The sceptical optimist : why technology isn't the answer to everything /

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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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Autor principal: Agar, Nicholas (Autor)
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: New York, New York : Oxford University Press, 2015.
Temas:
Technology > Psychological aspects.
Technology > Social aspects.
Technology > Philosophy.
Technologie > Aspect psychologique.
Technologie > Philosophie.
SOCIAL SCIENCE > General.
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING > Social Aspects.
Technology > Philosophy
Technology > Psychological aspects
Technology > Social aspects
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Tabla de Contenidos:
  • COVER
  • THE SCEPTICAL OPTIMIST: WHY TECHNOLOGY ISN'T THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING
  • COPYRIGHT
  • DEDICATION
  • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  • CONTENTS
  • LIST OF FIGURES
  • INTRODUCTION
  • An outline of the book
  • 1: RADICAL OPTIMISM AND THE TECHNOLOGY BIAS
  • Does technological progress increase subjective well-being?
  • Radically optimistic forecasts
  • How should we prioritize technological progress?
  • Concluding comments
  • 2: IS THERE A LAW OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS?
  • Moore's Law, Kryder's Law, and exponential technological improvement
  • Two questions about exponential technological progress
  • Exponential technological improvement as a conditional law
  • What went wrong with cancer?
  • Kurzweil's evolutionary explanation of exponential technological progress
  • The difference between reflexive and passive improvement
  • Exponential technological improvement is infectious
  • Concluding comments
  • 3: DOES TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS MAKE US HAPPIER?
  • The traditional paradox of progress
  • How we hedonically adapt to new well-being technologies
  • Complete or incomplete hedonic adaptation?
  • Concluding comments
  • 4: THE NEW PARADOX OF PROGRESS
  • Gibbon versus Ridley on historical happiness
  • The perils of attitudinal time travel
  • Hedonic normalization
  • How to make comparisons that best reveal the effects of technological progress
  • Complete or incomplete hedonic normalization
  • Why hedonic normalization is probably incomplete
  • The new paradox of technological progress
  • Concluding comments
  • 5: WE NEED TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS EXPERIMENTS
  • Technological progress traps
  • Two ideals of technological progress
  • The fear of falling behind
  • How is progress dangerous?
  • Rehabilitating the idea of technology experiments
  • Jared Diamond on the natural experiments of traditional societies.
  • Creating and nurturing variation in technological progress
  • A nuclear power progress experiment
  • Why should the winners share with the losers?
  • A progress experiment on genetically modified crops
  • The future of technological progress
  • Concluding comments
  • 6: WHY TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS WON'T END POVERTY
  • Poverty and well-being
  • Ordinary and emergency circumstances of poverty
  • Radically optimistic solutions to poverty
  • Were there poor people in the Pleistocene?
  • How poverty affects life satisfaction
  • Misunderstanding the happiness of the Sun King
  • Evidence from status competitions for the relevance of social context
  • Economic and technological trickledown
  • Concluding comments
  • 7: CHOOSING A TEMPO OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS
  • Comparing different tempos of progress
  • Technological progress makes diminishing marginal contributions to well-being
  • Mobile phones and cancer therapies
  • The importance of subjectively positive technological progress
  • Concluding comments
  • AFTERWORD: Don't turn well-being technologies into Procrustean beds
  • ENDNOTES
  • INDEX
  • ADVERTS.

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