Download or read book What We Owe the Future written by William MacAskill and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Instant New York Times Bestseller “This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It's as simple, and as ambitious, as that.” —Ezra Klein An Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today. In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human. If we make wise choices today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.

Download or read book The Future We Choose written by Christiana Figueres and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity, from Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac—who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015. The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism. The Future We Choose presents our options and tells us what governments, corporations, and each of us can, and must, do to fend off disaster.

Download or read book We Own the Future written by Kate Aronoff and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunningly original and timely collection that makes the case for "socialism, American style" It's a strange day when a New York Times conservative columnist is forced to admit that the left is winning, but as David Brooks wrote recently, "the American left is on the cusp of a great victory." Among Americans under thirty, 43 percent had a favorable view of socialism, while only 32 percent had a favorable view of capitalism. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans questioned the fundamental tenets of capitalism and expressed openness to a socialist alternative. We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style offers a road map to making this alternative a reality, giving readers a practical vision of a future that is more democratic, egalitarian, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable. The book includes a crash course in the history and practice of democratic socialism, a vivid picture of what democratic socialism in America might look like in practice, and compelling proposals for how to get there from the age of Trump and beyond. With contributions from some of the nation's leading political activists and analysts, We Own the Future articulates a clear and uncompromising view from the left—a perfectly timed book that will appeal to a wide audience hungry for change. Table of Contents Part I: Is a New America Possible? Introduction Kate Aronoff, Peter Dreier, and Michael Kazin How Socialists Changed America Peter Dreier and Michael Kazin Toward a Third Reconstruction Andrea Flynn, Susan Holmberg, Dorian Warren, and Felicia Wong A Three-Legged Stool for Racial and Economic Justice Darrick Hamilton Democratic Socialism for a Climate-Changed Century Naomi Klein Part II: Expanding Democracy Governing Socialism Bill Fletcher Jr. We the People: Voting Rights, Campaign Finance, and Election Reform J. Mijin Cha Confronting Corporate Power Robert Kuttner Building the People's Banks David Dayen Democracy, Equality, and the Future of Workers Sarita Gupta, Stephen Lerner, and Joseph A. McCartin Who Gets to Be Safe? Prisons, Police, and Terror Aviva Stahl On Immigration: A Socialist Case for Open Borders Michelle Chen On Foreign Policy: War from Above, Solidarity from Below Tejasvi Nagaraja Part III: The Right to a Good Life Livable Cities Thomas J. Sugrue What Does Health Equity Require? Racism and the Limits of Medicare for All Dorothy Roberts The Family of the Future Sarah Leonard Defending and Improving Public Education Pedro Noguera Reclaiming Competition: Sports and Socialism David Zirin What About a Well-Fed Artist? Imagining Cultural Work in a Democratic Socialist Society Francesca Fiorentini How Socialism Surged, and How It Can Go Further Harold Meyerson Afterword: A Day in the Life of a Socialist Citizen Michael Walzer

Download or read book We Are The Future written by Neo Zonys and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has makes people want to become better. From tips, advice, real life stories, and thoughts, this book has everything packed up to make you better...only if your willing to make that change. People in this world are capable of changing bad habits, the way they look at people, and the way they act, as soon as they decide is time. The time is now. Stressing about how you are as a person isn't right, and this book will tell you that the abilities you have in yourself will exceed what you believe they are. You were born the way you are, and now it's time to embrace it, and while reading this book maybe not once but twice, it will motivate you to become that best person you can be. Make your life worth it. This is everyone's time to shine, especially yours, and making yourself better will make our future shine "bright".Making people better is Neo's cause. Neo is a teenage author who feels that writing books isn't about "just having a book" but it is about having someone learn something from it. Neo wants you to learn that teenagers these days need to remember that they will comprise of our future, and if we make ourselves the best people we can be, we will accomplish those goals. Reading this book will make you not only read it once, because it has motivational quotes, poems, and adivce that might just help you when you are in the wrong. The author Neo, throughout this book, tries to inform people about how the world will change for good if we just take responsibility and make ourselves the best people we can be. This starts with you!

Download or read book The Future We Need written by Erica Smiley and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Future We Need, Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta bring a novel perspective to building worker power and what labor organizing could look like in the future, suggesting ways to evolve collective bargaining to match the needs of modern people—not only changing their wages and working conditions, but being able to govern over more aspects of their lives. Weaving together stories of real working people, Smiley and Gupta position the struggle to build collective bargaining power as a central element in the effort to build a healthy democracy and explore both existing levers of power and new ones we must build for workers to have the ability to negotiate in today and tomorrow's contexts. The Future We Need illustrates the necessity of centralizing the fight against white supremacy and gender discrimination, while offering paths forward to harness the power of collective bargaining in every area for a new era.

