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Book Rise of the Nerds  How a Technocratic Elite Manipulates Your Life and Gambles With Your Future

Download or read book Rise of the Nerds How a Technocratic Elite Manipulates Your Life and Gambles With Your Future written by Steffen Blaese and published by Steffen Blaese. This book was released on with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are at a dangerous moment in history; something started to go wrong with the digital revolution. An ever-expanding array of new technologies is infiltrating our lives. Only now we are beginning to understand the far-reaching consequences. The excessive use of electronic devices threatens our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The warning signs are everywhere. But although all of us see the same picture, we interpret it in different ways. The technophiles promised us greater leisure, comfort, and wealth. But we got internet addiction, obesity, loneliness, and anxieties. Powerful companies have more access to our private matters than ever before. Reality goes beyond Orwell. Artificial intelligence is all around us without many people being aware of it. Sophisticated algorithms can predict our behavior with increasing accuracy. Some extreme futurists are fantasizing about a «superintelligence,» smarter than humans. Machines are taking away jobs, rewarding their owners richly. The global economy is plagued by a persistent unemployment and growing income inequality. Millions of people live from paycheck to paycheck and can hardly keep their heads above water. What will happen if their labor is no longer needed? The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small elite is eroding democracy. The changes are not only technical in nature, but also transform us humans. Genetic engineering and human enhancement therapies gamble with the basis of our existence. Are we ready to hand over our future to these improvers of mankind? Like priests at the altar, the technodeterminists are pushing their agenda with evangelical fervor. Technology-friendly literature can be found like sand on the beach. It's not a surprise that those people who benefit most from technology celebrate it. This book is different because it approaches the matter from a skeptic's point of view. It throws crucial light on the question of who will be the winners of the transformations and who the losers. It puts current issues in a historical perspective and presents some people behind today's influential technology.

Book Digital International Relations

Download or read book Digital International Relations written by Corneliu Bjola and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses how digital transformation disrupts established patterns of world politics, moving International Relations (IR) increasingly towards Digital International Relations. This volume examines technological, agential and ordering processes that explain this fundamental change. The contributors trace how digital disruption changes the international world we live in, ranging from security to economics, from human rights advocacy to deep fakes, and from diplomacy to international law. The book makes two sets of contributions. First, it shows that the ongoing digital revolution profoundly changes every major dimension of international politics. Second, focusing on the interplay of technology, agency and order, it provides a framework for explaining these changes. The book also provides a map for adjusting the study of international politics to studying International Relations, making a case for upgrading, augmenting and rewiring the discipline. Theory follows practice in International Relations, but if the discipline wants to be able to meaningfully analyse the present and come up with plausible scenarios for the future, it must not lag too far behind major transformations of the world that it studies. This book facilitates that theoretical journey. This book will be of much interest to students of cyber-politics, politics and technology, and International Relations.

Book The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

Download or read book The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium written by Martin Gurri and published by Stripe Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.

Book Surveillance Valley

Download or read book Surveillance Valley written by Yasha Levine and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internet is the most effective weapon the government has ever built. In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. A visionary intelligence officer, William Godel, realized that the key to winning the war in Vietnam was not outgunning the enemy, but using new information technology to understand their motives and anticipate their movements. This idea -- using computers to spy on people and groups perceived as a threat, both at home and abroad -- drove ARPA to develop the internet in the 1960s, and continues to be at the heart of the modern internet we all know and use today. As Levine shows, surveillance wasn't something that suddenly appeared on the internet; it was woven into the fabric of the technology. But this isn't just a story about the NSA or other domestic programs run by the government. As the book spins forward in time, Levine examines the private surveillance business that powers tech-industry giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, revealing how these companies spy on their users for profit, all while doing double duty as military and intelligence contractors. Levine shows that the military and Silicon Valley are effectively inseparable: a military-digital complex that permeates everything connected to the internet, even coopting and weaponizing the antigovernment privacy movement that sprang up in the wake of Edward Snowden. With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news -- and the device on which you read it.

