The Singularity and Socialism


Book Description

From the back of the book: The Singularity & Socialism is an exhilarating fast paced read showing the points of similarity and interconnection between Classical Liberal, Marxist, and Libertarian economic ideology and Complexity Theory/Economics and how they may change with coming technological advancements. The book updates the issues and illuminates many of today's debates allowing the reader to come to a better understanding of the surprising interrelatedness between ideologies and their eventual convergence at the event horizon of the coming Economic Singularity. The process needed for obtaining an almost zero marginal cost system is enumerated within its pages. Whether you are a: Conservative, Progressive, Libertarian, Marxist, Socialist, Transhumanist, Venus Project enthusiast or a Zeitgeist Movement follower you will greatly enjoy this well written book! If there is one book that frames the debate between the Techno-optimists/Singularitans and Sustainatopians today and transcends the argument between them, this is it! The underlying theme that this book takes up is, "what happens to our present ideological ideas about Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Libertarianism and Conservatism when we reach the event horizon of the coming economic singularity." When abundance breaks out, how does that change our ideas about all of our political beliefs and economic systems that were founded upon a scarcity of resources and the means to fully, efficiently produce them in a new distributed way. The almost Zero cost society is possible with the evolution of Kevin Kelly's Technium, with a surprising convergence between the ideas found in classical liberal and traditional Marxian economics, coupled with complexity theory/economics and Techno-optimism. This work transcends the oppositional dialectics and seeks to recognize the possible convergence of all presently combative ideologies at the Omega Point we are accelerating toward.




The End of Socialism


Book Description

The End of Socialism explores the difficulties socialism faces and examines the extent to which its moral ideals can guide policy.




A Future for Socialism


Book Description

In this text, Roemer proposes a new future of socialism based on a redefinition of market socialism. The Achille's heel of socialism has always been maintaining innovation and efficiency in an economy in which income is equally distributed. Roemer points out that large capitalist firms have already solved a similar problem: in those firms, profits are distributed to numerous shareholders, yet they continue to innovate and compete. The author argues for a modified version of socialism, not necessarily based on public ownership, but founded on equality of opportunity and political influence.




The End of the Beginning


Book Description

A deep, diverse edited volume addressing the most critical issues regarding the future of humanity and intelligence -- with chapters authored by a who's-who of leading futurist thinkers and doers. According to Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil and a rapidly increasing chorus of techno-futurists, we are living on the brink of a technological Singularity - a time when machines will become vastly more intelligent than humans. In such a scenario, death, disease and everyday material scarcity will be radically diminished, and life will be dramatically different in many other ways. But what will the path to this amazing future look like? How will human life grow and unfold as technology advances and Singularity approaches? The chapters in this book approach this issue from the perspectives of multiple visionary authors from around the globe, covering topics such as the impact of life extension, the future of money and exchange, the future of human psychology, biological self-modification, intelligence enhancement, automation and escalating unemployment, the possibility of global war between pro and anti technology forces, the impact of future technology on Asia and Africa, the emerging Global Brain, the future of surveillance and privacy, and much more. There are no easy or definite answers here - but lots of fascinating questions to explore. CONTENTS Chapter One: Predicting the Age of Post-Human Intelligences, by Ted Goertzel and Ben Goertzel Chapter Two: A Tale of Two Transitions, by Robin Hanson Chapter Three: Longer Lives on the Brink of Global Population Contraction: A Report from 2040, by Max More Chapter Four: Implanting Post-Human Intelligence in Human Bodies, by John Hewitt Chapter Five: The Singularity and the Methuselarity: Similarities and Differences, by Aubrey de Grey Chapter Six: Robotics and AI: Impacts Felt on Every Aspect of Our Future World, by Daryl Nazareth Chapter Seven: Robotics, AI, the Luddite Fallacy and the Future of the Job Market, by Wayne Radinsky Chapter Eight: Moral Responsibility and Autonomous Machines, by David Burke Chapter Nine: How Will the Artilect War Start?, by Hugo de Garis Chapter Ten: Return to Eden? Promises and Perils on the Road to Global Superintelligence, by Francis Heylighen Chapter Eleven: Distributing Cognition: From Local Brains to the Global Brain, by Clément Vidal Chapter Twelve: A World of Views: A World of Interacting Post-human Intelligences, by Viktoras Veitas and David Weinbaum (Weaver) Chapter Thirteen: Chinese Perspectives on the Approach to the Singularity, by Mingyu Huang Chapter Fourteen: Africa Today and the Shadow of the Coming Singularity, by Hruy Tsegaye Chapter Fifteen: The World's First Decentralized System for Financial and Legal Transaction, by Chris Odom Chapter Sixteen: Beyond Money: Offer Networks, a Potential Infrastructure for a Post-Money Economy, by Ben Goertzel Chapter Seventeen: Sousveillance and AGI, by Ben Goertzel and Stephan Vladimir Bugaj Chapter Eighteen: The Future of Human Nature, by Ben Goertzel Chapter Nineteen: Capitalism, Socialism, Singularitarianism, by Ted Goertzel Chapter Twenty: Toward a Human-Friendly Post-Singularity World, by Ben Goertzel Chapter Twenty-one: Looking Backward from 2100, by Ben Goertzel and Ted Goertzel




Fully Automated Luxury Communism


Book Description

The first decade of the twenty-first century marked the demise of the current world order. Despite widespread acknowledgement of these disruptive crises, the proposed response from the mainstream remains the same. Against the confines of this increasingly limited politics, a new paradigm has emerged. Fully Automated Luxury Communism claims that new technologies will liberate us from work, providing the opportunity to build a society beyond both capitalism and scarcity. Automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty, luxury and happiness. For everyone. In his first book, radical political commentator Aaron Bastani conjures a new politics: a vision of a world of unimaginable hope, highlighting how we move to energy abundance, feed a world of nine billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology and build meaningful freedom for everyone. Rather than a final destination, such a society heralds the beginning of history. Fully Automated Luxury Communism promises a radically new left future for everyone.




Postsocialism and Cultural Politics


Book Description

Xudong Zhang offers a critical analysis of China's 'long 1990s', the tumultuous years between the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and China's entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2001.




Theorizing Transition


Book Description

Theorizing Transition provides a comprehensive examination of the economic, political, social and cultural transformations in post-Communist countries and an important critique of transition theory and policy. The authors create the basis of a theoretical understanding of transition in terms of a political economy of capitalist development. The diversity of forms and complexities of transition are examined through a wide range of examples from post-Soviet countries and comparative studies from countries such as Vietnam and China. Theorizing Transition challenges many of the comfortable assumptions unleashed by the euphoria of democratisation and the triumphalism of market capitalism in the early 1990s and shows transition to be much more complex than mainstream theory suggests.




The Rise of Technosocialism


Book Description

Statistics, analysis and commentary from top thinkers on emerging behaviour explain why industries and economies are forced to reinvent themselves.




Red Plenty


Book Description

"Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous." —The Times (London) Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending. Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.




Michal Kalecki on a Socialist Economy


Book Description

Kalecki's ideas on economic functioning are discussed in this book, followed by an analysis of his contributions to the theories of long-run planning and growth under socialism. His ideas on social aspects of economic development under socialism are discussed.