Future World

Take a look at the vehicle sitting in your driveway. It may be the last one you ever own. With an estimated 33 million fully autonomous cars and taxis projected to hit the road by 2040, an automotive renaissance is soon to be upon us. Personal car ownership currently costs the average sedan owner $9,000 annually. But car ownership may soon be a thing of the past.

During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the whole messy truth about the legacy of last century’s big dam building binge has come to light. What started out as an arguably good government project has drifted oceans away from that original virtuous intent. Governments plugged the nation’s rivers in a misguided attempt to turn them into revenue streams. Water control projects’ main legacy will be one of needless ecological destruction, fostering a host of unnecessary injustices.

In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our "digital age" is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support.

Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a "warm war", a shoving match between the United States, since World War II the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world's largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as their ocean, and they're ready to defend it. Each day the heat between the two countries increases as the Chinese try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation.

Seit 2020 werden wir aus einem fatalen Nickerchen wachgerüttelt. Zu gemütlich hatten wir es uns während der letzten 50 Jahre in Selbstverständlichkeiten gemacht, die die Krisenherde unserer Welt ausblendeten. Indset argumentiert für eine Neu- und Wiederentdeckung des Denkens. Eines Denkens, das unsere Grundhaltungen hinterfragt und Veränderungen nicht nur zulässt, sondern begrüßt. Wir müssen uns öffnen für Paradoxien, für Gleichzeitigkeiten und das Unbekannte - um Wirkkräfte rechtzeitig zu erkennen und entsprechend zu handeln.

Paul Shapiro gives you a front-row seat for the wild story of the race to create and commercialize cleaner, safer, sustainable meat - real meat - without the animals. From the entrepreneurial visionaries to the scientists' workshops to the big business boardrooms - Shapiro details that quest for clean meat and other animal products and examines the debate raging around it.

Entrepreneurs, educators, humanitarians: an entire province's worth of Canadian citizens live outside Canada. Some will return, others won't. But what they all share is the ability, and often the desire, to export Canadian values to a world sorely in need of them. And to act as ambassadors for Canada in industries and societies where diplomatic efforts find little traction. Surely a country with people as diverse as Canada's ought to plug itself into every corner of the globe. We don't, and sometimes not even when our expats are eager to help.

More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as bestselling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point.

In this digital age, many people are surrounded by modern technologies. They have access to a world with a device as small as their palm. A few hundred years back, it would be considered to be witchcraft when one was able to talk to someone halfway across the globe, see the Great Wall of China while still being in the United States, or participate in a meeting from the living room.

Emily und Ben wissen nun, welches Ziel auf der Elite-Akademie Arcadia tatsächlich verfolgt wird. Ohne ihr Wissen sind die Schüler darauf vorbereitet worden, nach dem bevorstehenden Klimakollaps die Entstehung einer neuen Zivilisation auf der Erde mitzugestalten. Doch bevor es so weit ist, sollen sie zuerst an einen geheimen und sicheren Ort gebracht werden, um ihr Überleben zu gewährleisten. Der Preis dafür ist allerdings hoch, denn sie werden ihre Familien nie wiedersehen. Nicht alle der jungen Tech-Genies sind bereit, ihn zu zahlen, und es formiert sich Widerstand.

Un sincero y revelador análisis de las posibilidades energéticas de nuestro futuro. Así pues, este libro aborda temas tan importantes como la improbable y difícil tarea de descarbonizar el planeta, en parte por la estrecha relación entre la producción de alimentos y los combustibles fósiles, pero también destapa realidades incómodas, como la dependencia de las economías modernas respecto de la alta producción de amoníaco, metal, cemento y plástico.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two presidents and a social worker. Each took a different path to prominence, yet the three progressives believed the United States must assume a more dynamic role in confronting the growing domestic and international problems of an exciting new age.

A hinge moment in recent American history, 1995 was an exceptional year. Drawing on interviews, oral histories, memoirs, archival collections, and news reports, W. Joseph Campbell presents a vivid, detail-rich portrait of those memorable 12 months.

Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world's cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it's in their own best interest to limit their growth.

Does the idea of progress still apply to our times? If so, what does progress really mean? Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future, our very identity would be at stake.

Unsupervised examines the fast-emerging technologies and tools that are already starting to completely revolutionize our world. Beyond that, the book takes an in-depth look at how we have arrived at this dizzying point in our history, who holds the reins of these formidable technologies, mostly without any supervision. It explains why we as business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, educators, lawmakers, investors or users and all responsible citizens must act now to influence and help oversee the future of a technological world.

A drought lasts for decades, a disease rips through a city, a civilization collapses. When we finally uncover the ruins, we ask: what happened? The good news is, we’ve been here before. History is long, and people have already confronted just about every apocalypse we’re facing today. But these days, archaeologists are getting better at seeing stories of survival, transformation, and even progress hidden within those histories of collapse and destruction. Perhaps, we begin to see, apocalypses do not destroy, but create, new worlds.

What if material gain could be married to emotional gain? With newly developed technology, it will be possible to benefit financially simply by spending quality time with those you love. We just have to decide if it's worth it. Currently, technology threatens to leave many behind and irreparably damage our communities, turning our future into a dystopia. But there is a solution.

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.

When Iranians overthrew their monarchy, rejecting a pro-Western shah in favor of an Islamic regime, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the country for decades to come. Yet 40 years after the 1978-79 revolution, Iran has emerged as a critical player in the Middle East and the wider world, as demonstrated in part by the 2015 international nuclear agreement. In Iran Rising, renowned Iran specialist Amin Saikal describes how the country has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanctions, and other serious challenges.