Free shipping on orders over $99
To Be a Machine

To Be a Machine

Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death

by Mark O'Connell
Paperback
Publication Date: 30/03/2017

Share This Book:

 
$29.99

**Winner of the 2018 Wellcome Prize**

**Shortlisted for the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize**

**Shortlisted for Royal Society Science Book Prize 2017**

What is transhumanism? Simply put, it is a movement whose aim is to use technology to fundamentally change the human condition, to improve our bodies and minds to the point where we become something other, and better, than the animals we are. It's a philosophy that, depending on how you look at it, can seem hopeful, or terrifying, or absurd.

In To Be a Machine, Mark O'Connell presents us with the first full- length exploration of transhumanism: its philosophical and scientific roots, its key players and possible futures. From charismatic techies seeking to enhance the body to immortalists who believe in the possibility of 'solving' death; from computer programmers quietly re-designing the world to vast competitive robotics conventions; To Be a Machine is an Adventure in Wonderland for our time.To Be a Machine paints a vivid portrait of an international movement driven by strange and frequently disturbing ideas and practices, but whose obsession with transcending human limitations can be seen as a kind of cultural microcosm, a radical intensification of our broader faith in the power of technology as an engine of human progress.

It is a character study of human eccentricity, and a meditation on the immemorial desire to transcend the basic facts of our animal existence - a desire as primal as the oldest religions, a story as old as the earliest literary texts.A stunning new non-fiction voice tackles an urgent question... what next for mankind?

ISBN:
9781783781966
9781783781966
Category:
Popular science
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
30-03-2017
Publisher:
Granta Books
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
256
Dimensions (mm):
216x135x15mm
Weight:
0.25kg
Mark O'Connell

Mark O'Connell is a journalist, essayist, and literary critic from Dublin. He is a books columnist for Slate, a staff writer at The Millions, and a regular contributor to the New Yorker's 'Page-Turner' blog and the Dublin Review; his work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and the Observer.

Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available

Reviews

Be the first to review To Be a Machine.