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• 1 EPOCHAL TRANSITIONS
• 2 POPULATIONS
• 3 AGRICULTURES AND DIETS
• 4 ENERGIES
• 5 ECONOMIES
• 6 ENVIRONMENT
• 7 OUTCOMES AND OUTLOOKS.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization-in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics-which have transformed the way we live. Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments. Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition-environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming-will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• .Introduction: General vs. singular causation
• The space of reasons and the space of causes
• Singular causation
• Social robots
• The mind-body problem

A renowned philosopher argues that singular causation in the mind is not grounded in general patterns of causation, a claim on behalf of human distinctiveness, which has implications for the future of social robots. A blab droid is a robot with a body shaped like a pizza box, a pair of treads, and a smiley face. Guided by an onboard video camera, it roams hotel lobbies and conference centers, asking questions in the voice of a seven-year-old. "Can you help me?" "What is the worst thing you've ever done?" "Who in the world do you love most?" People pour their hearts out in response. This droid prompts the question of what we can hope from social robots. Might they provide humanlike friendship? Philosopher John Campbell doesn't think so. He argues that, while a social robot can remember the details of a person's history better than some spouses can, it cannot empathize with the human mind, because it lacks the faculty for thinking in terms of singular causation. Causation in Psychology makes the case that singular causation is essential and unique to the human species. From the point of view of practical action, knowledge of what generally causes what is often all one needs. But humans are capable of more. We have a capacity to imagine singular causation. Unlike robots and nonhuman animals, we don't have to rely on axioms about pain to know how ongoing suffering is affecting someone's ability to make decisions, for example, and this knowledge is not a derivative of general rules. The capacity to imagine singular causation, Campbell contends, is a core element of human freedom and of the ability to empathize with human thoughts and feelings.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• .Introduction: General vs. singular causation
• The space of reasons and the space of causes
• Singular causation
• Social robots
• The mind-body problem

A renowned philosopher argues that singular causation in the mind is not grounded in general patterns of causation, a claim on behalf of human distinctiveness, which has implications for the future of social robots. A blab droid is a robot with a body shaped like a pizza box, a pair of treads, and a smiley face. Guided by an onboard video camera, it roams hotel lobbies and conference centers, asking questions in the voice of a seven-year-old. "Can you help me?" "What is the worst thing you've ever done?" "Who in the world do you love most?" People pour their hearts out in response. This droid prompts the question of what we can hope from social robots. Might they provide humanlike friendship? Philosopher John Campbell doesn't think so. He argues that, while a social robot can remember the details of a person's history better than some spouses can, it cannot empathize with the human mind, because it lacks the faculty for thinking in terms of singular causation. Causation in Psychology makes the case that singular causation is essential and unique to the human species. From the point of view of practical action, knowledge of what generally causes what is often all one needs. But humans are capable of more. We have a capacity to imagine singular causation. Unlike robots and nonhuman animals, we don't have to rely on axioms about pain to know how ongoing suffering is affecting someone's ability to make decisions, for example, and this knowledge is not a derivative of general rules. The capacity to imagine singular causation, Campbell contends, is a core element of human freedom and of the ability to empathize with human thoughts and feelings.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• v. 1. The birth of humankind

• An opening note on hope
• The size of the board
• Leverage
• The name of the game
• An outside chance
• Epilogue : grounded.

Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben's groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben's experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We're at a bleak moment in human history -- and we'll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The creation and justification of knowledge in antiquity and the Middle Ages gives rise to several questions: How is "foreign" knowledge given authority? What are the mechanisms of legitimation? Are the ascriptions by the sources concerning the origin of knowledge as either inherited or borrowed traceable and comprehensible or artificial and unfounded? Does transferred knowledge create new concepts during the act of borrowing? To answer these questions, this volume is divided into three parts: After a section on theoretical and methodological considerations, two thematic sections deal with a special field of knowledge, i.e. on concepts of the moon and of the end of the world in fire.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities-developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii List of Figures xiv
• 1 Speculations and Fantasies 1
• 1 Lost Knowledge, Technology, and the Patterns of History 1
• 2 The Nature of Ancient Knowledge 5
• 3 A New Approach 11
• 4 The Sources 14
• 5 Technology in the Remote Past: the Case of Frederick Soddy 19
• 6 Speculations and Methods 35
• 2 Ancient Tales of Flying Machines 40
• 1 Two Types of Tales 40
• 2 Chinese Stories of Flying Machines 45
• 3 Korean Accounts of Flying Machines 56
• 4 South Asian Tales of Flying Vehicles 75
• 5 Ainu Stories of Flying Machines 89
• 6 Hopi Lore about Flying Vehicles 96
• 7 Tales from Oceania about Flying Vehicles 99
• 8 A Synthesis of Traditions in the "Flying Horse" Tales 101
• 9 Terms and Types 110
• 3 Magic Mirrors and Early Televisions 114
• 1 Mirrors in History 114
• 2 Two Chinese Diagnostic Mirrors 123
• 3 A Mirror to Locate Illness and a Mirror to "Illuminate the Bones" 126
• 4 Looking into Chinese Mirrors 131
• 5 Mirrors, Meaning, and Context 134
• 6 Another Diagnostic Device 136
• 7 Mirrors and Medicine 138
• 8 Jivaka's Diagnostic Device 140
• 9 A Magic Mirror Trick? 142
• 10 Traditions of Transmitted Images in Central American and Persian Cultures 149
• 11 Prester John and Western Traditions of Long-Distance Mirrors 158
• 12 Remote Communication in the Works of Paracelsus and Francis Bacon 163
• 13 Traditions Concerning Special Mirrors and Telescopes 166
• 14 Chinese Tales of Image Transmission 171
• 15 Technology in Context 175
• 4 The Missing Land of Atlantis 177
• 1 A Question of Identity 177
• 2 Atlantis in Plato's Timaeus 182
• 3 Plato and the Idea of History 190
• 4 The Geography of Atlantis 202
• 5 Fiction, Myth, and History 209
• 6 Transmission, Memory, and Text 214
• 7 Atlantis in Plato's Critias 218
• 8 Atlas, Atlantis, and a Question of Interpretation 236
• 9 Ancient Views of the Remote Past 238
• 10 Numbers and Technical Detail in the Story of Atlantis 245
• 11 Atlantis: in Search of an Interpretation 255
• 5 Rings and Dangerous Powers 271
• 1 The Nature of a Folktale 271
• 2 The Tale of Gyges in Plato's Republic 273
• 3 The Background and Setting of the Tale of Gyges 277
• 4 The Elements of the Tale: the Cave 280
• 5 The Elements of the Tale: the Horse 282
• 6 The Elements of the Tale: the Body 284
• 7 The Elements of the Tale: the Ring 292
• 8 Conclusions: Technology and the Fate of a Civilization 297
• 6 The Nature, Encoding, and Transmission of Knowledge 308
• 1 Storing Knowledge 308
• 2 Transmission through Time 310
• 3 The Concept of "Encoding" 318
• 4 Knowledge and Loss 325
• 5 Knowledge and Myth, Knowledge in Myth 338
• 6 Changing Knowledge, Changing History 346
• 7 Conclusions - What Did They Mean? 353
• 1 Technology and the Concept of the "Golden Age" 353
• 2 More on the "City of Brass" 360
• 3 Knowledge Transmission and Cyclical History 363
• 4 How Far Back? 368
• 5 The Methods for the Transmission of Knowledge 375
• 6 The Idea of "Lost Knowledge" and the Nature of Myth 378
• 7 Looking at the Texts 383
• 8 Reading Texts 388
• 9 Towards the Future 391
• Bibliography 395 Index 452.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories examines the idea of lost knowledge, reaching back to a period between myth and history. It investigates a peculiar idea found in a number of early texts: that there were civilizations with knowledge of sophisticated technologies, and that this knowledge was obscured or destroyed over time along with the civilization that had created it. This book presents critical studies of a series of early Chinese, South Asian, and other texts that look at the idea of specific "lost" technologies, such as mechanical flight and the transmission of images. There is also an examination of why concepts of a vanished "golden age" were prevalent in so many cultures. Offering an engaging and investigative look at the propagation of history and myth in technology and culture, this book is sure to interest historians and readers from many backgrounds.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. From Petrarch to Bacon, Technecology Style: Introduction I. The Comedy of Errata
• 2. From Print Error to Human Errancy in Print
• 3. The Literary Erotics of Print and Misprint II. Arms or the Man
• 4. The Golden Age of Chivalry in the Iron Age of Gunpowder
• 5. Plebeian Presence in the Age of Gunpowder III. Plus Ultra! Further Yet!
• 6. Renegotiating the World by Compass and Card
• 7. Space, Place, and Literary Self-Projection
• 8. Technological Inter-animation, Writ Large: Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book foregrounds the pressures that three transformative technologies in the long sixteenth century-the printing press, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass-placed on long-held literary practices, as well as on cultural and social structures. Sheila J. Nayar disinters the clash between humanist drives and print culture; places the rise of gunpowder warfare beside the equivalent rise in chivalric romance; and illustrates fraught attempts by humanists to hold on to classicist traditions in the face of seismic changes in navigation. Lively and engaging, this study illuminates not only how literature responded to radical technological changes, but also how literature was sometimes forced, through unanticipated destabilizations, to reimagine itself. By tracing the early modern human's inter-animation with print, powder, and compass, Nayar exposes how these technologies assisted in producing new ways of seeing, knowing, and being in the world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