Book My First Recession

    Book Details:
  • Author : Geert Lovink
  • Publisher : V2_ publishing
  • Release : 2003
  • ISBN : 9056623532
  • Pages : 300 pages

Download or read book My First Recession written by Geert Lovink and published by V2_ publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My First Recession starts when the party is over. This study maps the transition of critical Internet culture from the mid-to-late 1990s Internet craze to the dotcom crash, the subsequent meltdown of global financial markets, and 9/11. In his discussion of the dotcom boom-and-bust cycle, Geert Lovink lays out the challenges faced by critical Internet culture today. In a series of case studies, Lovink meticulously describes the ambivalent attitude that artists and activists take as they veer back and forth between euphoria and skepticism. As a part of this process, Lovink examines the internal dynamics of virtual communities through an analysis of the use of moderation and "collaborative filtering" on mailing lists and weblogs. He also confronts the practical and theoretical problems that appear as artists join the growing number of new-media education programs. Delving into the unexplored gold mines of list archives and weblogs, Lovink reveals a world that is largely unknown to both the general public and the Internet visionaries.

Book Sustainability in a Digital World

Download or read book Sustainability in a Digital World written by Thomas Osburg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the different emerging concepts in the innovative area of sustainability and digital technology. More than 20 leading thinkers from the fields of digitalization, strategic management, sustainability and organizational development share clearly structured insights on the latest developments, advances and remaining challenges concerning the role of sustainability in an increasingly digital world. The authors not only introduce a profound and unique analysis on the state-of-the art of sustainability and digital transformation, but also provide business leaders with practical advice on how to apply the latest management thinking to their daily business decisions. Further, a number of significant case studies exemplify the issues discussed and serve as valuable blueprints for decision makers.

Book Structures of Participation in Digital Culture

Download or read book Structures of Participation in Digital Culture written by Joe Karaganis and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media Studies.

Book The High Frontier  Human Colonies in Space

Download or read book The High Frontier Human Colonies in Space written by Susan T. Maldonado and published by Laurentiu-Marian Ene. This book was released on 2024-10-24 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Curriculum

Download or read book Curriculum written by Allan C. Ornstein and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ideal resource for researchers, theoreticians, and practitioners of curriculum; a ready reference for teachers, supervisors, and administrators who participate in curriculum making; and a widely popular text for courses in curriculum planning, development, implementation, and evaluation, this book presents a comprehensive, thoroughly documented, balanced overview of the foundations, principles, and issues of curriculum today. The information presented encourages readers to consider choices and then formulate their own views on curriculum.

Book Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age

Download or read book Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age written by E. Fisher and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the new terrain of network capitalism through the transformations of the discourse on technology. Rather than viewing such discourse as either a true or false reflection of reality, Fisher evaluates the ideological role that technology discourse plays in the legitimation of a new form of capitalism. Based on an extensive empirical analysis, the book argues that contemporary technology discourse at one and the same time promises more personal empowerment through network technology and legitimates a more privatized, flexible, and precarious economic constellations. Such discourse signals a new tradeoff in the political culture of capitalism, from a legitimation discourse which emphasizes the capacity of technology and technique to bring about social emancipation (through equality, stability, and security) to a legitimation discourse which focuses on the capacity of technology to bring about individual emancipation (through individual empowerment, authenticity, creativity, and cooperation). Contrary to the prevailing assumption that sees network technology as liberating from the rigidity and pitfalls of a stifling, Fordist capitalism, the book offers a theoretical framework which sees contemporary technology discourse as an ideology that legitimates the economic, social, and political arrangements of the new capitalism.

Book The Medium Is the Monster

Download or read book The Medium Is the Monster written by Mark A. McCutcheon and published by Athabasca University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of the word for modern English. It was then Marshall McLuhan’s media theory and its adaptations in Canadian popular culture that popularized, even globalized, a Frankensteinian sense of technology. The Medium Is the Monster shows how we cannot talk about technology—that human-made monstrosity—today without conjuring Frankenstein, thanks in large part to its Canadian adaptations by pop culture icons such as David Cronenberg, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, and Deadmau5. In the unexpected connections illustrated by The Medium Is the Monster, McCutcheon brings a fresh approach to studying adaptations, popular culture, and technology.

Book The Hacker Crackdown

Download or read book The Hacker Crackdown written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features the book, "The Hacker Crackdown," by Bruce Sterling. Includes a preface to the electronic release of the book and the chronology of the hacker crackdown. Notes that the book has chapters on crashing the computer system, the digital underground, law and order, and the civil libertarians.

