IN PROGRESS
Where is humanity going? Our technology empowers the individual, but to what end? This is a (growing) list of people, institutions and concepts central in this discussion of technology and our future (from where I stand).
I’m very familiar with everything listed here. I’ve read the articles/books, watched the movies, and sometimes even met the people. Use this list to jump into the conversation. We need you.
People (Alive)
Dan Novack
teaches Philosophy of Postmodern/Global/Future Studies
wrote a great overview: Savages, Cyborgs, and Saints (six possibilities for the future of humanity)
blogger
Alvin Toffler
former associate editor of Fortune magazine
author of the 1970 bestseller Future Shock
Mark Dery
author of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink (includes good chapter named ‘Wild Nature, Wired Nature: The Unabomber Meets the Digerati’)
blogger
Vernor Vinge
professor of mathematics
computer scientist
science fiction author.
Ray Kurzweil
R. U. Sirius
Theodore Kaczynski
terrorist (aka the “Unabomber”)
author of Industrial Society and Its Future (aka the “Unabomber Manifesto”)
Bill Joy
co-founder of Sun Microsystems
author of Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us
Peter Sloterdijk
Michael Gorman
former president of the American Library Association
wrote the skeptical Google and God’s Mind and the tongue-in-cheek followup Revenge of the Blog People
Thomas de Zengotita
author of the book Mediated: How the Media Shapes our World and the Way We Live in It and the article The Numbing of the American Mind
Francis Fukuyama
philosopher
political economist
3 hour interview on C-SPANN
author of Our Posthuman Future
Jaron Lanier
“MacLuhan Ramp“
popularized virtual reality
Jamais Cascio
Michael Anissimov
prolific blogger
Douglas Engelbart
inventor of the computer mouse
author of Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962)
Kevin Kelly
blogger
Donna Haraway
People (Dead)
Terence McKenna
Timothy Leary
Friedrich Nietzsche
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
H. G. Wells
IN PROGRESS
Where is humanity going? Our technology empowers the individual… but to what end? This is a (growing) list of people, institutions, websites and concepts central in this discussion (from where I stand). People here are listed by year of birth.
I’m very familiar with everything listed here. I’ve read the articles/books, watched the movies, and sometimes even met the people. Use this list to jump into the conversation. We need you. [Larger list of people here]
People (Alive)
Michael Anissimov
Dan Novack
R. U. Sirius
Jamais Cascio
Jane McGonigal (1977 -
- Game designer
- Helped to create The Superstruct Game, a “massively multiplayer forecasting game.”
- Helped to create World Without Oil, a “massively collaborative imagining of the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis.”
Michael Wesch (1975 -
- Assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University
- Created the viral YouTube video The Web is Us/ing (10+ million views!)
- Gave this phenomenal talk (YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity) at the Personal Democracy Forum in 2009. I met him a few hours later, and we spoke for 10-15 minutes. He is awesome. Very creative, mild mannered and humble.
- Personal website
Nick Bostrom (1973 -
Jaron Lanier (1960 -
Mark Dery (1959 -
Bill Joy (1954 -
Andrew J. Holden
Kevin Kelly (1952 -
- founding executive editor of Wired magazine
- blogger
Francis Fukuyama (1952 -
- philosopher
- political economist
- 3 hour interview on C-SPANN
- author of Our Posthuman Future
Ray Kurzweil (1948 -
Peter Sloterdijk (1947 -
Donna Haraway (1944 -
Vernor Vinge (1944 -
- professor of mathematics, computer scientist, science fiction author
- popularized the concept of a ‘technological singularity‘
Thomas de Zengotita (1944 -
David Cronenberg (1943 -
- Film maker
- Created the movie eXistenZ. Explores reality vs. virtual reality, philosophical concept of realism, future of games, human/computer interaction, etc.
- Created the movie Videodrome (includes a character inspired by Marshall McLuhan).
- Created the movie Crash (based on novel by J. G. Ballard) with James Spader. Explores how our technological environment (especially cars) changes our sexuality.
Theodore Kaczynski (1942 -
Michael Gorman (1941 -
Stewart Brand (1938 -
Albert Borgmann (1937 -
Alvin Toffler (1928 -
Douglas Engelbart (1925 -
- inventor of the computer mouse
- author of Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962)
People (Dead)
Born in the 20th Century
Terence McKenna (1946 – 2000)
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)
- astronomer and popularizer of astronomy and science
- created the famous television series Cosmos (available online at Hulu)
Robert Anton Wilson (1932 – 2007)
J. G. Ballard (1930 – 2009)
Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982)
Timothy Leary (1920 – 1996)
- Popularized LSD, icon of the 1960s counterculture
- Former lecturer at Harvard
Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980)
- Media and communications theorist
- great 44 minute lecture on McLuhan by Terence McKenna
Born in the 19th Century
Buckminster Fuller (1895 – 1983)
Vannevar Bush (1890 – 1974)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955)
- Philosopher and (ex) Jesuit priest
H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)
Born in the 17th Century
Mary Shelley (1787 – 1851)
Websites
fUSION Anomaly
- Repository of eclectic information on eclectic topics (psychedelics, the future, spirituality, philosophy, etc.)
- Wonderful example of how websites used to be designed creatively.
TED Talks
- Hundreds (thousands?) of short, fantastic video lectures
- Relevant talks include ones by Bill Joy and Jamais Cascio
Greylodge Blog
- Source of very weird and awesome torrents (audio, text, video)
technorati tags: future, futurism, resource, toread, people, thinkers, writers, intellectuals