individuals with autism. The authors take an in-depth look at entrepreneurship and many other options.

Australia's leading social psychologist examines our society today and asks timely and urgent questions about its future. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. Yet, none of our differences—whether based on ethnicity, politics, religion, cultural tastes and preferences, or gender—are nearly as significant as the humanity we share. Amidst our epidemics of loneliness, anxiety, depression, and the impacts of entrenched poverty and ubiquitous technology, The Way We Are examines the major trends that are shaking the foundations of the Australian way of life.

Justice Anthony Kennedy slipped out of the Supreme Court building on June 27, 2018, and traveled incognito to the White House to inform President Donald Trump that he was retiring, setting in motion a political process that his successor, Brett Kavanaugh, would denounce three months later as a "national disgrace" and a "circus". Justice on Trial, the definitive insider's account of Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court, is based on extraordinary access to more than 100 key figures - including the president, justices, and senators - in that ferocious political drama.

Simpler government arrived four years ago. It helped put money in your pocket. It saved hours of your time. It improved your children's diet, lengthened your life span, and benefited businesses large and small. It did so by issuing fewer regulations, by insisting on smarter regulations, and by eliminating or improving old regulations. Cass R. Sunstein, as administrator of the most powerful White House office you never heard of, oversaw it and explains how it works, why government will never be the same again (thank goodness), and what must happen in the future. Cutting-edge research in behavioral economics has influenced business and politics.

The American public knows the stories of Secret Service heroism, but they don't know about the hidden legacy of problems that have plagued the agency ever since its creation. Gary Byrne says that decades of catastrophic public failures, near misses, and bureaucratic and cultural rot threaten to erode this critical organization from the inside out. Today, as it works to protect President Trump, the Secret Service stands at a crossroads, and the time needed to choose the right course is running out.

In Artificial You, Susan Schneider says that it is inevitable that AI will take intelligence in new directions but urges that it is up to us to carve out a sensible path forward. As AI technology turns inward, reshaping the brain, as well as outward, potentially creating machine minds, it is crucial to beware. Homo sapiens, as mind designers, will be playing with "tools" they do not understand how to use: the self, the mind, and consciousness.

In Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, the award-winning author David Farrier explores the traces we will leave for the very distant future. Modern civilization has created objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time, whether it is plastic polluting the oceans and nuclear waste sealed within the earth or the 30 million miles of roads spanning the planet.

In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity.

The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe - and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000 - interrupted only by the troubled 1970s - represented a normal performance.

Miami, Florida, is likely to be entirely underwater by the end of this century. Residents are already starting to see the effects of sea level rise today. From sunny day flooding caused by higher tides to a sewer system on the brink of total collapse, the city undeniably lives in a climate changed world. In Disposable City, Miami resident Mario Alejandro Ariza shows us not only what climate change looks like on the ground today, but also what Miami will look like 100 years from now, and how that future has been shaped by the city's racist past and present.

From Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural communes to academic philosophy departments, a seemingly inconceivable idea is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity’s reign on earth is imminent, and that we should welcome it. Anthropocene antihumanism has been inspired by revulsion at humanity’s destruction of the natural environment, and transhumanism, by contrast, glorifies some of the very things that antihumanism decries—scientific and technological progress, the supremacy of reason.

Where do we go from here, and in practical terms, what must we do to get there? When the contributors to this volume were asked this question, their responses were immediate and impassioned. Leading women thinkers—psychologists, writers, futurists, environmentalists, business consultants, activists, and artists—representing the broadest spectrum of religion, philosophy, spirituality, and ethnicity surveyed the cultural landscape and offer their collective insight into how we can navigate these turbulent times.