Social Technology

Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.

Lie Machines is full of riveting behind-the-scenes stories from the world's biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives - including those used in Brexit and US elections. Howard not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations, but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and shows us how to shut them down.

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.

The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; William James, the father of modern American psychology; and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. No records were kept. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea - an idea about ideas. This book is the story of that idea.

The internet has transformed the ways we think and act, and by consequence, our politics. The most impactful recent political movements on the far left and right started with massive online collectives of teenagers. Strangely, both movements began on the same website: an anime imageboard called 4chan.org. It Came from Something Awful is the fascinating and bizarre story of 4chan and its profound effect on youth counterculture.

Fusion GPS was founded in 2010 by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former reporters at The Wall Street Journal who decided to abandon the struggling news business and use their reporting skills to conduct open-source investigations for businesses and law firms - and opposition research for political candidates. In the fall of 2015, they were hired to look into the finances of Donald Trump.

For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasy land of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It's a "Brotopia", where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties. In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals....

No longer an uncertain technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence is starting to shape every aspect of our daily lives, from how we think to who we love. In this urgent polemic, leading barrister Susie Alegre explores the ways in which artificial intelligence threatens our fundamental human rights—including the rights to life, liberty and fair trial; the right to private and family life; and the right to free expression—and how we protect those rights.

Edward Ashford Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of - for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation - that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data.

Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui dynasty's introduction of the civil service exam, known as Keju, in 587 CE—and continuing through the personnel management system used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—Chinese autocracies have developed exceptional tools for homogenizing ideas, norms, and practices. But this uniformity came with a huge downside: stifled creativity.

As the data economy grows in power, Carissa Véliz exposes how our privacy is eroded by big tech and governments, why that matters and what we can do about it. The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away your data. Before you've even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organisations have been alerted to when you woke up, where you slept and with whom. As you check the weather, scroll through your 'suggested friends' on Facebook, you continually compromise your privacy.

In this trailblazing book, Dr. Mark Rego, who has practiced psychiatry and taught at Yale for thirty years, explores why mental illness and stress are skyrocketing alongside technology ostensibly created to improve our world. Using decades of experience and pioneering scientific research, Dr. Rego presents his innovative hypothesis of Frontal Fatigue, the background condition from which many of us now suffer. Frontal Fatigue exists when the unique pressures of modern life overwhelm the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brains that can make us susceptible to mental illness.

On July 22, 2009, a special meeting was held with 24 leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health to discuss early findings that a newly discovered retrovirus was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), prostate cancer, lymphoma, and eventually neurodevelopmental disorders in children. When Dr. Judy Mikovits finished her presentation the room was silent for a moment, then one of the scientists said, "Oh my God!" The resulting investigation would be like no other in science.

One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and history that led us to where we are now. Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the web - and shows us how we can fight back.

In TechGnosis - a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword - Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah.

Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.

Beyond Powerful Radio is a complete guide to becoming a powerful communicator for radio, Internet, TV, public speaking - anyone who wants to learn to communicate powerfully. It's a cookbook for communicators and broadcasters to improve. It's practical; it's easy. You'll find techniques to create content, produce and host a show, grow an audience, news gathering, coverage of investigative and breaking stories, and writing and delivering commercial copy.

This helpful, plain-English guide provides need-to-know information on how to choose the right system, assure patients of the security of their records, and implement an EHR in such a way that it causes minimal disruption to the daily demands of a hospital or clinic.

En los últimos años China se ha convertido en una verdadera superpotencia de la IA y el único verdadero contrapeso nacional a Estados Unidos en esta tecnología emergente. Por ello, la forma en que estos dos países decidan competir y cooperar podría llegar a tener consecuencias dramáticas para la economía y la gobernabilidad mundial.

Today, many of us are feeling the pinch—and being bombarded with portrayals of social media 'perfection' is making that pinch feel more like a punch. We may know that social media—with all its billionaires and beauty queens—is just a highlight reel. So why is it still making most of us feel so low? Comedian Shabaz Ali wants to help you see the funny side of social media again. Because while it looks nice to live up in an ivory tower, this book reminds us that it is much more fun to be part of the baying mob that surrounds it.