Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity - Softcover

Rushkoff, Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241004411 ISBN 13: 9780241004418

Publisher: Portfolio Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

Why doesn't the explosive growth of companies such as Facebook and Uber deliver more prosperity for everyone? How could things be different?

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.

'Douglas Rushkoff is one of today's most incisive media theorists and a provocative critic of our digital economy. He's also fun to read'
WALTER ISAACSON, president and CEO, The Aspen Institute, and author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators

'If you don't know Rushkoff, you're not serious about figuring out what's going to happen next'
SETH GODIN, author of Purple Cow and Tribes

About this title

About the Author

Douglas Rushkoff is the author of many bestselling books on media, technology and culture, including Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed and Media Virus. He is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens. He wrote the graphic novels Testament and A.D.D., and made the television documentaries Generation Like, Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders, and Digital Nation. He lives in New York, and lectures about media, society and economics around the world.

From the Back Cover

The promise and perils of the digital economy - and how we can use it to create prosperity for all

The digital economy was supposed to create a new age of prosperity for everyone. But as Facebook resells our data for billions and self-driving cars threaten to put drivers out of work, it has so far only exacerbated the gap between winners and losers. Yet the possibility of an economic Renaissance still lingers - if we seize the opportunity now.

Edition details

• Publisher: Portfolio Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241004411
• ISBN 13: 9780241004418
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288