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Start Towards a New Enlightenment? Some Keys for Dispelling Perplexity
27 February 2019

Towards a New Enlightenment? Some Keys for Dispelling Perplexity

Estimated reading time Time 2 to read

In OpenMind we have dedicated the latest books in our collection to exploring the keys to the digital revolution (The next step) and to analyzing the confusion originated by this new paradigm as it pervades our social and organizational structures, which are so ill-equipped to cope with these changes (The age of perplexity). In this new book (A transcendent decade. Towards a new enlightenment?), we go one step further: we cast a backward view over the most important changes observed in the last decade (which also coincides with the history of the OpenMind project itself). Based on this analysis, we look toward the future in a bid to understand the direction these changes are leading us, and to ponder what decisions we should take at the individual and collective level.

To undertake this complex task, we have been aided by a group of 23 leading specialists of worldwide renown in their field. In the first place, several chapters are devoted to a review of the recent advances and future lines of development in science and their technological applications. These advances are determining our future possibilities: cosmology and physics, anthropology and data science, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and robotics, biotechnologies and social sciences, among many others.

Find out more

Download the entire book in .pdf, .epub or .mobi here.

You can also listen to the audio book of each chapter. Find them here!

This knowledge helps us gain a better understanding of the trends in the most important questions of our time: climate change and globalization, economics and development, political organization and information, gender issues, the problems of mass urbanization and cybersecurity, all of which are explored next.

El movimiento estudiantil YoSoy132 se manifiesta frente a la Comisión Federal de Elecciones de México, en Ciudad de México, para denunciar la falta de transparencia en las elecciones generales de junio de 2012 y el trato de favor de los medios al candidato del PRI
The YoSoy132 student movement demonstrating in front of the Federal Elections Commission of Mexico, in Mexico City, to protest against the lack of accountability in the general elections of June 2012 nd media favoritism towards the PRI candidate

This analysis points to two conclusions: first, that the ultimate impact of the technological revolution on people’s living conditions –including the preservation of the environment– depends essentially on the decisions we take from now on; and second, that one crucial decision is to promote what this book calls “a new enlightenment”: a wide-ranging dialog to establish new philosophical and ethical foundations to support an economy and society, culture and regulation that are adapted to the new scientific-technological environment. This is the only possible way to maximize its positive effects on growth and well-being, to promote a fairer distribution and to favor the development of shared initiatives to tackle climate change and the deterioration of the environment and biodiversity. This will be a long and arduous task, but the sooner and the more resolutely we undertake it, the greater our chances of success. The alternative –failure– is unthinkable, because it opens up the specter of the dystopias that some today proclaim, and many fear.

OpenMind

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