Why doesn’t the explosive growth of companies like Facebook and Uber deliver more prosperity for everyone? What is the systemic problem that sets the rich against the poor and the technologists against everybody else? When protesters shattered the windows of a bus carrying Google employees to work, their anger may have been justifiable, but it was misdirected. The true conflict of our age isn’t between the unem­ployed and the digital elite, or even the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Rather, a tornado of technological improvements has spun our economic program out of control, and humanity as a whole—the protesters and the Google employees as well as the shareholders and the executives—are all trapped by the consequences. It’s time to optimize our economy for the human beings it’s supposed to be serving. In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed media scholar and author Douglas Rushkoff tells us how to combine the best of human nature with the best of modern technology. Tying together disparate threads—big data, the rise of robots and AI, the increasing participation of algorithms in stock market trading, the gig economy, the collapse of the eurozone—Rushkoff provides a critical vocabulary for our economic moment and a nuanced portrait of humans and commerce at a critical crossroads.

The summary of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus – How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity presented here include a short review of the book at the start followed by quick overview of main points and a list of important take-aways at the end of the summary. The Summary of The book "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" investigates the unhealthy relationship that society has developed with money as a result of money's transition from a tool to facilitate trade to a goal in and of itself. The proliferation of digital marketplaces has not markedly contributed to an improvement in the situation. These ideas examine the evolution of monetary systems and present doable strategies that can assist local communities in making money work for everyone once more. Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus summary includes the key points and important takeaways from the book Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Rushkoff. Disclaimer: 1. This summary is meant to preview and not to substitute the original book. 2. We recommend, for in-depth study purchase the excellent original book. 3. In this summary key points are rewritten and recreated and no part/text is directly taken or copied from original book. 4. If original author/publisher wants us to remove this summary, please contact us at [email protected].

Hackers as vital disruptors, inspiring a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens take back democracy. Hackers have a bad reputation, as shady deployers of bots and destroyers of infrastructure. In Coding Democracy, Maureen Webb offers another view. Hackers, she argues, can be vital disruptors. Hacking is becoming a practice, an ethos, and a metaphor for a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens are inventing new forms of distributed, decentralized democracy for a digital era. Confronted with concentrations of power, mass surveillance, and authoritarianism enabled by new technology, the hacking movement is trying to "build out" democracy into cyberspace.

The promise and perils of the digital economy - and how we can use it to create prosperity for all The digital economy was supposed to create a new age of prosperity for everyone. But as Facebook resells our data for billions and self-driving cars threaten to put drivers out of work, it has so far only exacerbated the gap between winners and losers. Yet the possibility of an economic Renaissance still lingers - if we seize the opportunity now. In The Growth Trap, Douglas Rushkoff identifies this crucial economic turning point and calls on everyone to remake the economic operating system from the inside out - to redistribute wealth and prosper along the way. With practical steps matched by incisive analysis, The Growth Trap offers a pragmatic, optimistic, and human-centered model for economic progress in the digital age.

SHORTLISTED: Business Book Awards 2021 - HR & Management Category Productivity is flatlining, employee wellbeing is at an all-time low and stress at an all-time high. Mental health issues are now the biggest single disability affecting the UK and are estimated to cost the economy £105bn each year. Traditional company design, structures and processes are making these issues worse and leading to unprecedented levels of staff burnout. This not only impacts individual employees, there is also a detrimental effect on overall company performance when employees can't perform to their full potential. It is the responsibility of Organizational Development and HR professionals to address these issues urgently and redesign work to allow people to flourish and businesses to thrive. Full of practical advice, tips and tools, The Energized Workplace provides a blueprint for how practitioners can redesign their organizations to support employees and ensure the business outperforms the competition. It covers everything from why existing structures are causing business output to decline, why traditional processes are holding organizations back and what the consequences of not addressing these design issues will mean for business including increased staff turnover, a rise in employee absence and a decline in company profits. Including case studies from organizations across a range of sectors who have successfully put people at the heart of their workplace design such as CyberClick, Mind Valley, Brewdog and Wegmans and with specific guidance on designing for five generations working side by side, across different countries and on separate time zones, The Energized Workplace will help OD and HR professionals confidently tackle the organizational issues putting their company success and employee health and happiness in jeopardy. This book is essential reading for practitioners needing to deal with the wellbeing crisis and productivity puzzle in the new world of work.

