Social Society

Philosopher Nick Riggle explores the beauty of being alive by investigating the things we say to inspire ourselves and each other: seize the day, treat yourself, you only live once. These clichés are at best vague, at worst stupid. They imply that you should do something wild with your life because your life is precious, a little like saying you should go swimming with your grandfather’s watch because it is irreplaceable.

Virginia Heffernan “melds the personal with the increasingly universal in a highly informative analysis of what the Internet is—and can be. A thoroughly engrossing examination of the Internet’s past, present, and future” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) from one of the best living...

Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived.

Moneyless Society: The Next Economic Evolution explores how capitalism throttles Earth's capacity to sustain life and undermines our deep longing to live in peace and prosperity. Fortunately, it also provides a blueprint to innovative thinking and new structures to replace our outmoded monetary system. In short, Moneyless Society illuminates just how much our lives and those of future generations could improve with a new kind of freedom: freedom from money.

Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida's theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. In a new introduction, Florida updates this theory and responds to the critics of his 2002 best seller, The Rise of the Creative Class.

Pendant un mois, et jusqu'au jour du verdict du procès dit " des viols de Mazan ", un collectif d'anthropologues s'est installé à Avignon pour mener ensemble une enquête ethnographique inédite. Le parti-pris de départ était de considérer ce procès comme un " évènement ", concept fertile en sciences sociales – mais aussi en littérature comme l'a montré Annie Ernaux – pour mettre en lumière un basculement ou une pliure dans l'ordre des choses.

Contemporary life is defined by excess. There must always be more, there is never enough. We need a surplus to what we need to be able to truly enjoy what we have. Slavoj Žižek's guide to surplus (and why it's enjoyable) begins by arguing that what is surplus to our needs is by its very nature unsubstantial and unnecessary. But, perversely, without this surplus, we wouldn't be able to enjoy what is substantial and necessary. Indeed, without the surplus we wouldn't be able to identify what was the perfect amount.

Pouvons-nous continuer à vivre comme si nous étions seuls maîtres d'une Terre aux ressources supposées infinies ? Pour y réfléchir et questionner nos habitudes, voici 45 fables anciennes ou modernes, mythes ou contes de sagesse... Un court commentaire philosophique suit chaque fable, invitant à une réflexion autour des notions de partage, d'équilibre et de solidarité... Une manière agréable de se forger un enthousiasme écologique !

Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today's democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society's benefit, Just Giving reveals how such generosity not only isn't the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice.

5 de febrero de 1930. En medio de un torbellino político y social, cuando los ecos del fraude electoral aún retumban en el aire, Pascual Ortiz Rubio alza su mano en juramento para erigirse presidente de México. Sin embargo, al salir del Palacio Nacional, una ráfaga azota el vehículo en que se desplaza y una bala va a dar a la mandíbula presidencial. No es solo un atentado; es el estallido en torno al cual gira una trama más siniestra. Hurwitz es un enigma con raíces peruanas y judías. Ha deambulado por toda América Latina, sembrando semillas revolucionarias para el Partido Comunista.

Across society, people sensed a quiet dislocation — a feeling that the world they knew no longer matched the world they inhabited. Institutions wavered. Narratives fractured. The pace of life accelerated beyond comprehension. Beneath the noise, something deeper was happening: modern culture had entered a form of exile.

Qu'est-ce que l'amitié ? L'imagination ? L'égalité ? Le racisme ? Parce qu'il n'est jamais trop tôt pour apprendre à penser, Tahar Ben Jelloun invite le lecteur à s'initier dès le collège aux notions clefs de la philosophie. Une leçon de sagesse lumineuse et nécessaire qui, dans un monde toujours plus complexe, nous aide à mieux comprendre notre rapport à nous-même, à l'Autre et à notre planète.

As the speed and complexity of the world increases, governments and nonprofit organizations need new ways to effectively tackle the critical challenges of our time-from pandemics and global warming to social media warfare. In Power to the Public, Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank describe a revolutionary new approach - public interest technology - that has the potential to transform the way governments and nonprofits around the world solve problems.

Whether you realize it or not, a vision for society—called the “Great Reset”—was formally unveiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2020, several months after COVID-19 emerged. The WEF is one of the most influential bodies in the world and has ties to the highest levels of global governments and industries. In fact, its Great Reset has implications for our collective future in terms of culture, politics, economics, the environment, technology, and metaphysics. So if you don’t think this subject affects you and your family—think again.

In 2018, 34 people were shot at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Jaime Guttenberg, a 14-year-old, was the second to last victim. That she and so many of her fellow students were struck down in cold blood galvanized many to action, including Jaime's father, Fred, who has become an activist dedicated to passing common-sense gun-safety legislation. This book is not about gun safety or Parkland. Instead, it tells the story of Fred Guttenberg's journey since Jaime's death and how he has been able to get through the worst of times thanks to the kindness and compassion of others.

In this tour of the animal kingdom, evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin reveals a new field of study, uncovering social networks that existed long before the dawn of human social media. He accessibly describes the latest findings from animal behavior, evolution, computer science, psychology, anthropology, genetics, and neurobiology, and incorporates interviews and insights from researchers he finds swimming with manta rays, avoiding pigeon poop, and stopping monkeys from stealing iPads.

In this new audiobook, Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals, Cowen argues that our reason and common sense can help free us of the faulty ideas that hold us back as people and as a society. Stubborn Attachments, at its heart, makes the contemporary moral case for economic growth and delivers a great dose of inspiration and optimism about our future possibilities.

After decades of missed opportunities, the door to a sustainable future has closed, and the future we face now is one in which today's industrial civilization unravels in the face of uncontrolled climate change and resource depletion. What is the world going to look like when all these changes have run their course? Author John Michael Greer seeks to answer this question, and with some degree of accuracy, since civilizations tend to collapse in remarkably similar ways.

With a razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley's unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade's worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy offers an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes, its blind triumphs, and its unintended consequences.