The Meaning of the 21st Century
This is not a good book. It is poorly written and has little or no structure. The author often sounds like a delusional old man and his rhetoric is cringe worthy in the extreme. James Martin became famous for his 1978 book ‘The Wired Society’ in which he successfully predicted the impact the Internet would have on society. Ever since the 1990’s proved him correct he has been on something of an egotistical high. Things were not helped when Oxford University recently gave him his own department called the James Martin 21st Century School, which basically only has one agenda – saving the world.His latest book, ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century’ therefore aims to predict the main challenges and opportunities that await mankind in the remaining ninety-three years of the twenty first century. It is an ambitious task to say the least.
Yet you see, I really like this book. Beyond all the stylistic errors and the authors own hypocrisy (he spends a chapter ranting and raving about ways to avert global warming only then to admit than he owns his own island with its own airstrip), all of which occasionally make it a painful read, there are actually some really, really good ideas.
Cont...
posted by Benjamin Nakizo @ 7:33 am
1 Comments:
None of these ideas are his, but he neatly collects all these theories of the future together in one place and presents them with a sort of juvenile passion that spills right out of the page. You can tell he is giddy as he is writing it, drunk on the staggering possibilities of the future he has imagined. Ever so slowly he infects you with the same feeling. The future, according to Mr Martin, is going to be terribly exciting.
Before the century is out water will have flooded half of the world’s major cities but it will also be powering our cars. Class divisions will be reinforced biologically with the rich paying for gene therapy and designer babies. Perhaps the biggest transformation is that we will hit the so called ‘singularity’ where we design computers that are so clever we can instruct them to design better versions of themselves – which they shall do with awesome consequences for human enlightenment and human survival. Nuclear power will be all the rage with ‘pebble bed reactors’ providing safe and clean energy and come the centuries end nuclear fusion (probably designed by our new god like computers) will have provided the absolute and final answer to mans energy needs. Also, at least one of the world’s major cities will be nuked by terrorists. This will finally focus the world’s attention on eradicating these weapons from non-governmental hands. And even the French will help.
All in all it is rather exciting to read about. It is like this book was perfectly designed to tickle each and every one of my fancies. I can’t remember the last time that such a poor book got me thinking so much.
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