This book by an historian asks lots of questions. How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? Will algorithms determine our future? How do we deal with fake news? Is technology advancing faster than our ability to understand it? Is liberal democracy in crisis? These and many other urgent questions try our souls.
In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power. P. xiii
What does the presidency of Donald Trump signify? The answer is yet to come. P. xv
The personal has become political. As science learns to hack the brain, this fact becomes terrifying. P. xv
Humans are losing confidence in the liberal story just as the merger of biotech and infotech are giving us the greatest challenges we have ever faced. P. 1
The end of history has been postponed. P. 3
Conservatives don't wish to give up the old, hierarchical world with its built-in prejudices. Some people believe that liberalization and globalization is con game empowering an elite at the expense of everybody else. Liberals are in a state of shock. As the liberal story frays, they have nothing to take its place. P. 5
The liberal world has trouble dealing with the new technology. P. 6
What is blockchain revolution? P. 6
Scary stuff. P. 6
We cannot see where our technology is taking us. P. 7
The liberal end of history didn't happen in the 90's. P.11
Oligarchic control of the media. P. 12
By manufacturing a never-ending series of crises, a corrupt oligarchy can perpetuate its rule indefinitely. P. 13
Liberalism has no conclusive answers to ecological collapse and technological disruption. P.16
Terrorists are weak. P. 164
Terrorism is theatre. P. 165
Mexican war conquests were the bargain of the century. P. 174
Russia's campaign of global disinformation. P. 179
Human stupidity is one of the greatest forces in human history, yet we continue to discount it. P. 182
Monotheism did little to improve the moral standards of humans. P. 194
Christian bigotry in history. P. 196
All religious and secular world views have shadows. P. 218
How can you act morally if you don't know the facts. P. 231
The world is complicated for our hunter-gatherer brains. P. 235
History sustains Ukranian independence. P. 237
Science is our reliable source of knowledge. P. 249
Science fiction is an important literary genre. P.250
Everything you experience is within your own mind. P.253
Even if within a matrix it's all real. P. 254
The movie "Inside Out." P. 255
Technology isn't bad for you if you know what you want. P. 271
The algorithms are watching you know. P.272
Soon they will know everything about you. P. 272
The circle of life: it's all circular. P. 275
Linear ideologies in the West. P. 276
The Marxist story is the story of class struggles. P. 277
All stories are incomplete. P. 280
Religious or not? We can't change our desires. P. 305
We are not a story. P. 306
The answer isn't a story. P. 313
Algorithms might eventually tell us who we are. P. 323
Maybe the best book of the year.
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