Douglas Rushkoff Bücher

Spätestens seit der Allianz von Donald Trump und Elon Musk ist klar: Die Tech-Milliardäre sind nicht nur die reichsten Männer der Welt, es geht ihnen auch um politische Macht und um die radikale Umgestaltung von Gesellschaft und Natur. Als Douglas Rushkoff eine Einladung in ein exklusives Wüstenresort erhält, nimmt er an, dass er dort über Zukunftstechnologien sprechen soll. Stattdessen sieht er sich Milliardären gegenüber, die ihn zu Luxusbunkern und Marskolonien befragen. Während die Welt mit der Klimakatastrophe und sozialen Krisen ringt, zerbrechen sich diese Männer den Kopf, wie sie im Fall eines Systemkollapses ihre Privatarmeen in Schach halten können. Der Medientheoretiker Rushkoff verfolgt die Internetrevolution seit Jahrzehnten, ist Erfinder der Begriffe »viral gehen« und »Digital Natives«, bewegte sich lange im Kreis von Vordenkern und kreativen Zerstörern. In einer Zeit, in der Elon Musk und Peter Thiel sich immer stärker in die Politik einmischen, rekonstruiert er, wie aus der Aufbruchsstimmung der 1990er ein Programm aus Angst und Größenwahn werden konnte. Viele Tech-Unternehmer wollen uns Normalsterbliche einfach nur hinter sich lassen, werden aber als Visionäre gefeiert. Angesichts der Zerrüttungen, die ihre Geschäftsmodelle produzieren, müssen wir uns von ihrem Mindset befreien – denn mitnehmen werden sie uns auf ihrem Exodus sicher nicht. Ein flammendes Plädoyer gegen Egomanie und für die Wiederentdeckung kooperativen Handelns

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.

Douglas Rushkoff was one of the first social commentators to identify the new culture around the internet. He has spent nearly a decade advising companies on the ways they can re-orient their businesses to the transformations the internet has caused. Through his speaking and consulting, Rushkoff has discovered an important and unrecognized shift in American business. Too many companies are panicked and operating in survival mode when the worst of the crisis has already passed. Likening the internet transformation to the intellectual and technological ferment of the Enlightment, Rushkoff suggests we have a remarkable opportunity to re-integrate our new perspective with the work we actually do. Instead of running around trying to "think out of the box," Rushkoff demonstrates, now is the time to "get back in the box" and improve the way we do our jobs, run our operations and drive innovation from the ground up. Combining stories gleaned from his consulting with a thrilling tour of history's dramatic moments and clever readings of cultural shift we've just experienced, Rushkoff offers a compelling vision of the simple and effective ways businesses can re-invigorate themselves.

A manual for survival in a demanding age. Covering everything from the coercive power of casino and shopping-centre design to how door-to-door salesmen employ CIA interrogation techniques, the book shows what "they" do and how they do it.

Makes a far-reaching, accessible case the positive impact that digital technologies will have on our ability to participate more actively and thoughtfully. This book includes not just examples but ideas and conclusions drawn based on years of experience watching these ideas become incorporated into academic, business, education and culture.

Our world is getting more complex every day. Faced by a media run amok, a rapidly expanding global economy, the collapse of national and social boundaries and the profound impact of technology on our lives, we all feel like immigrants to a very new territory. Gone is the predictability of an organized civilization, overwhelmed by a seemingly random wave of change. Like any new immigrants to an unfamiliar culture, we must look to our children for signs of how to act and think. Natives of chaos, they have already adapted to its demands.

In San Francisco in 2013 activists protesting against the gentrification of their city smashed the windows of a bus carrying Google employees to work. But these protests weren't just a question of the activists versus the Googlers, or even the 99 per cent versus the 1 per cent. Rather they were symptomatic of the true conflict of our age, between humanity as a whole and a digital economy in which boundless growth is valued above all else. In this groundbreaking book, Douglas Rushkoff - named one of the world's ten most influential thinkers by MIT - lays out a ground plan for a different economic and social future. Ranging from big data to the rise of robots, from the gig economy to the collapse of the eurozone, Rushkoff shows how we can combine the best of human nature with the best of modern technology to achieve a state of sustainable, distributed wealth. It's time the economy finally worked for the human beings it's supposed to serve.

In 'Life Inc.' Douglas Rushkoff offers a timely, provocative and urgent look at the origins and nature of the modern corporate system, a world in which everything can be commodified, a closed system that conquers not through exclusion but total inclusion.

Political structures need to change. They will emerge from people acting and communicating in the present, not talking about a fictional future ... (from cover).