Infinite Progress

How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War

Byron Reese

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781608324040
• eBook ISBN: 9781608324057
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

For years we've been inundated with bleak forecasts about the future. But in this electrifying new book, author Byron Reese debunks the pessimistic outlook as dangerous, and shows instead how technology will soon create a dramatically better world for every person on earth, beyond anything we have dared to imagine. With the art of a storyteller, Reese synthesizes history, technology, and sociology into an exciting, fast-moving narrative that shows how technological change has had dramatic effects on humanity in the past. He then looks forward at the technological changes we know are coming—from genetics, nanotechnology, robotics, and many other fields—and explores how they will vastly increase wealth, prolong our lifespans, redefine human rights, and alter the social fabric of the world. Reese explains how the Internet, human ingenuity, and technological innovation will help us forever end the five historic plagues of human existence: ignorance, disease, poverty, hunger, and war. With a rational and researched optimism, Reese sees the future not as a world in a downward spiral, but as destined for progress beyond our imaginations. As Reese looks forward, he notes that "we are gaining speed, not winding down. We are blooming, not withering, as we leverage the greatest natural resource on the planet: the human mind." The future of Earth's inhabitants has never been brighter. If you want to get excited about the future, then this is the book for you.

INDEX

A

Abbey, Edward, 275

Adams, John, 2

Adwords, Google, 99

Africa, 179, 197

aging, 57–58, 91

agricultural economy, 148

agriculture industry, 170, 176, 179–86, 186–91, 200–205. See also genetically modified organisms

aid strategies, international, 176–77

Alaska Permanent Fund, 144–45

Amalrik, Andrei, 12

Amazon.com, 43–44, 45–47, 97

Ambient Corporation’s Audeo device, 90

American Association for the

Advancement of Science (AAAS), 171

American Dream and dreamers, 2–3

American Experience, 2

American High (O’Neill), 62

Amish social order, 166

androids vs. robots, 119

answer engines, 42

Apollo 13 (movie), 4

art on the Internet, 25–26

asymmetry in warfare, 246, 287–88

Atkinson, Brooks, 226

Augustine of Hippo, 282–83

Avery, Oswald, 80

B

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, 212–13

Bennis, Warren, 117, 186

Berlin Wall, end of, 230

bionic eyes, 89

Birthday Balls, Roosevelt’s, 60, 61

Black Book of Communism (Ebeling), 208–9

blogs, 17, 24–25

Boinc (open-source grid-computing platform), 204

books, invention of, 31–32

Borlaug, Norman, 181–84, 186, 207

Brandeis, Louis, 265

Broyles, William, Jr., 234–35

Bryan, William Jennings, 163

business startups, 26

Byzantines, 217–18

C

Caesar, Julius, 142

Cambodia, 208–9

Carlyle, Thomas, 223

Center for Systemic Peace, 205

change, rate of, 5–6

chariti...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: The Case for Optimism
• An Optimist’s Reasoning, in Five Easy Premises
• The End of Ignorance
• The End of Disease
• The End of Poverty
• The End of Hunger
• The End of War
• In Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Index