Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech

I hope they start teaching this for future citizens. This a much more comprehensive view into the rapidly evolving challenges to our freedom to make decisions and ability to take actions based on those decisions. This Book stands in contrast to simple solutions, I’m looking at you Facebook, like adding encryption to transport of messages and calling it privacy, while vendors will still collect the data and meta data of those messages for use in big data influencing operations. I hope we see regulations put in place to control internet providers as utilities before too much bad stuff happens (And hopefully its not too late already).

An interesting subject considered carefully by the writer. One would hope all politicians and those in powerful roles in business would read this book. For the rest of us a reminder to take an interest. Very enjoyable.

Is this author related to the authors of The Future of Firms? The names and the use of "Future" in both titles makes me wonder.Anyway, while I have not seen the book I just listened to a BBC podcast of an interview with Jamie Susskind. He asks many not-so-obvious questions. Man and the Machine: who is in charge of whom?Lots of food for thought.

A clear, levelheaded, broad-sweeping, and thoroughly riveting take on how technology will fundamentally change human social relations in the coming future. One of the most prescient works I've ever encountered. Highest of recommendations.

I've read sections of Future Politics multiple times, not necessarily in order, over the five years since I received it, and I still find it very relevant today. In fact, I think it is perfectly posited for a sober conversation on the impact of technology on power, and therefore on democratic societies before the tumult of 2020 and 2021 brought about a more deeply polemic and divisive conversation. I think that explains the immediacy of his 2022 book "Digital Republic"; instead, Susskind's 2018 "Future Politics" takes a long view of the next decades and the thought contained here is deep, ruminating and impactful.

The future of politics concerns who will be powerful over whom, what forms will that power take, and to what ends might it be directed. The authors suggests that power in the future will take three forms: force, scrutiny, and perception-control. Digital technologies will increasingly become the main source of all three.This premise of this perceptive work: that relentless advances in science and technology are set to transform the way we live together, with consequences for politics that are profound and frightening in equal measure.The author informs the reader that together we will need to reimagine what it means to be free and equal, what it means to be free or equal, what it means to have power or property, and what it means for a political system to be democratic. That politics in the future will be quite unlike politics in the past. This reader sees our stories as the lens through which we view reality. When we get our stories wrong, we get our futures wrong. Seduced by a fabricated sacred money & market story[program], we live in indentured service to [money-seeking corporate robots]; and relate to Earth as if it were a dead rock for sale. We are instead, living beings born in living Earth born in a living universe. Our current path is one laid out by others that is a road to self-extinction. Economies are growing financially at the expense of life. We need, as the author tells us: a paradigm shift -an economy based upon the living wealth; not a dead rock w/money-seeking robots.The question then, at the heart of Future Politics is: to what extent should our lives be directed and controlled by powerful digital systems - and on what terms?Our current path, the author says in the long run, will be captured and recorded as data, then sorted, stored, and processed digitally - the distinction between human and machine, online and offline, virtual and real, will fade into the background[a dead rock]. Time to change the story to an economy based upon living wealth or fade into the hard cold background.The author does an outstanding job of framing the technologies in terms that power must be addressed now before it becomes embedded in our infrastructure. yet there are two systems currently at crosswords in this digital future. The other systems' approach includes China. For example, the future of payments may not be designed in New York or London, but in China. There, money flows through a system of digital eco-systems that blend social media, commerce and banking-all run by two of the world's most valuable companies. That contrasts with the U.S., where numerous firms feast from handling and processing payments. Western bankers and credit card executives who travel to China keep returning with an uneasy stomach. Payments can happen easily & cheaply w/o them. The digital future has many paths. The path will depend on information flows. Who controls the information[story]; controls our digital futures.

I am glad I read the book. Therefore it’s ideas will reverberate my thoughts for the next while. At times while reading the book I felt pushed to certain conclusions without valid evidence. In fact at times I really thought the authors personal bias were becoming very evident. For this as you can see by the five stars he has been forgiven, even though he actually had no knowledge that he was actually on trial.At times I even thought that the author was running for office. Again he has been forgiven.In the end this is a necessary conversation, technology, integrity, and accountability. This book will get you started.Now to the house of cards reference. I think it is somewhat dangerous to extrapolate too far into the future. As the author has done in these pages. The problem is that a new piece of tech may destroy, many of foundations of the assumptions within these pages. However because we have had the conversation within these pages we may be better able to understand it and be in a better position to direct it to the best possible outcome. The world never stands still. The target you are aiming at is always moving. In fact the target movement is actually connected to you trigger finger, and the time delay between the two is becoming instantaneous.

Jamie Susskind's book is timely: Digital Democracies, Social Credit Dystopias, Rule by Code and AI, Data Monopolies and Extractive, innovation stifling Mega Platforms - all requiring us to think anew about politics.This book opens up a whole new discussion. It does not focus on solutions, but it clearly shows the need to act, the new battlegrounds society and politics should be engaged in - and not in Brexit Theatre and the daily Trump show.

Ever since Charlie Brooker's TV series "Black Mirror", I've had a gnawing sense of unease (occasionally verging on mild panic) about the future role of technology in our lives. Have we really thought this through?According to Jamie Susskind, we have not.In this wide-ranging, brilliant and (unexpectedly) funny work, Susskind encourages readers to examine, understand, and engage with the technological changes going on in every single part of our lives. We must not, he argues, leave it to the (overwhelmingly libertarian) "tech bros" of Silicon Valley to determine our relationship with technology. We must instead seek to shape our rapidly emerging digital universe (referred to by Susskind as the "digital lifeworld") according to our moral and political values, thinking reflectively and critically about the ways in which technology colours - and controls - our lives.Throughout the book, Susskind builds upon classic political theorists (Weber, Hegel, de Toqueville - all the big names), examining how the theories of the past might (or might not) be useful for thinking about the politics of the future. Susskind carefully defines his terms, pushing readers to think carefully about what we mean by "politics", "power" or "liberty". And where no current term will suffice, he deftly invents new vocabulary (our vocabulary, he argues, has failed to keep pace with the times).This is a book of carefully plotted and tightly argued political theory. But it is also a treasure trove of fun facts and interesting tidbits to pull out at your next dinner party (did you know, for example, that MIT scientists have developed a type of spinach, implanted with nanoparticles and nanotubes, that can detect unexploded bombs?)In short, the best non-fiction book I've read all year. Highly recommended to anyone with a phone, an amazon account, or - indeed - a vote.

Highly enjoyable and thought provoking, and well referenced. With tech advancing on all fronts, it is an interesting look forward towards how it might impact upon our future politics. Absorbing and recommended in this 'fake news' world.

It takes a particular genius to write a book about the world of IT and AI which is at once erudite, entertaining and illuminating. Jamie Susskind has done all three. He is especially good at mapping what has already happened, what will happen and what the implications are for our own lives and for the governance structures which will be dramatically revolutionised and potentially undermined. Susskind does not have all the answers, of course, but he asks the questions which politicians and we, as affected citizens, need to be pondering.