Book Information Arts

    Book Details:
  • Author : Stephen Wilson
  • Publisher : MIT Press
  • Release : 2003-02-28
  • ISBN : 9780262731584
  • Pages : 980 pages

Download or read book Information Arts written by Stephen Wilson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the work and ideas of artists who use—and even influence—science and technology. A new breed of contemporary artist engages science and technology—not just to adopt the vocabulary and gizmos, but to explore and comment on the content, agendas, and possibilities. Indeed, proposes Stephen Wilson, the role of the artist is not only to interpret and to spread scientific knowledge, but to be an active partner in determining the direction of research. Years ago, C. P. Snow wrote about the "two cultures" of science and the humanities; these developments may finally help to change the outlook of those who view science and technology as separate from the general culture. In this rich compendium, Wilson offers the first comprehensive survey of international artists who incorporate concepts and research from mathematics, the physical sciences, biology, kinetics, telecommunications, and experimental digital systems such as artificial intelligence and ubiquitous computing. In addition to visual documentation and statements by the artists, Wilson examines relevant art-theoretical writings and explores emerging scientific and technological research likely to be culturally significant in the future. He also provides lists of resources including organizations, publications, conferences, museums, research centers, and Web sites.

Book Dark Pools

    Book Details:
  • Author : Scott Patterson
  • Publisher : Crown Currency
  • Release : 2012-06-12
  • ISBN : 0307887197
  • Pages : 386 pages

Download or read book Dark Pools written by Scott Patterson and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A news-breaking account of the global stock market's subterranean battles, Dark Pools portrays the rise of the "bots"--artificially intelligent systems that execute trades in milliseconds and use the cover of darkness to out-maneuver the humans who've created them. In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the big exchanges that, again and again, gave the giant institutions an advantage over the little guy. Levine created a computerized trading hub named Island where small traders swapped stocks, and over time his invention morphed into a global electronic stock market that sent trillions in capital through a vast jungle of fiber-optic cables. By then, the market that Levine had sought to fix had turned upside down, birthing secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new species of trading machines that could think, and that seemed, ominously, to be slipping the control of their human masters. Dark Pools is the fascinating story of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots--many so self-directed that humans can't predict what they'll do next.

Book Education Politics for the New Century

Download or read book Education Politics for the New Century written by Douglas E. Mitchell and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1989 Yearbook, commemorates the PEA's first twenty years by concentrating on the changing social, economic, technological and political forces that will shape education politics and policy into the twenty-first century. The Yearbook focuses on the roles to be played by education professionals, local citizen groups, government agencies and business leaders in shaping education policy, responses to racial and ethnic segregation, school restructuring, technology utilisation, and the development of education politics and policy.

Book Liquidated

    Book Details:
  • Author : Karen Ho
  • Publisher : Duke University Press
  • Release : 2009-07-13
  • ISBN : 0822391376
  • Pages : 390 pages

Download or read book Liquidated written by Karen Ho and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-13 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Financial collapses—whether of the junk bond market, the Internet bubble, or the highly leveraged housing market—are often explained as the inevitable result of market cycles: What goes up must come down. In Liquidated, Karen Ho punctures the aura of the abstract, all-powerful market to show how financial markets, and particularly booms and busts, are constructed. Through an in-depth investigation into the everyday experiences and ideologies of Wall Street investment bankers, Ho describes how a financially dominant but highly unstable market system is understood, justified, and produced through the restructuring of corporations and the larger economy. Ho, who worked at an investment bank herself, argues that bankers’ approaches to financial markets and corporate America are inseparable from the structures and strategies of their workplaces. Her ethnographic analysis of those workplaces is filled with the voices of stressed first-year associates, overworked and alienated analysts, undergraduates eager to be hired, and seasoned managing directors. Recruited from elite universities as “the best and the brightest,” investment bankers are socialized into a world of high risk and high reward. They are paid handsomely, with the understanding that they may be let go at any time. Their workplace culture and networks of privilege create the perception that job insecurity builds character, and employee liquidity results in smart, efficient business. Based on this culture of liquidity and compensation practices tied to profligate deal-making, Wall Street investment bankers reshape corporate America in their own image. Their mission is the creation of shareholder value, but Ho demonstrates that their practices and assumptions often produce crises instead. By connecting the values and actions of investment bankers to the construction of markets and the restructuring of U.S. corporations, Liquidated reveals the particular culture of Wall Street often obscured by triumphalist readings of capitalist globalization.

Book Analog Days

    Book Details:
  • Author : T. J PINCH
  • Publisher : Harvard University Press
  • Release : 2009-06-30
  • ISBN : 0674042166
  • Pages : 385 pages

Download or read book Analog Days written by T. J PINCH and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the development of the Moog synthesizer from its initial conception to its ascension to stardom in 'Switched-on Bach', this text conveys the consequences of a technology that would provide the soundtrack for a chapter in cultural history.