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The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies (Hardcover)

by Damien Broderick (Author) "It rushes at you, the future ..." (more)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Tor Books (Jan 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0312877811
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312877811
  • Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.7 x 3.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 980,164 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

If we are to believe the projections outlined in Damien Broderick's The Spike, the acceleration of change is increasing so sharply that the future is not just unknowable but unrecognisable. Dr Broderick pulls together his vast learning to expand on Vernor Vinge's notion of the technological Singularity and to share with us his necessarily clouded vision of a posthuman future. Writing with a rare enthusiasm unmuted by years of dystopian fiction and news reports, Broderick peels back the layers of jargon enshrouding recent advances in nanotech, biotech and all the other tech that's daring us to keep up.

It's hard for the reader to avoid feeling swept up in the rush of novelty, and that of course is the author's point. As we learn to modify even our deepest natures, how can we ever hope to maintain intellectual distance from our technology? Forewarned is forearmed, and Broderick hopes that awareness of the maelstrom will keep us from drowning; this might be the best cure for post-millennial despair. In any case, not everyone believes that the world of 2050 will be incomprehensible to those of us who lived through part of the 20th century. Will the curve spike, as Broderick suggests, or will it plateau? We should know in relatively little time, as we find ourselves either downloaded into space-travelling robots or watching the latest incarnation of holographic Star Trek. --Rob Lightner

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Science non-fiction that's stranger than fiction., 9 Mar 2004
By Christian Hunter "Christian hunter" (Austin, TX and Santa Barbara, CA,) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I picked this book up because I'm an futurist info-junkie. My expectations were modest, the reviews for this were good, but not stellar. However, after just a handful of pages I was completely hooked (I read this book in a night, a very long, very late night).
Damien Brodericks' book "The Spike" screams for our immediate attention to an impending convergence of a handful of rapidly developing technologies (principally nanotechnology, biotechnology, networking, and Artificial Intelligence), each revolutionary on their own, but combined, transcendental; Broderick calls that convergence "the spike".

The concept alone is worth the read. Seldom do most people consider just where humanity now stands in relation to technology and its utility. Where, for example, transportation technology for all but a few thousand years of almost 3 million was our feet and crude "shoes" that permitted 3 mile per hour travel, then animals, chariots, etc. up until about two hundred years ago where a train could propel people at 20 miles per hour, then, "within living memory of the elderly", cars enabled ever faster travel, then planes, jets, rockets, now technologies allow for video conferencing at light speed. Broderick points out that if you put that progress on a chart, and drew out just the last 300,000 years of mankinds progress in transport speed increases, you'd see a flat line until you get to the furthest edge of the graph, then a near vertical spike.

Cool stuff.

And much cooler when you consider that (in his well reasoned belief) if you were to draw out a graph starting 100 years ago, and ending one hundred years from now, we'd find ourselves right at the very beginnings of an incline into a technological spike that will (barring some catostrophic event) fundamentally re-landscape humans (and what it means to be human) in such a material way, you could argue that we wouldn't really remain human at all...

This is very approachable science, Broderick, unlike many other writers attempting to translate the almost imponderable and ever increasing torrent of science from the frontier, does allot of digesting for us in this book. So, while a Matt Ridley (author of "Genome" and "Nature Via Nurture" among others) might be more inclined to try and fill in more factual basis to cement understanding of a particular science, Broderick casts a justifiably wide net over a whole constellation of different scientific disciplines; and, as a consequence, doesn't go into great detail in giving a full "3D" view of each very interesting technology. This will no-doubt leave some more scientific-minded readers wanting for more in the "basis department". For that class, I'd suggest Ridley, but also writers like Hans Moravec (writer of "Robot"), or Ray Kurzweil, author of "The Age of Spiritual Machines".

"The Spike" offers optimistic and intensly interesting scenarios for the prospect of a better life in the future as well as realistic concerns that we should start to seriously think about. At a time where it seems we are constantly bombarded by nay-saying "gloom and doom" forecasts for the future, this book is a refreshing (but not overly optimistic) glimpse into a future so potentially wild, so potentially different, it seems more like Science Fiction.

Hope this was helpful.

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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Broaden your mind and get ready for the future, 25 May 2002
By RS Gordon "marvelboy" (Larne) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies (Paperback)
Broderick takes you by the hand and lets you know what the future could be like. These aren't the spittle laced ravings of a loon or know-it-all, but an easy read, well laid out journey of what the human race culd be letting itself in for (good and bad). Broderick backs it all up with here and now information tha high-lights that todays sci-fi could easily be tomorrows reality.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars empty drivel, 27 Sep 2006
This review is from: The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies (Paperback)

This book is nothing but an extended sunday colour supplement article that is highly suited to "throneroom" reading.

Do NOT buy this book if:
1) you have completed your high school education,
2) you are looking for solid information about the possible social effects of the science of the near future,
3) you want to understand anything at all about near future science such as nanotechnology, genetic medicine, quantum computing etc...

This is NOT a popular science book, it simply repeats empty phrases taken from obscure lectures and web posts. On top of this it is poorly written in a kind of grating humour nudge-nudge vernacular that will enflame your nerves.

In short this is a cheap tabloid version of a book, filled with vapid rumour and gossip. It has nothing to do with science, plain and simple, and it has nothing to do with the science of the future. Compare it to such masterpeices as "Darwin Among the Machines" by Dyson and you will laugh as much as I.

Do not waste your money on this book.
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