We live in disruptive times. The world is changing faster than ever before, leaving people dazed, businesses struggling, economies floundering and societies fracturing. But why? Transition Point is the result of over five years of research to establish the answer; a breathtaking tale of freedom, unintended consequences and disruptive technologies that starts 1000 years ago and ends up in the second half of the 21st Century. Starting with an examination into the drivers of technological change and the social, economic and political factors that both enable or suppress it, Transition Point explains why industrialisation happened where and when it did, why progress comes in waves, and why the technologies in the current wave, such as robotics, blockchain and AI, are likely to be the most disruptive of all. It then addresses the million-dollar question: what's next? What impact will this wave have on our businesses, our economies and most importantly, on our society? Culey explores how our current trajectory could result in a new golden age, but also how it is just as likely to result in a digital dictatorship of compliance and constant surveillance. Finally, he explains why we may soon see Homo sapiens' role as the dominant species come to an end. As Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, stated; "We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before." Transition Point explains why this is happening, what it means, and why the decisions we make now will prove to be critical.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely. But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it. Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Science for good and science for bad
• A horrible discovery
• The ethical dilemma of hiding research findings
• Some real-world examples
• The need for informed research policy
• A hopeless task?
• Preview
• 2. Our planet and its biosphere
• A note to the reader
• Dramatic changes in past climate
• Greenhouse warming
• Milankovitch cycles
• The role of carbon dioxide
• The need for action
• A geoengineering proposal: sulfur in the stratosphere
• Other forms of geoengineering
• No miracle solution
• Searching for solutions further outside the box
• 3. Engineering better humans?
• Human enhancement
• Human dignity
• The wisdom of repugnance?
• Morphological freedom and the risk of arms races
• Genetic engineering
• Brain-machine interfaces
• Longer lives
• Uploading: philosophical issues
• Uploading: practical issues
• Cryonics
• 4. Computer revolution
• Cantor
• Turing
• Computer revolution up to now
• Will robots take our jobs?
• Intelligence explosion
• The goals of a superintelligent machine
• Searle's objection
• 5. Going nano
• 3D printing
• Atomically precise manufacturing
• Nanobots in our bodies
• Grey goo and other dangers
• 6. What is science?
• Bacon
• Are all ravens black?
• Popper
• A balanced view of Popperian falsificationism
• Is the study of future intelligence explosion scientific?
• Statistical significance
• Decision-makers need probabilities
• Bayesian statistics
• Is consistent Bayesianism possible?
• Science and engineering
• 7. The fallacious Doomsday Argument
• The Doomsday Argument: basic version
• Why the basic version is wrong
• Frequentist version
• Bayesian version
• 8. Doomsday nevertheless?
• Classifying and estimating concrete hazards: some difficulties
• Risks from nature
• Risks from human action
• How badly in trouble are we?
• 9. Space colonization and the Fermi Paradox
• The Fermi Paradox
• The Great Filter
• Colonizing the universe
• Dysonian SETI
• Shouting at the cosmos
• 10. What do we want and what should we do?
• Facts and values
• Discounting
• Existential risk prevention as global priority?
• I am not advocating Pascal's Wager
• What to do?

