From the Pandemic to Utopia

From the Pandemic to Utopia
Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2023-04-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000855732

The coronavirus pandemic forces us to rethink our contemporaneity. It has brought to the surface dimensions of human fragility that partially contradict the euphoria and human hubris of the fourth industrial revolution (artificial intelligence). It has also aggravated the social inequality and racial discrimination that characterize our societies. The book argues that the virus, rather than an enemy, must be viewed as a pedagogue. It is trying to teach us that the deep causes of the pandemic lie in our dominant mode of production and consumption. The systemic overload of natural resources creates a metabolic rift between society and nature that destabilizes the habitat of wild animals and the vital cycles of natural regeneration whereby pandemics become an increasingly recurrent phenomenon. In trying to take seriously this lesson the book proposes a paradigmatic shift from the current civilizatory model to a new one guided by a more equitable relationship between nature and society and the priority of life, both human and non-human.

Utopia Project

Utopia Project
Author: Billy Dering
Publisher: Pinewald Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781735492919

After the Covid pandemic of 2020, several decades of escalating civil crises have ensued. The governments of many countries have conspired to develop the ultimate solution for controlling the lives of their citizens. The new society, forged in the secret Utopia Project, provides for all of your needs without cost, offers recreational group sex, raises offspring without parents and offers a life without stress. When the project's true purpose is revealed, a nightmare weapon turns the rest of the world into a mass grave of melted corpses. Inexplicably, not everyone died as planned. On the east coast of America, Sara Hyland and boyfriend Kid Carlson somehow survive. Hunted by the merciless forces of the Utopia Project, a single thread of hope is discovered in a gift box, given to Sara by her military father the night of the destruction. But is it too late to save humanity from extinction?

Utopia for Realists

Utopia for Realists
Author: Rutger Bregman
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0316471909

Universal basic income. A 15-hour workweek. Open borders. Does it sound too good to be true? One of Europe's leading young thinkers shows how we can build an ideal world today. "A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell." -- New York Times After working all day at jobs we often dislike, we buy things we don't need. Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, reminds us it needn't be this way -- and in some places it isn't. Rutger Bregman's TED Talk about universal basic income seemed impossibly radical when he delivered it in 2014. A quarter of a million views later, the subject of that video is being seriously considered by leading economists and government leaders the world over. It's just one of the many utopian ideas that Bregman proves is possible today. Utopia for Realists is one of those rare books that takes you by surprise and challenges what you think can happen. From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, and beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he champions ideas whose time have come. Every progressive milestone of civilization -- from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy -- was once considered a utopian fantasy. Bregman's book, both challenging and bracing, demonstrates that new utopian ideas, like the elimination of poverty and the creation of the fifteen-hour workweek, can become a reality in our lifetime. Being unrealistic and unreasonable can in fact make the impossible inevitable, and it is the only way to build the ideal world.

American Utopia

American Utopia
Author: David Byrne
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1635576695

From former Talking Heads frontman and multimedia visionary David Byrne and revered bestselling author, illustrator, and artist Maira Kalman--an inspiring celebration in words and art of the connections between us all. Don't miss the Spike Lee film of the Broadway hit American Utopia--on HBO. A Beat Most Anticipated Graphic Novel of Fall 2020 A joyful collaboration between old friends David Byrne and Maira Kalman, American Utopia offers readers an antidote to cynicism, bursting with pathos, humanism, and hope--featuring his words and lyrics brought to life with more than 150 of her colorful paintings. The text is drawn from David Byrne's American Utopia, which has become a hit Broadway show and is now a film from Spike Lee on HBO. The four-color artwork, by Maira Kalman, which she created for the Broadway show's curtain, is composed of small moments, expressions, gestures, and interactions that together offer a portrait of daily life and coexistence. With their creative talents combined, American Utopia is a salvo for kindness and a call for jubilation, a reminder to sing, dance, and waste not a moment. Beautifully designed and edited by Alex Kalman, American Utopia is a balm for the soul from two of the world's most extraordinary artists.

Neon Utopia

Neon Utopia
Author: Marie Adams
Publisher:
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2021-05-03
Genre:
ISBN:

Beckoned by a virtual voice, she wakes into a world she doesn't remember. Together, she and her unlikely ally must find a way to save strangers from a threat without falling victim to it themselves.

Knowledges Born in the Struggle

Knowledges Born in the Struggle
Author: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2019-10-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000704939

In a world overwhelmingly unjust and seemingly deprived of alternatives, this book claims that the alternatives can be found among us. These alternatives are, however, discredited or made invisible by the dominant ways of knowing. Rather than alternatives, therefore, we need an alternative way of thinking of alternatives. Such an alternative way of thinking lies in the knowledges born in the struggles against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, the three main forms of modern domination. In their immense diversity, such ways of knowing constitute the Global South as an epistemic subject. The epistemologies of the South are guided by the idea that another world is possible and urgently needed; they emerge both in the geographical north and in the geographical south whenever collectives of people fight against modern domination. Learning from and with the epistemic South suggests that the alternative to a general theory is the promotion of an ecology of knowledges based on intercultural and interpolitical translation.

