The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny [Hardcover]

Michael G. Zey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2000

This title offers a glimpse of the future, and how breakthroughs in science and technology will affect the world, its economy, its society and its future generations. The long-term future of the human species is examined, and predictions made using cosmology, physics and related fields. The author offers a grounding in the future and an understanding of emerging social and technological trends, and encompasses a variety of areas including: genetics; robotics; and computers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Shows how breakthroughs in science and technology will impact the economy...and future generations.Extremely informative and provocative; highly recommended.” -- Stern’s Management Review

“Zey offers insights into major commercial trends and business investments for the future.For a risk-tolerating investor, Future Factor is provocative stuff.” -- Andrew Allentuck, The Toronto Globe and Mail

From the Back Cover

"With the right breaks, Zey could be the next Alvin Toffler."­­Booklist

"The future is an act of will," says internationally renowned sociologist/futurist Michael Zey. In The Future Factor, you will learn how the human species is heeding this message, decisively acting to master and unleash several forces to create an exciting new world of infinite possibilities. Within the next few decades, Zey predicts we will:

Live to 150 years or more (while physically not aging past 30) Vacation in space hotels Commute to work in Skycars Use robots and other "smart machines" to make our lives and jobs easier Meet for business and pleasure in virtual cyberspace

Before century's end, we will:

Control the weather Manufacture products, drugs, and food literally "from nothing" Re-create on other planets Earth-like environments where we will live and prosper

Does our species have a larger purpose in the general scheme of things? You will be both surprised and inspired by Zey's vision of humankind's ultimate destiny.

The Future Factor offers an inspiring, optimistic vision of the human future. Sociologist Dr. Michael G. Zey shows how breathtaking innovations in fields such as biotechnology, computing, robotics, medicine, energy development, and space technology are catapulting global society into a new era of unlimited abundance and prosperity. Soon, the average life span will be doubled, people will travel around the globe at hypersonic speeds, and robots and other "smart machines" will increase productivity in the workplace and enhance the quality of our lives.

As the third millennium begins, such technological breakthroughs provide each of us unprecedented opportunities for growth, profitability, and organizational and personal reinvention. However, to stay ahead of the curve of change, and anticipate future developments before competitors and peers do, leaders, companies, and individuals must be equipped with the right information to make informed decisions.

In The Future Factor, Zey provides the sophisticated cutting-edge knowledge companies need to achieve competitive advantage and individuals require to make career and life choices. Zey masterfully paints a "big picture" of powerful new forces¿biogenesis, cybergenesis, species coalesence, and dominionization¿that are subtly impacting society and the global economy, and changing forever the way we live.

Among the subjects explored in this wide-ranging and always surprising book are:

Cybergenesis and the role it will play in making humans smarter and healthier The universal communication network based on the Internet and virtual reality Biogenesis, gene therapy, and the complete decoding of the human genome "Next generation" robots and smart machines, and their impact on economic growth The colonization of space and the advent of "space tourism" Fusion-based energy and its effect on the environment and the global economy The global transportation grid the "skycar" and the worldwide superhighway Biotechnological breakthroughs in agriculture and food production

And much more!

Throughout The Future Factor Zey pushes the envelope, challenging our conventional notions about the human species, its future and its ultimate purpose. What emerges is a compelling and radically novel vision of humankind as a species destined to place its indelible stamp on our planet and reshape the cosmos itelf. The Future Factor exhorts the readers to embrace this bold vision of humankind's destiny, and shows them how to participate in its achievement.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 289 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill; 1st edition (July 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071343059
• ISBN-13: 978-0071343053
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,393,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring Vision of the Future, October 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny (Hardcover)

I have just read Michael G. Zey's The Future Factor, afascinating view of an emerging world of new technologies andscientific breakthroughs, and what effects they will have on ourlives.

What drew me to this book in the first place was itsintriguing subtitle, "The Five Factors Transforming Our Lives andReshaping Human Destiny". Unlike other books in this area,"The Future Factor" delivers on its subtitle in everyway. Once I began reading the book, I simply could not put itdown-"The Future Factor" is simply one of the mostoptimistic books about the future of the human species I've everencountered.

