Table of Contents
Introduction John Brockman ix
1 The Evolution of Culture Daniel C. Dennett 1
2 Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions? Jared Diamond 27
3 Art and Human Reality Denis Dutton Steven Pinker 43
4 A Big Theory of Culture Brian Eno Stewart Brand 57
5 We Are As Gods and Have To Get Good At It Stewart Brand 71
6 Turing's Cathedral: A Visit to Google on the Occasion Of the 60th Anniversary of John Von Neumann's Proposal for a Digital Computer George Dyson 87
7 Time to Start Taking The Internet Seriously David Gelernter 97
8 Indirect Reciprocity, Assessment Hardwiring, and Reputation Karl Sigmund 111
9 Digital Maoism: The Hazards of The New Online Collectivism Jaron Lanier 125
10 On Jaron Lanier's "Digital Maoism" An Edge Conversation 143
11 Social Networks Are Like the Eye Nicholas A. Christakis 171
12 The Next Renaissance: Keynote Address at the Personal Democracy Forum Douglas Rushkoff 191
13 Digital Power and its Discontents Evgeny Morozov Clay Shirky 197
14 Does Technology Evolve? W. Brian Arthur 219
15 Aristotle: The Knowledge Web W. Daniel Hillis 237
16 The Pancake People vs. The Gödel-to-Google Net Richard Foreman George Dyson 255
17 The age of the informavore Frank Schirrmacher 263