The Futures Of The Human Race

'Futures Of The Human Race' is a startling analysis of the interaction of artificial intelligence, the Internet, brain implants and virtual reality with globalization and the evolved human psyche.

The book delivers an optimistic message: that modern computer technology, especially in the form of the Internet, and globalization – these two in fact can hardly be separated – will reclaim major expanses of human endeavour for the direct involvement of people, largely bypassing the nation state.

Book One, 'Globalization', sketches the detail of this process, already surprisingly far advanced, under the five headings of Economics, Culture, Taxation, the Law and Politics. The final chapter of Book One is devoted to the Internet. It shows that the process is both unstoppable, short of a major catastrophe, and desirable.

Globalization is conventionally viewed, especially by its opponents, as nationalism or capitalism writ large. On the contrary, the chapters in this part of the book portray globalization, accompanied by the Internet, as undermining the faceless power of the State, while enabling human beings to take advantage of their affiliative natures to develop a vast range of truly democratic and participative international organizations.

One cautionary note is in order: inevitably, the book is written from the perspective of a citizen of a 'developed' country. Yet a high proportion of humanity lives in 'undeveloped', even outright poverty-stricken regions. The chapters devoted to globalization must obviously be taken as applying to the developed world. It would be ludicrous to suggest that a subsistence farmer on an African plain can share in the pleasures and pains of a globalized life.

However, this is a short-term problem (not for 2007's unfortunate subsistence farmer, of course). As later parts of the book will show, the next fifty years will see abundant economic growth and a series of 'boot-strapping' initiatives directed at less fortunate parts of the world which will level up the playing field to such an extent that by 2050 poverty will be largely a thing of the past, and a very high proportion of humanity will be able to participate in the globalized world described in this book.

Book Two tracks the future of major human institutions such as the nation state and language as perfect, real-time translation, electricity-generating forests, robot pets, an Olympics for bionic people, access to the human subconscious, the end of compulsory work, electronic human clones and collective cognitive meeting spaces have their effect.

Book Three is a futuristic imaginary journey through the whole of the 21st century and beyond, building on the trends and advances mapped out in Book Two to create a vision of a very different, but still human world at the beginning of the 22nd century.