Category: technology

Cory Doctorow on dystopia as a state of mind

It feels like we’re barreling into dystopia. We elect demagogues who seek to destroy the very institutions they nominally lead. We acquiesce to mass surveillance. We dismiss corruption as “the way things work.” We condemn our grandchildren to suffer accelerating climate change because we can’t get our own act together. We rationalize economic inequality as…
Alexander Weinstein on how technology is changing what it means to be human

Technology is something we often think about in abstract terms. We read the latest trend reports, keep an eye on new scientific papers, or maybe just browse Wired every once in awhile. We know technology is important. But its prevalence belies its impact. We complain about the wifi as we soar around the world in…
Annalee Newitz on who owns the future

Ownership often feels like a natural law. We all know what’s ours, and sometimes covet what isn’t. Hedge fund managers trade against each other in an endless cycle of one-upmanship. Kindergarteners refuse to share. Some master bathrooms have jealously guarded twin sinks. The pursuit of rational self-interest is what fuels the economy, right? Where would…
Malka Older on the future of democracy

The best science fiction writers can bring down the most powerful of institutions with a single sentence, and erect new ones in a paragraph. In her debut science fiction thriller Infomocracy, Malka Older mines her extensive experience in governance research to craft not only a nuanced vision for the future of democracy, but a globe-trotting…
Kim Stanley Robinson on how to spark hope in a future ravaged by climate change

Maria Popova says that critical thinking without hope is cynicism and hope without critical thinking is naïveté. Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 finds the golden mean between the two. He challenges us to reevaluate our own assumptions and priorities with a vision of the future that is at once hopeful and pragmatic. The novel follows…
New Books in Science Fiction podcast interview

I went on the New Books in Science Fiction podcast to talk to about the social implications of technology, the meaning of justice in an age of algorithms, and the near-future extrapolated in my new novel, Breach: https://newbooksnetwork.com/eliot-peper-breach-47north-2019/ Complement with How to see our world in a new light, Eliot Peper Imagines a Future Ruled…
FactorDaily on Breach

FactorDaily ran a glowing, thought-provoking review of Breach: https://factordaily.com/eliot-peper-breach-analog-trilogy-review/ “We must turn to fiction like the Analog Novels to see what the future could look like, what it could hold in store for us and what we could do to ensure it’s a good one. Read Eliot Peper’s Breach while it’s still fiction.” Complement with…
Daniel Suarez on the future according to CRISPR

Synthetic biology is changing what it means to be human. For thousands of years, we’ve used technology to shape biology. We domesticated and bred plants and animals, trained our minds with meditation and asceticism, drove species to extinction, and ingested alcohol and narcotics to alter our own brain chemistry. More recently, we’ve upped the ante…
Podcast interview about how technology shapes society

I went on the Future Fossils podcast to discuss what the future extrapolated in the Analog Novels can teach us about the present: http://shows.pippa.io/futurefossils/episodes/115 “We haven’t figured out the new societies we want to build, given the new realities we’ve already invented.” “If you start thinking about the entire internet as an AI, then Google…
Richard MacManus on how to build a career as a professional creator

In 2003, Richard MacManus founded the popular tech blog ReadWriteWeb. Now, he’s back with Cybercultural, a newsletter covering how technology is changing cultural industries (books, movies, music, podcasts, etc.). Richard lives at the cutting edge of new media models and he was kind enough to answer a few questions about how to build a career…