Download or read book The Future We Left Behind written by Mike A. Lancaster and published by Carolrhoda Lab ™. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of years in the future, the divide between humanity and technology has become nearly unrecognizable. Each thought, each action is logged, coded, backed up. Data is as easily exchanged through the fiber-optic-like cables that extend from fingertips as it might be through ordinary conversation. It's a brave new world: A world that the Straker Tapes say is a result of many human "upgrades." But no one is sure whether the Straker Tapes are a work of fiction or an eerie peek into an unimaginable past. Nearly sixteen-year-old Peter Vincent has been raised to believe that everything that the backward Strakerites cling to is insane—an utter waste of time and potential. Since his father is David Vincent, genius inventor of the artificial bees that saved the world's crops and prevented massive famine, how could Peter believe anything else? But when Peter meets Alpha, a Strakerite his own age, suddenly the theories about society-upgrades don't sound quite so crazy, especially when she shows him evidence that another upgrade is imminent. And worse, there may be a conspiracy by the leaders of the establishment to cover it up. A conspiracy spearheaded by Peter's own father. Gripping and full of unexpected twists, The Future We Left Behind takes the unsettling questions raised in Human.4 and flips them entirely. What if we knew that the very way we live was about to be changed in an instant, and we could stop it? And what if everything we are sure we know is entirely wrong?

Download or read book The Education We Need for a Future We Can t Predict written by Thomas Hatch and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improve Schools and Transform Education In order for educational systems to change, we must reevaluate deep-seated beliefs about learning, teaching, schooling, and race that perpetuate inequitable opportunities and outcomes. Hatch, Corson, and Gerth van den Berg challenge the narrative when it comes to the "grammar of schooling"--or the conventional structures, practices, and beliefs that define educational experiences for so many children—to cast a new vision of what school could be. The book addresses current systemic problems and solutions as it: Highlights global examples of successful school change Describes strategies that improve educational opportunities and performance Explores promising approaches in developing new learning opportunities Outlines conditions for supporting wide-scale educational improvement This provocative book approaches education reform by highlighting what works, while also demonstrating what can be accomplished if we redefine conventional schools. We can make the schools we have more efficient, more effective, and more equitable, all while creating powerful opportunities to support all aspects of students’ development. "You won’t find a better book on system change in education than this one. We learn why schools don’t change; how they can improve; what it takes to change a system; and, in the final analysis, the possibilities of system change. Above all, The Education We Need renders complexity into clarity as the writing is so clear and compelling. A powerful read on a topic of utmost importance." ~Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus, OISE/Universtiy of Toronto "I cannot recommend this book highly enough – Tom tackles long-standing and emerging educational issues in new ways with an impressive understanding of the challenging complexities, but also feasible possibilities, for ensuring excellence and equity for all students." ~Carol Campbell, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Download or read book We Don t Need Roads written by Caseen Gaines and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the iconic Back to the Future trilogy—the perfect movie gift for fans of the franchise, actors, writers, and filmmakers who contributed to this beloved pop culture phenomenon. Long before Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time in a flying DeLorean, director Robert Zemeckis, and his friend and writing partner Bob Gale, worked tirelessly to break into the industry with a hit. During their journey to realize their dream, they encountered unprecedented challenges and regularly took the difficult way out. For the first time ever, the story of how these two young filmmakers struck lightning is being told by those who witnessed it. We Don’t Need Roads draws from over 500 hours of interviews, including original interviews with Zemeckis, Gale, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Huey Lewis, and over fifty others who contributed to one of the most popular and profitable film trilogies of all time. The book includes a 16-page color photo insert with behind-the-scenes pictures, concept art, and more. With a focus not only on the movies, but also the lasting impact of the franchise and its fandom, We Don’t Need Roads is the ultimate read for anyone who has ever wanted to ride a Hoverboard, hang from the top of a clock tower, travel through the space-time continuum, or find out what really happened to Eric Stoltz after the first six weeks of filming. So, why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here—and start reading! We Don’t Need Roads is your density. “What fun! Deeply researched and engagingly written...the book Back to the Future fans have been craving for decades. Geekily enthusiastic and chock full of never-before-heard tales of what went on both on and off the screen, We Don't Need Roads is a book worthy of the beloved trilogy itself.”—Brian Jay Jones, author of the national bestseller Jim Henson: The Biography “A very compelling and enjoyable history of our trilogy. For me, reading it was like going back in time. And—Great Scott—there were even a few anecdotes that I'd never heard!”—Bob Gale, co-creator, co-producer, and co-writer of the Back to the Future trilogy

Download or read book The Future We Deserve written by Vinay Gupta and published by Pediapress. This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future We Deserve is a collection of 100 essays from people of all walks of life discussing our world from amazingly different perspectives. Utopia or oblivion, plenty or famine, freedom or slavery? We do not know, but we do know that there is a vital thread of insight which emerges when people think together about what they really want, what matters most to them, and how we are all going to live in just a few years.

