Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be HumanIn Radical Evolution, bestselling author Joel Garreau, a reporter and editor for the Washington Post, shows us that we are at an inflection point in history. As you read this, we are engineering the next stage of human evolution. Through advances in genetic, robotic, information and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny–and perhaps our very souls. Taking us behind the scenes with today's foremost researchers and pioneers, Garreau reveals that the super powers of our comic-book heroes already exist, or are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the country -- from the revved up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species. Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear, these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven–where technology’s promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness and extend our lives is the answer to our prayers? Or will they lead us, as some argue, to hell — where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our entire species? With the help and insights of the gifted thinkers and scientists who are making what has previously been thought of as science fiction a reality, Garreau explores how these developments, in our lifetime, will affect everything from the way we date to the way we work, from how we think and act to how we fall in love. It is a book about what our world is becoming today, not fifty years out. As Garreau cautions, it is only by anticipating the future that we can hope to shape it. |
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... species . Over the next fifteen years , Garreau makes clear , these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives . Where will they lead us ? To heaven - where technol- ogy's promise to make us smarter , vanquish illness , and ...
... species . Over the next fifteen years , Garreau makes clear , these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives . Where will they lead us ? To heaven - where technol- ogy's promise to make us smarter , vanquish illness , and ...
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... of our species . We are beginning to see the outlines of such a divergence now . In 2003 , President Bush signed a $ 3.7 billion bill to fund Prologue : The Future of Human Nature I I Prologue: The Future of Human Nature I.
... of our species . We are beginning to see the outlines of such a divergence now . In 2003 , President Bush signed a $ 3.7 billion bill to fund Prologue : The Future of Human Nature I I Prologue: The Future of Human Nature I.
Page 29
... species have already solved the problem of how not to sleep ; they actually don't care about sleep , " he notes . Yet what happens in humans is that " after 24 hours you start getting a little bit irri- table , by 48 hours you're ...
... species have already solved the problem of how not to sleep ; they actually don't care about sleep , " he notes . Yet what happens in humans is that " after 24 hours you start getting a little bit irri- table , by 48 hours you're ...
Page 42
... species to control our own evolution . " MONG THOSE AT DARPA who are working on changing what Fun comes up all the time . Program managers view what they're doing as the greatest fun of their lives . Whatever day of the weekend or time ...
... species to control our own evolution . " MONG THOSE AT DARPA who are working on changing what Fun comes up all the time . Program managers view what they're doing as the greatest fun of their lives . Whatever day of the weekend or time ...
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Contents
15 | |
CHAPTER THREE | 45 |
CHAPTER FOUR | 85 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 133 |
CHAPTER | 187 |
CHAPTER SEVEN | 227 |
CHAPTER EIGHT | 267 |
Suggested Readings | 283 |
Notes | 316 |
Index | 351 |
Other editions - View all
Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies ... Joel Garreau No preview available - 2006 |
Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies ... Joel Garreau No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
accelerating American become believe Bielitzki Bill Joy biological Bostrom brain called cell phone create culture Curves of exponential DARPA early 21st century Enhanced Eric Drexler evolution example exponential change Fukuyama future of human gene genetic engineering gift economy global Global Business Network going Goldblatt GRIN technologies happen Heaven Scenario Hell Scenario human enhancement human nature Ibid idea imagine Internet ISBN Jaron Lanier Joel Garreau Kash kids kind lives look McKibben means Mesilla million mind monkey Moore's Law nanotech nanotechnology National Network Nick Bostrom Nonetheless organization Oxford University Press person Posthuman predictions Prevail Scenario ramp Ray Kurzweil robots says scientists Silicon Singularity Smart Mobs social society species Spiritual Machines talking There's things tion transcendence transformation Transhumanism Transhumanist trying ture turn Vernor Vinge Vinge Washington Post writes York
Popular passages
Page 181 - Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are and whereof ye are the governors : a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to.
Page 151 - His limbs were in proportion and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!— Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
Page 151 - I saw - with shut eyes, but acute mental vision - I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, halfvital motion.
Page 148 - The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.
Page 107 - We may, perhaps, learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its...
Page 339 - It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure ; that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.
Page 331 - Non ha l'ottimo artista * alcun concetto, Ch'un marmo solo in sé non circoscriva Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva La man che ubbidisce all'intelletto.
Page 180 - Suppose we could expel sin by this means ; look how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue ; for the matter of them both is the same : remove that, and ye remove them both alike.