• 1. Science for good and science for bad
• 2. Our planet and its biosphere
• 3. Engineering better humans?
• 4. Computer revolution
• 5. Going nano
• 6. What is science?
• 7. The fallacious Doomsday Argument
• 8. Doomsday nevertheless?
• 9. Space colonization and the Fermi Paradox
• 10. What do we want and what should we do?
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

There is a widely held conception that progress in science and technology is our salvation, and the more of it, the better. This, however, is an oversimplified and even dangerous attitude. While the future will certainly offer huge changes due to such progress, it is far from certain that all of these changes will be for the better. The unprecedented rate of technological development that the 20th century witnessed has made our lives today vastly different from those in 1900. No slowdown is in sight, and the 21st century will most likely see even more revolutionary changes than the 20th, due to advances in science, technology and medicine. Particular areas where extraordinary and perhaps disruptive advances can be expected include biotechnology, nanotechnology, and machine intelligence. We may also look forward various ways to enhance human cognitive and other abilities using, e.g., pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering or machine-brain interfaces - perhaps to the extent of changing human nature beyond what we currently think of as human, and into a posthuman era. The potential benefits of all these technologies are enormous, but so are the risks, including the possibility of human extinction. This book is a passionate plea for doing our best to map the territories ahead of us, and for acting with foresight, so as to maximize our chances of reaping the benefits of the new technologies while avoiding the dangers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• What's it about?; Our drive for technological advancement may soon give us "superhuman" powers; Technology has already allowed us to significantly limit the damage caused by disease, famine, and war; The next human challenge is likely to be seeking immortality; Technology could be used to make constant happiness the new human norm; Overly relying on new technology could lead to us sacrificing our individuality and autonomy to intelligent algorithms; As more tasks are performed by computers and robots, humans who are not technologically enhanced may become obsolete; Final summary.

• Now read the bookKey takeaways; Copyright Page.

In today's fast-paced world, it's tough to find the time to read. But with Joosr guides, you can get the key insights from bestselling non-fiction titles in less than 20 minutes. Whether you want to gain knowledge on the go or find the books you'll love, Joosr's brief and accessible eBook summaries fit into your life. Find out more at joosr.com. We stand on the brink of technological advancements that could change everything we know about human life. But will this make us superhuman, as many hope, or could our drive for progress actually lead to our own destruction? Yuval Noah Harari believes it could go either way: our ever-growing scientific knowledge certainly has the potential to give us incredible, even "godlike" abilities, but in striving for this, we might come close to losing the very things that make us human. Homo Deus examines both the risks and the potential rewards of this journey and offers compelling visions of humanity's possible futures. You will learn: How techn.

• Introduction: Introducing Our New Spiritual Masters
• 1. The Cult of the Fact: What Discipline-Based Science Will Never Know
• 2. The Cult of Efficiency: What Technical Means Cannot Accomplish
• 3. The Cult of Growth: The Anti-Economy
• 4. The Cult of Disembodied Communal Life: The Anti-Society
• 5. The Cult of Disembodied Personal Life: Epidemics of Anxiety and Depression Epilogue Notes.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Western society has become saturated with scientific and technological modes of thinking that impact our lives and our relationships. Expanding social inequality, the use of social media and the rise of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression are manifestations of this shift in our civilization. Our Battle for the Human Spirit is a comprehensive probe into what is happening to human life in the beginning of the 21st century. It explores how culture, experience, and symbolization have been replaced by scientific, discipline-based, approaches. Willem H. Vanderburg argues that these approaches are inadequate in understanding the complexity of human lives and societies. In order to transcend these limits, Vanderburg calls for the reintegration of culture and symbolization into our daily lives.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Introducing Our New Spiritual Masters
• 1. The Cult of the Fact: What Discipline-Based Science Will Never Know
• 2. The Cult of Efficiency: What Technical Means Cannot Accomplish
• 3. The Cult of Growth: The Anti-Economy
• 4. The Cult of Disembodied Communal Life: The Anti-Society
• 5. The Cult of Disembodied Personal Life: Epidemics of Anxiety and Depression Epilogue Notes.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Western society has become saturated with scientific and technological modes of thinking that impact our lives and our relationships. Expanding social inequality, the use of social media and the rise of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression are manifestations of this shift in our civilization. Our Battle for the Human Spirit is a comprehensive probe into what is happening to human life in the beginning of the 21st century. It explores how culture, experience, and symbolization have been replaced by scientific, discipline-based, approaches. Willem H. Vanderburg argues that these approaches are inadequate in understanding the complexity of human lives and societies. In order to transcend these limits, Vanderburg calls for the reintegration of culture and symbolization into our daily lives.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)