Rise Of The Nerds How A Technocratic Elite Manipulates Your Life And Gambles With Your Future

Author : Steffen Blaese
Publisher : Steffen Blaese
Page : 251 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2024-06-30
Category : Computers
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Rise of the Nerds: How a Technocratic Elite Manipulates Your Life and Gambles With Your Future by Steffen Blaese Pdf

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.

Author : Corneliu Bjola,Markus Kornprobst
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2023-11-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000997705

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Digital International Relations by Corneliu Bjola,Markus Kornprobst Pdf

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.

Author : Martin Gurri
Publisher : Stripe Press
Page : 465 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2018-12-04
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781953953346

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The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium by Martin Gurri Pdf

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.

Author : E. Fisher
Publisher : Springer
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2010-03-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780230106062

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Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age by E. Fisher Pdf

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.

Author : Mark A. McCutcheon
Publisher : Athabasca University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2018-04-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781771992244

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The Medium Is the Monster by Mark A. McCutcheon Pdf

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.

Author : Murray Newton Rothbard
Publisher : Ludwig von Mises Institute
Page : 536 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Economics
ISBN : 9781610164016

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Making Economic Sense by Murray Newton Rothbard Pdf

Author : Bruce Sterling
Publisher : Open Road Media
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2020-08-11
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781504063098

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The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling Pdf

The bestselling cyberpunk author “has produced by far the most stylish report from the computer outlaw culture since Steven Levy’s Hackers” (Publishers Weekly). Bruce Sterling delves into the world of high-tech crime and punishment in one of the first books to explore the cyberspace breaches that threaten national security. From the crash of AT&T’s long-distance switching system to corporate cyberattacks, he investigates government and law enforcement efforts to break the back of America’s electronic underground in the 1990s. In this modern classic, “Sterling makes the hackers—who live in the ether between terminals under noms de net such as VaxCat—as vivid as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. His book goes a long way towards explaining the emerging digital world and its ethos” (Publishers Weekly). This edition features a new preface by the author that analyzes the sobering increase in computer crime over the twenty-five years since The Hacker Crackdown was first published. “Offbeat and brilliant.” —Booklist “Thoroughly researched, this account of the government’s crackdown on the nebulous but growing computer-underground provides a thoughtful report on the laws and rights being defined on the virtual frontier of cyberspace. . . . An enjoyable, informative, and (as the first mainstream treatment of the subject) potentially important book . . . Sterling is a fine and knowledgeable guide to this strange new world.” —Kirkus Reviews “A well-balanced look at this new group of civil libertarians. Written with humor and intelligence, this book is highly recommended.” —Library Journal

Author : Geert Lovink
Publisher : instituteofnetworkcultures
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Culture
ISBN : 9789078146070

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Dynamics of Critical Internet Culture (1994-2001) by Geert Lovink Pdf

This study examines the dynamics of critical Internet culture after the medium opened to a broader audience in the mid 1990s. It is Geert Lovink's PhD thesis, submitted late 2002, written in between his two books on the same topic: Dark Fiber (2002) and My First Recession (2003). The core of the research consists of four case studies of non-profit networks: the Amsterdam community provider, The Digital City (DDS); the early years of the nettime mailinglist community; a history of the European new media arts network Syndicate; and an analysis of the streaming media network Xchange. The research describes the search for sustainable community network models in a climate of hyper growth and increased tensions and conflict concerning moderation and ownership of online communities.

Author : Barry Rubin
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2007-05-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780230605206

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The Truth about Syria by Barry Rubin Pdf

Syria has long presented a serious problem for the Middle East region and U.S. policy. With its mix of competing religious and ethnic groups, radical ideologies, and political repression, it is a 72,000-square-mile time bomb waiting to go off. Yet surprisingly, very little is known about this country and the role it has played in shaping the destiny of the Middle East. In The Truth about Syria, Middle East expert Barry Rubin looks at the critical issues that have made the country the powderkeg of the Middle East and offers an insightful analysis of the effects of recent developments.

Author : Geert Lovink
Publisher : V2_ publishing
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9789056623531

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My First Recession by Geert Lovink Pdf

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.

Author : Florian Alexander Schmidt
Publisher : Birkhäuser
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2017-07-24
Category : Design
ISBN : 9783035610673

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Crowd Design by Florian Alexander Schmidt Pdf

The digital revolution is interwoven with the promise to empower the user. Yet, the rise of centralized, commercial platforms for crowdsourced work questions the validity of this narrative. In Crowd-Design, Florian Alexander Schmidt analyses the workings and the rhetoric of crowdsourced work platforms by comparing the way they address the masses today with historic notions of the crowd. The utopian concepts of early online collaboration are taken as a vantage point from which to view and critique current and, at times, dystopian applications of crowdsourced work. The study is focused on the crowdsourcing of design tasks, but these specific applications are used to examine the design of the more general mechanisms employed by the platform providers to motivate and control the crowds. Crowd-Design is as much about the crowdsourcing of design as it is about the design of crowdsourcing.

Author : Annette W. Balkema,Henk Slager
Publisher : Rodopi
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Art
ISBN : 9042010975

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Artistic Research by Annette W. Balkema,Henk Slager Pdf

Advanced art education is in the process of developing research programs throughout Europe. What does the term research actually means in the practice of art? What is the relation to the scientific methods of alpha, beta or gamma sciences, directed toward knowledge production and the development of a certain scientific domaine? What will be the influence of scientific research on the art forms?

Author : Chrystia Freeland
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2012-10-25
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780141929903

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Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland Pdf

Forget the 1% - it's time to get to grips with the 0.1% ... There has always been some gap between rich and poor, but it has never been wider - and now the rich are getting wealthier at such breakneck speed that the middle classes are being squeezed out. While the wealthiest 10% of Americans, for example, receive half the nation's income, the real money flows even higher up, in the top 0.1%. As a transglobal class of highly successful professionals, these self-made oligarchs often have more in common with one another than with their own countrymen. But how is this happening, and who are the people making it happen? Chrystia Freeland, acclaimed business journalist and Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters, has unprecedented access to the richest and most successful people on the planet, from Davos to Dubai, and dissects their lives with intelligence, empathy and objectivity. Pacily written and powerfully researched, Plutocrats could not provide a more timely insight into the current state of Capitalism and its most wealthy players. 'A superb piece of reportage ... a tremendous illumination' (New Statesman on Freeland's previous title, Sale of the Century)

Author : Stephen Wilson
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 980 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2003-02-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0262731584

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Information Arts by Stephen Wilson Pdf

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.

Author : Josephine Berry Slater,Pauline Van Mourik Broekman,Michael Corris
Publisher : Mute Publishing Ltd
Page : 626 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Art and society
ISBN : 9781906496289

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Proud to be Flesh by Josephine Berry Slater,Pauline Van Mourik Broekman,Michael Corris Pdf

Dedicated to an analysis of culture and politics after the net, Mute magazine has, since its inception in 1994, consistently challenged the grandiose claims of the digital revolution. This anthology offers an expansive collection of some of Mute's finest articles and is thematically organised around key contemporary issues: Direct Democracy and its Demons; Net Art to Conceptual Art and Back; I, Cyborg - Reinventing the Human; of Commoners and Criminals; Organising Horizontally; Art and/against Business; Under the Net - City and Camp; Class and Immaterial Labour; The Open Work. The result is both an impressive overview and an invaluable sourcebook of contemporary culture in its widest sense