Download or read book You Are Not a Gadget written by Jaron Lanier and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A programmer, musician, and father of virtual reality technology, Jaron Lanier was a pioneer in digital media, and among the first to predict the revolutionary changes it would bring to our commerce and culture. Now, with the Web influencing virtually every aspect of our lives, he offers this provocative critique of how digital design is shaping society, for better and for worse. Informed by Lanier’s experience and expertise as a computer scientist, You Are Not a Gadget discusses the technical and cultural problems that have unwittingly risen from programming choices—such as the nature of user identity—that were “locked-in” at the birth of digital media and considers what a future based on current design philosophies will bring. With the proliferation of social networks, cloud-based data storage systems, and Web 2.0 designs that elevate the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and wisdom of individuals, his message has never been more urgent.

Download or read book The Deep written by Rivers Solomon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping. Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are. The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping.

Download or read book Can We Afford the Future written by Doctor Frank Ackerman and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to many scientists, climate change is a growing threat to life as we know it, requiring a large-scale, immediate response. According to many economists, climate change is a moderately important problem; the best policy is a slow, gradual start, to avoid spending too much. They can't both be right. In this book, Frank Ackerman offers a refreshing look at the economics of climate change, explaining how the arbitrary assumptions of conventional theories get in the way of understanding this urgent problem. The benefits of climate protection are vital but priceless, and hence often devalued in cost-benefit calculations. Preparation for the most predictable outcomes of global warming is less important than protection against the growing risk of catastrophic change; massive investment in new, low carbon technologies and industries should be thought of as life insurance for the planet. Ackerman makes an impassioned plea to construct a better economics, arguing that the solutions are affordable and the alternative is unthinkable. If we can't afford the future, what are we saving our money for? Can we Afford the Future? is part of The New Economics series, which uses the ideas behind a new, more human economics to provide a fresh way of looking at major contemporary issues.

Download or read book Back to Our Future written by David Sirota and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wall Street scandals. Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past. In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama). Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.

Download or read book Playing the Future written by Douglas Rushkoff and published by Berkley. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Makes dazzling links between chaos theory and Rodney King, snow boarding and William Gibson, race culture and Star Wars--the literary equivalent of U2's Zoo TV--Rushkoff is courageous enough to stand up against fashionable gloom by putting his faith in today's 'screenagers.

Download or read book When We Are No More written by Abby Smith Rumsey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our memory gives the human species a unique evolutionary advantage. Our stories, ideas, and innovations--in a word, our "culture"--can be recorded and passed on to future generations. Our enduring culture and restless curiosity have enabled us to invent powerful information technologies that give us invaluable perspective on our past and define our future. Today, we stand at the very edge of a vast, uncharted digital landscape, where our collective memory is stored in ephemeral bits and bytes and lives in air-conditioned server rooms. What sources will historians turn to in 100, let alone 1,000 years to understand our own time if all of our memory lives in digital codes that may no longer be decipherable? In When We Are No More Abby Smith Rumsey explores human memory from pre-history to the present to shed light on the grand challenge facing our world--the abundance of information and scarcity of human attention. Tracing the story from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls, to movable type, books, and the birth of the Library of Congress, Rumsey weaves a compelling narrative that explores how humans have dealt with the problem of too much information throughout our history, and indeed how we might begin solve the same problem for our digital future. Serving as a call to consciousness, When We Are No More explains why data storage is not memory; why forgetting is the first step towards remembering; and above all, why memory is about the future, not the past. "If we're thinking 1,000 years, 3,000 years ahead in the future, we have to ask ourselves, how do we preserve all the bits that we need in order to correctly interpret the digital objects we create? We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it." --Vint Cerf, Chief Evangelist at Google, at a press conference in February, 2015.

Download or read book What We Talk About When We Talk About Books written by Leah Price and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reports of the death of reading are greatly exaggerated Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the curiosity to look beyond the day's news, the willingness to be alone. The shelves of the world's great libraries, though, tell a more complicated story. Examining the wear and tear on the books that they contain, English professor Leah Price finds scant evidence that a golden age of reading ever existed. From the dawn of mass literacy to the invention of the paperback, most readers already skimmed and multitasked. Print-era doctors even forbade the very same silent absorption now recommended as a cure for electronic addictions. The evidence that books are dying proves even scarcer. In encounters with librarians, booksellers and activists who are reinventing old ways of reading, Price offers fresh hope to bibliophiles and literature lovers alike. Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, 2020

Download or read book The Future We Want written by Sarah Leonard and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring blueprint for American equality, from the "breakout stars" (The New York Times) of the young new left Democrat, Republican -- the list of presidential candidates confirms that business is proceeding pretty much as usual. The Future We Want proposes something different. In a sharp, rousing collective manifesto, ten young cultural and political critics dismantle the usual liberal solutions to America's ills and propose a pragmatic alternative. What would finance look like without Wall Street? Or the workplace with responsibility shared by the entire workforce? From a campaign to limit work hours, to a program for full employment, to proposals for a new feminism, The Future We Want has the courage to think of alternatives that are both utopian and possible. Brilliantly clear and provocative, The Future We Want -- edited by Jacobin magazine founder Bhaskar Sunkara and the Nation's Sarah Leonard -- harnesses the energy and creativity of an angry generation and announces the arrival of a new political left that not only protests but plans.