Macrolife

Macrolife
Author: George Zebrowski
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1497634172

Subtitled “A Mobile Utopia,” this pioneering novel about the meaning of space habitats for human history, presents spacefaring as no work did in its time, and since. A utopian novel like no other, presenting a dynamic utopian civilization that transcends the failures of our history. Epic in scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The Bulero family owns one of Earth’s richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into a crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife—mobile, self-reproducing space habitats. A millennium later, these mobile communities have left our sunspace and multiplied. Conflicts with natural planets arise. John Bulero, a cloned descendant of the twenty-first century Bulero clan, falls in love with a woman from a natural world and experiences the harshness of her way of life. He rediscovers his roots when his mobile returns to the solar system, and a tense confrontation of three civilizations takes place. One hundred billion years later, macrolife, now as numerous as the stars, faces the impending death of nature. Regaining his individuality by falling away from a highly evolved macrolife, a strangely changed John Bulero struggles to see beyond a collapse of the universe into a giant black hole. Inspired by the possibilities of space settlements, projections of biology and cosmology, and basic human longings, Macrolife is a visionary speculation on the long-term future of human and natural history. Filled with haunting images and memorable characters, this is a vivid and brilliant work.

Utopia PR

Utopia PR
Author: Adam Bender
Publisher: Adam Bender
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2021-02-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1736096214

Humor Book Winner in the 2021 IndieReader Discovery Awards A sci-fi satire about seeking work-life balance while doing public relations for an authoritarian president. PR extraordinaire Blake Hamner (the "n" is silent) put off his honeymoon for his big break: joining a major political campaign for president. Now, the "Hammer" struggles to make time for his marriage as Crisis Communications Manager for Our Leader, who since taking power has become increasingly mad and totalitarian. The Hammer starts to reconsider his career choices when one of Our Leader’s savage steel hounds attacks the Comms team at a press conference. He’d love to talk about his erratic job with his wife, Triple-N news anchor Maria Worthington, but they have a rule: the broadcast journalist doesn’t ask Blake for inside information about his work, and the spin doctor doesn’t use their relationship as leverage on what Maria reports. They say you shouldn’t keep things from each other in a marriage, but it’s OK—the only secrets between Blake and Maria are professional. When a revolutionary levels grave allegations against Our Leader—and accuses Blake of distributing disinformation and propaganda to cover it up—the PR rep who thought he could talk his way out of any crisis finds himself utterly trapped in a dystopian job. Praise for Utopia PR "In a tale that’s reminiscent of political farces such as the HBO TV series Veep, Bender employs a smooth, amusing, and straightforward prose style that’s briskly paced ... Its tone is irreverent, and readers looking for a quick chuckle will likely enjoy Bender’s winking comedy, which is punctuated with genuinely sweet, sincere moments." -- Kirkus Reviews "Sharp and witty, the novel Utopia PR is a free range political send-up set in a chaotic, perplexing, and familiar future world." -- Foreword Reviews "It is a fun and efficient book, but also scary: like all good fiction, it uses sarcasm to make readers think about the world outside." -- IndieReader "A lighthearted, uplifting vision into the dark times we’re facing." -- IndieMuse “Philadelphia writer Adam Bender’s new novel Utopia PR, a political satire set in a dystopian Washington, DC, offers a brisk and entertaining sendup of politics and the media, two machines driven by capitalism and ambition.” -- Broad Street Review "A dystopian novel laced with intrigue, science fiction, romance and humor ... I recommend this book to fans of dystopia who would appreciate a comedic writing style and the underlying themes of marital challenges, finding your purpose, diversity and manipulation through social media." -- Reedsy Discovery For fans of humorous science fiction, political satire, speculative fiction and dystopia; authors like John Scalzi, Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, and Christopher Buckley; and books like: Catch-22, Thank You for Smoking, Slaughterhouse-Five, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adam Bender is an award-winning journalist and author of speculative fiction that explores modern-day societal fears with a mix of action, romance and humor. He is the author of The Wanderer and the New West, Divided We Fall and We, The Watched.

Mirage of Health

Mirage of Health
Author: René Dubos
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2018-12-02
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1789127432

Every man dreams of a utopia in which disease is conquered and the only thing left to die of is old age. In a study of the history and concepts of medicine, René Dubos, who is one of America’s most distinguished scientists, shows that such a utopia is neither possible nor desirable. Organized species such as ants have established a satisfactory equilibrium with their environment and suffer no great waves of disease or changes in their social structure. But man is essentially dynamic, his way of life constantly in flux from century to century. He experiments with synthetic products and changes his diet; he builds cities that breed rats and infection; he builds automobiles and factories which pollute the air; and he constructs radioactive bombs. As life becomes more comfortable and technology more complicated, new factors introduce new dangers; the ingredients for utopia are the agents of new disease. Dr. Dubois’ thesis may sound discouraging to a world looking for a cure-all in medical research, but actually it is affirmative—even hopeful. Once we accept the fact that “complete freedom from disease and from struggle is almost incompatible with the process of living,” we will know that our aspirations cannot be satisfied with health and the easy life. “The viewpoint expressed in Mirage of Health has now become a dominant one in our general culture and encompasses much of current concern with improving lifestyles related to health and promoting greater health consciousness among the public. In this sense, the discussion, although written twenty-five years ago, is perhaps more relevant today than it was then.”—DAVID MECHANIC, University Professor, René Dubos Professor of Behavioral Sciences, and Director of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University

Academia Next

Academia Next
Author: Bryan Alexander
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2020-01-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1421436426

An unusually multifaceted approach to American higher education that views institutions as complex organisms, Academia Next offers a fresh perspective on the emerging colleges and universities of today and tomorrow.