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This book refutes the 21st-century notion that advancing technology is an unambiguous social good, and examines the effects of this uncritical acceptance and dependence. The author argues that technology has become the new religion for the digital age, and that elevating technology to nearly the status of a deity allows for the denial of problems created by reliance upon machines. From the release of toxins into the environment to the unsustainable energy demands of the modern era, technological dependence is driving humanity near the brink of extinction. Despite these problems, and existential issues such as artificial intelligence and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, many people have an unwavering belief in the ability of technology, particularly any device labeled "smart," to create a perfect future--while denying the history of unmet promises and unintended consequences of technological innovation. The author explores the psychological underpinnings of these beliefs from both a clinical and a cognitive perspective. The social and economic forces that maintain our reliance on, or addiction to, technology are critiqued as are the ethical and security issues associated with the control of advanced technology.
“One of our greatest thinkers” on death presents a radical new approach to thinking about dying and the human corpse (Caitlin Doughty, mortician and bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes). A fascinating exploration of the relationship between technology and the human corpse throughout history—from 19th-century embalming machines to 21st-century death-prevention technologies. Death and the dead body have never been more alive in the public imagination—not least because of current debates over modern medical technology that is deployed, it seems, expressly to keep human bodies from dying, blurring the boundary between alive and dead. In this book, John Troyer examines the relationship of the dead body with technology, both material and conceptual: the physical machines, political concepts, and sovereign institutions that humans use to classify, organize, repurpose, and transform the human corpse. Doing so, he asks readers to think about death, dying, and dead bodies in radically different ways. Troyer explains, for example, how technologies of the nineteenth century including embalming and photography, created our image of a dead body as quasi-atemporal, existing outside biological limits formerly enforced by decomposition. He describes the “Happy Death Movement” of the 1970s; the politics of HIV/AIDS corpse and the productive potential of the dead body; the provocations of the Body Worlds exhibits and their use of preserved dead bodies; the black market in human body parts; and the transformation of historic technologies of the human corpse into “death prevention technologies.” The consequences of total control over death and the dead body, Troyer argues, are not liberation but the abandonment of Homo sapiens as a concept and a species. In this unique work, Troyer forces us to consider the increasing overlap between politics, dying, and the dead body in both general and specifically personal terms.
Modern technology has blurred the definitions surrounding death and dying. It has cast a veil of doubt upon the idea of discussing end-of-life issues regarding realistic, spiritual, and compassionate choices before or at the end of life. As a result, patients and family members find it increasingly more difficult to make informed decisions at this most difficult time. This self-help guide offers you facts based on research, anecdotes, and suggested reading-all intended to help you make the right choices when navigating the stormy seas that we will all face someday. You will learn the difference between Healthcare Advance Directives and Durable Power of Attorney; the reality of CPR, its many possible complications, and how successful it really is. You will learn the difference between life-support and mechanical ventilation, how modern technology prolongs the dying process. You will understand the reality of the financial impact on dying individuals and their families. You will learn about prolonging life vs. quality of life. You will understand the confusing term, terminal; what it means to hold on or let go; the consequences of withholding the truth from you regarding your illness or outcome, and much more Most importantly, learn to believe in yourself. Learn to empower yourself with knowledge. Your knowledge will arm you with strength and confidence, when making life-changing decisions.
Emergencies—landing a malfunctioning plane, resuscitating a heart attack victim, or avoiding a head-on car crash—all require split-second decisions that can mean life or death. Fortunately, designers of life-saving products have leveraged research and brain science to help users reduce panic and harness their best instincts. Life and Death Design brings these techniques to everyday designers who want to help their users think clearly and act safely.
This fascinating work explores the meaning of death in the digital age, showing readers the new ways digital technology allows humans to approach, prepare for, and handle their ultimate destiny. With DeadSocialTM one can create messages to be published to social networks after death. Facebook's "If I Die" enables users to create a video or text message for posthumous publication. Twitter _LIVESON accounts will keep tweeting even after the user is gone. There is no doubt that the digital age has radically changed options related to death, dying, grieving, and remembering, allowing people to say goodbye in their own time and their own unique way. Drawing from a range of academic perspectives, this book is the only serious study to focus on the ways in which death, dying, and memorialization appear in and are influenced by digital technology. The work investigates phenomena, devices, and audiences as they affect mortality, remembrances, grieving, posthumous existence, and afterlife experience. It examines the markets to which the providers of such services are responding, and it analyzes the degree to which digital media is changing views and expectations related to death. Ultimately, the contributors seek to answer an even more important question: how digital existences affect both real-world perceptions of life's end and the way in which lives are actually lived.
Provocative takes on cyberbullshit, smartphone zombies, instant gratification, the traffic school of the information highway, and other philosophical concerns of the Internet age. In The Death Algorithm and Other Digital Dilemmas, Roberto Simanowski wonders if we are on the brink of a society that views social, political, and ethical challenges as technological problems that can be fixed with the right algorithm, the best data, or the fastest computer. For example, the “death algorithm ” is programmed into a driverless car to decide, in an emergency, whether to plow into a group of pedestrians, a mother and child, or a brick wall. Can such life-and-death decisions no longer be left to the individual human? In these incisive essays, Simanowski asks us to consider what it means to be living in a time when the president of the United States declares the mainstream media to be an enemy of the people—while Facebook transforms the people into the enemy of mainstream media. Simanowski describes smartphone zombies (or “smombies”) who remove themselves from the physical world to the parallel universe of social media networks; calls on Adorno to help parse Trump's tweeting; considers transmedia cannibalism, as written text is transformed into a postliterate object; compares the economic and social effects of the sharing economy to a sixteen-wheeler running over a plastic bottle on the road; and explains why philosophy mat become the most important element in the automotive and technology industries.
Death and Digital Media provides a critical overview of how people mourn, commemorate and interact with the dead through digital media. It maps the historical and shifting landscape of digital death, considering a wide range of social, commercial and institutional responses to technological innovations. The authors examine multiple digital platforms and offer a series of case studies drawn from North America, Europe and Australia. The book delivers fresh insight and analysis from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and media studies. It is key reading for students and scholars in these disciplines, as well as for professionals working in bereavement support capacities.
'Killing Times' starts from the deceptively simple observation - made by Jacques Derrida - that the death penalty mechanically interrupts mortal time, preempting our normal experience of not knowing when we will die. The text examines more broadly what constitutes mortal temporality and how the 'machinery of death' exploits and perverts time.
American public policy has had a long history of technological optimism. The success of the United States in research and development contributes to this optimism and leads many to assume that there is a technological fix for significant national problems. Since World War II the federal government has been the major supporter of commercial research and development efforts in a wide variety of industries. But how successful are these projects? And equally important, how do economic and policy factors influence performance and are these influences predictable and controllable? Linda Cohen, Roger Noll, and three other economists address these questions while focusing on the importance of R&D to the national economy. They examine the codependency between technological progress and economic growth and explain such matters as why the private sector often fails to fund commercially applicable research adequately and why the government should focus support on some industries and not others. They also analyze political incentives facing officials who enact and implement programs and the subsequent forces affecting decisions to continue, terminate, or redirect them. The central part of this book presents detailed case histories of six programs: the supersonic transport, communications satellites, the space shuttle, the breeder reactor, photovoltaics, and synthetic fuels. The authors conclude with recommendations for program restructuring to minimize the conflict between economic objectives and political constraints.
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