CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

Book

Survival of the richest : escape fantasies of the tech billionaires

Call Number

  • 303.483 R953.1 (OSH)

Browse similar titles by call number

Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2022]

Physical Description

212 pages ; 22 cm

Summary

"The tech elite have a plan to survive the apocalypse: they want to leave us all behind. Five mysterious billionaires summoned theorist Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive the 'Event': the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley-style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making-as long as they have enough money and the right technology. In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations. Through fascinating characters--master programmers who want to remake the world from scratch as if redesigning a video game and bankers who return from Burning Man convinced that incentivized capitalism is the solution to environmental disasters--Rushkoff explains why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so. And he shows how recent forms of anti-mainstream rebellion--QAnon, for example, or meme stocks--reinforce the same destructive order. This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the landscape The Mindset created--a world alive with algorithms and intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies-and rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency. In a thundering conclusion, Survival of the Richest argues that the only way to survive the coming catastrophe is to ensure it doesn't happen in the first place"--

Contents

  • Meet The Mindset
  • The insulation equation: Billionaire bunker strategies
  • Merger and acquisitions: Always have an exit strategy
  • A womb with a view: You are safe in your techno-bubble
  • The dumbwaiter effect: Out of sight, out of mind
  • Selfish genes: Scientism over morality
  • Pedal to the metal: Dehumanize, dominate, and extract
  • Exponential: When you can go no further, go Meta
  • Persuasive tech: If you could just push a button
  • Visions from Burning Man: We are as gods
  • The great reset: To save the world, save capitalism
  • The mindset in the mirror: Resistance is futile
  • Cybernetic karma: Hoisted by their own petard
  • Pattern recognition: Everything comes back.

Subjects