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"Agar, Nicholas, author"
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How to be human in the digital economy
\"An argument in favor of finding a place for humans (and humanness) in the future digital economy.\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Humanity's End
Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In Humanity's End, Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve \"longevity escape velocity\"; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans.
eBook
The sceptical optimist : why technology isn't the answer to everything
The rapid developments in technologies - especially computing and the advent of many 'smart' devices, as well as rapid and perpetual communication via the Internet - has led to a frequently voiced view which Nicholas Agar describes as 'radical optimism'. Radical optimists claim that accelerating technical progress will soon end poverty, disease, and ignorance, and improve our happiness and well-being. Agar disputes the claim that technological progress will automatically produce great improvements in subjective well-being. He argues that radical optimism 'assigns to technological progress an undeserved pre-eminence among all the goals pursued by our civilization'. Instead, Agar uses the most recent psychological studies about human perceptions of well-being to create a realistic model of the impact technology will have. Although he accepts that technological advance does produce benefits, he insists that these are significantly less than those proposed by the radical optimists, and aspects of such progress can also pose a threat to values such as social justice and our relationship with nature, while problems such as poverty cannot be understood in technological terms. He concludes by arguing that a more realistic assessment of the benefits that technological advance can bring will allow us to better manage its risks in future.
Book
The Sceptical Optimist
In The Paradox of Progress, Nicholas Agar challenges the central claims of 'radical optimism': that technological progress will automatically make us happier and healthier. Using recent psychological studies about human well-being, he instead presents a more realistic approach to understand the positive and negative issues that progress brings.
eBook
How to think about progress : a skeptic's guide to technology
\"How to Think about Progress is an interdisciplinary work exploring whether optimistic claims about technology's potential stand up to humanity's most difficult challenges. Will technology solve the problems of climate change, pandemics, cancer, loneliness, unhappiness, and even death? The authors show that techno-hype is all too often accepted because of the horizon bias, i.e. the modern propensity to believe that any problem that can be solved with technology will be solved in the very near future. The authors situate their analysis in a broad context, drawing on history, literature, and popular culture to emphasize their case against techno-hype. They also draw on a wide range of research, including that of biologists, philosophers of science and of language, psychologists, theorists of technological change, specialists on digital technologies, historians of ideas, and economists. As a corrective to much mainstream \"futurism,' the book offers principles for seeing through much of the techno-hype that circulates online and in best-selling books. The authors share insights (without the jargon) from a variety of academic disciplines, making this book an engaging read for all audiences. Readers will find a balanced framework for thinking and writing about technological progress in the face of truly vexing challenges like cancer, climate change, and colonizing Mars.\" -- Provided by publisher.
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