Zey paints a convincing portrait of an excitingfuture--we will be living to 150 years or more, using robots andcomputers to better our lives, and travel at superfast speeds (evenperhaps approach the speed of light). According to Zey, we arealready using genetic engineering, cloning, and bionics to improve thephysical condition of the human being in a process he labelsbiogenesis. (Zey has invented a new vocabulary of sorts to describehis vision.) The author makes a strong case that this world of spacecolonies, skycars, and "smart machines" no longer exists only inscience fiction, but is rapidly unfolding during this decade.

What Ifound truly original, and inspiring, about this book is Dr. Zey'svision of human destiny. He says that he synthesized many differenttheories to develop this "Expansionary Theory of HumanDevelopment". According to this theory, the appearance of humanspecies was almost "mandated" by the universe itself. Why? If Iunderstand what Zey is saying, humanity's ultimate destiny is toreshape the universe, maybe even save it from what most cosmologistsinsist is a predetermined Big Bang-style ending. He says that overthe eons we will transform the universe into something he calls the"Humaniverse". Zey turns Darwin, the Big Bang theory, and mostof modern cosmology on its head to demonstrate the importance ofhumankind in the grand scheme of things.

This is the kind of bookthat over a period of months should gain a wide audience simplythrough word of mouth. (I've told everyone in my circle about thisbook.) I feel changed (for the better) by reading "The FutureFactor", and I want friends and family to experience theexhilaration I felt as I pored through the pages. I think that overtime the ideas Zey presents in this book will be debated in the mediaand elsewhere...

I rated this book a "5"-it's riveting,extremely well-written, and, to put it bluntly, has simply changed theway I think about the future and humanity's role in helping to createthat future.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sociology of the Future... Plus some technology stuff, February 3, 2001

By 

Thomas Weitzel - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny (Hardcover)

This book was less about the future of technology than I had hoped. Although it does bring up a lot of diverse topics from many different areas of science that will *eventually* effect the future of mankind, it's more about a philisophical argument between New Agers and Expansionists.. Zey being a strong believer in the expansionist movement (Not to mention a Ph.D in sociology). It does cite 19 pages worth of refrences, so this book could be valuable as a guide to more in-depth study of many of the technological topics introduced. Many of the moral questions it contains have been covered in "STAR TREK: The Next Generation," and some of the events discussed stretch the bounds of rationality... Sure, someday our ever-accelerating universe will suffer entropy death, but why worry about that NOW?

There is a certain beauty in being a futurist: Without giving dates, you will never be wrong.

I rate this book a 4 because, even though it was not what I had expected, it did get me thinking. Hopefully it will help others to realize that we really are reaching "Technological Critical Mass" and that the world IS going to change A LOT within the coming century... And that's a good thing.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to Transhumanist & Extropian thinking., August 14, 2000

By 

M. A. Plus "Advanced Atheist" (Mayer, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny (Hardcover)

Michael Zey has written a effective primer for what in other contexts would be considered Transhumanist or Extropian thinking about the human prospect, without calling it by those terms. Since his book adds several neologisms to our discussion about life in the future -- Expansionary thinking, dominionization, species coalescence, biogenesis, cybergenesis, Russian Cosmism and the Humaniverse, for example -- perhaps he felt that throwing in some other terms would overload the reader not already familiar with the large and growing literature (mostly now on the Web) about Transhumanist philosophy.

Zey is particularly concerned about maintaining and enhancing human individuality when confronted with possibly quite invasive new technologies. Hence his criticisms of scientifically plausible notions that we are going to merge into some Borg-like "global brain" and nonsense of that sort. He's similarly critical of thinkers in the Transhumanist/Extropian camp, like Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil, who foresee the time when humans become subordinated to advanced artificial intelligences in the coming decades, pointing out that such scenarios are the flip-side of radical environmentalist and Neo-Luddite proposals to subordinate humans to other species or to the mystical "Gaia." No, Zey's primary focus is on the long-term welfare of individual humans, including their radical life extension, as we "dominionize" more and more of the universe for our own purposes, not those of other entities.

I can't give this book the highest rating, however, because Zey mixes his generally good analysis up with some questionable, if not controversial, ideas from physics, such as non-Big Bang cosmologies, a version of the Anthropic Principle and his theory that quantum nonlocality will keep human minds basically thinking in the same way no matter how much we diverge across space-time. Still, for people wanting to know what Transhumanism is all about, this is a good place to start.