Douglas Rushkoff

The nightly news and conventional wisdom tell us that things are bad and getting worse. Yet despite dire predictions, scientists see many good things on the horizon. John Brockman, publisher of Edge (www.edge.org), the influential online salon, recently asked more than 150 high-powered scientific thinkers to answer a vital question for our frequently pessimistic times: "What are you optimistic about?"Spanning a wide range of topics—from string theory to education, from population growth to medicine, and even from global warming to the end of world—What Are You Optimistic About? is an impressive array of what world-class minds (including Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, New York Times bestselling authors, and Harvard professors, among others) have weighed in to offer carefully considered optimistic visions of tomorrow. Their provocative and controversial ideas may rouse skepticism, but they might possibly change our perceptions of humanity's future.

There's something happening in Shelter Valley...Shelter Valley, Arizona, is the kind of place where everyone wants to live. Martha Moore, divorced mother of four, has spent her whole life here and can't imagine being anywhere else.But something frightening has happened, and it affects Martha and her children. It also touches David Cole Marks, the new minister in town.Martha's a woman without faith, still bitter about a husband's betrayal. And David's a minister with secrets, a past that haunts him. But they have to put these burdens aside to work together, to make a difference to Shelter Valley. And each other?

This didn't just happen.In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed, as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they're no longer even aware of it.This fascinating journey, from the late Middle Ages to today, reveals the roots of our debacle. From the founding of the first chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace--the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401(k) plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.Most of all, Life Inc. shows how the current financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reverse this six-hundred-year-old trend and to begin to create, invest, and transact directly rather than outsource all this activity to institutions that exist solely for their own sakes. Corporatism didn't evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living--the operating system on which we are now running our social software--was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self-sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory. Rushkoff illuminates both how we've become disconnected from our world and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and, mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc. shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.From the Hardcover edition.

"The Adolescent Demo Division are the world's luckiest teen gamers. Raised from birth to test media, appear on reality TV and enjoy the fruits of corporate culture, the squad develop special abilities that make them the envy of the world, and a grave concern to their keepers"--Dust jacket.

Bold, daring, and provocative, Media Virus! examines the intricate ways in which popular media both manipulate and are manipulated by those who know how to tap into their power. Douglas Rushkoff shows that where there's a wavelength, there's a way to "infect" those on it - from the subtly, but intentionally, subversive signals broadcast by shows like "The Simpsons," to the O.J. media frenzy surrounding the Nicole Brown Simpson murder case, chase, and trial. What does it all mean? Unless you've been living in a cave that isn't cable-ready, you're already infected with the media virus. But don't worry, it won't make you sick. It will make you think....

Conversations. Intel's Futurists. Scientists, engineers, legends and luminaries, science fiction authors and recognized experts. Their visions, stories and passionate arguments are collected here. Join the conversation and change the future.

Jamie Cohen is new on Wall Street. The insights Jamie learnt as a hacker make him indispensable. As the mania for on-line share dealing turns New York citizens into rabid traders, Jamie resolves to break the cycle of greed using desperate measures.

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Rushkoff warns that the promise of the Net as an open-ended civic forum is fading, as relentless corporate marketers peddle their wares and capitalize on shortened attention spans. He identifies subtle forms of coercion used by advertisers, public relations experts, politicians, religious leaders and customer service reps, among others, and provides examples of how the ordinary person is often unsuspectingly manipulated, whether in the shopping mall, at a sports event or in a Muzak-drenched store or office. This analysis is particularly strong when deconstructing the "postmodern" techniques of persuasion that advertisers use to reach increasingly cynical target audiences, including commercials that self-consciously mock the marketing process. Rushkoff also argues that mass spectacles (e.g., rock festivals, Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March, Promise Keepers rallies) foster "tribal loyalty" but are often contrived, commercial or downright destructive. He devotes a chapter to pyramid schemes used by cults, infomercials, Internet con artists and get-rich-quick marketers. His freewheeling survey underscores the social cost of these coercive strategies, which, he says, tend to make us see one another as marks.

In California, cyberspace hippies found a club to experiment with drugs and computers. They uncover a conspiracy to impose mind control on the country and proceed to thwart it.

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained? This in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world continues a line of investigation that began in 2008, with the FRONTLINE report "Growing Up Online." The journalists attempt to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations.

Residing in New Whitby, Maine, a town founded by vampires trying to escape persecution, Mel finds her negative attitudes challenged when her best friend falls in love with one, another friend's father runs off with one, and she herself is attracted to someone who tries to pass himself off as one.