From the bestselling author of The Dark Net comes a book that explains all the dangers of the digital revolution and offers concrete solutions on how we can protect our personal privacy, and democracy itself. The internet was meant to set us free. But have we unwittingly handed too much away to shadowy powers behind a wall of code, all manipulated by a handful of Silicon Valley utopians, ad men, and venture capitalists? And, in light of recent data breach scandals around companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, what does that mean for democracy, our delicately balanced system of government that was created long before big data, total information, and artificial intelligence? In this urgent polemic, Jamie Bartlett argues that through our unquestioning embrace of big tech, the building blocks of democracy are slowly being removed. The middle class is being eroded, sovereign authority and civil society is weakened, and we citizens are losing our critical faculties, maybe even our free will. The People Vs Tech is an enthralling account of how our fragile political system is being threatened by the digital revolution. Bartlett explains that by upholding six key pillars of democracy, we can save it before it is too late. We need to become active citizens, uphold a shared democratic culture, protect free elections, promote equality, safeguard competitive and civic freedoms, and trust in a sovereign authority. This essential book shows that the stakes couldn't be higher and that, unless we radically alter our course, democracy will join feudalism, supreme monarchies and communism as just another political experiment that quietly disappeared.

Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.

“A highly personal, richly informed and culturally wide-ranging meditation on the loss of meaning in our times and on pathways to rediscovering it.” —Gabor Maté, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction A neuroanthropologist maps out a revolutionary new practice—Hedonic Engineering—that combines the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology. It’s an intensive program of breathing, movement, and sexuality that mends trauma, heightens inspiration and tightens connections—helping us wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all. This is a book about a big idea. And the idea is this: Slowly over the past few decades, and now suddenly, all at once, we’re suffering from a collapse in Meaning. Fundamentalism and nihilism are filling that vacuum, with consequences that affect us all. In a world that needs us at our best, diseases of despair, tribalism, and disaster fatigue are leaving us at our worst. It’s vital that we regain control of the stories we’re telling because they are shaping the future we’re creating. To do that, we have to remember our deepest inspiration, heal our pain and apathy, and connect to each other like never before. If we can do that, we’ve got a shot at solving the big problems we face. And if we can’t? Well, the dustbin of history has swallowed civilizations older and fancier than ours. This book is divided into three parts. The first, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, takes a look at our current Meaning Crisis--where we are today, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, what might be coming next, and what to do about it. It also makes a case that many of our efforts to cope, whether anxiety and denial, or tribalism and identity politics, are likely making things worse. The middle section, The Alchemist Cookbook, applies the creative firm IDEO’s design thinking to the Meaning Crisis. This is where the book gets hands on--taking a look at the strongest evolutionary drivers that can bring about inspiration, healing, and connection. From breathing, to movement, sexuality, music, and substances--these are the everyday tools to help us wake up, grow up, and show up. AKA--how to blow yourself sky high with household materials. And the best part? They’re accessible, by anyone anywhere, no middleman required. Transcendence democratized. The final third of the book, Ethical Cult Building, focuses on the tricky nature of putting these kinds of experiences into gear and into culture—because, anytime in the past when we’ve figured out combinations of peak states and deep healing, we’ve almost always ended up with problematic culty communities. Playing with fire has left a lot of people burned. This section lays out a roadmap for sparking a thousand fires around the world--each one unique and tailored to the needs and values of its participants. Think of it as an open-source toolkit for building ethical culture. In Recapture the Rapture, we’re taking radical research out of the extremes and applying it to the mainstream--to the broader social problem of healing, believing, and belonging. It’s providing answers to the questions we face: how to replace blind faith with direct experience, how to move from broken to whole, and how to cure isolation with connection. Said even more plainly, it shows us how to revitalize our bodies, boost our creativity, rekindle our relationships, and answer once and for all the questions of why we are here and what do we do now? In a world that needs the best of us from the rest of us, this is a book that shows us how to get it done.