Review
“Smart and wonderfully readable… Amid [Becker’s] sharp criticisms of the tech figures he writes about is a resolute call for compassion. He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us.” ―New York Times
“Becker subjects Silicon Valley’s ideology to some much-needed critical scrutiny, poking holes in — and a decent amount of fun at — the outlandish ideas that so many tech billionaires take as gospel. In so doing, he champions reality while also exposing the dangers of letting the tech billionaires push us toward a future that could never actually exist.” ―Rolling Stone
“A call to clear-eyed humanism....In an era when billionaire space races and AI hype dominate headlines, More Everything Forever arrives as a much-needed reality check.” ―The Atlantic
“Timely and thoughtful… Becker, an astrophysicist and science journalist, takes a wild ride through speculative technologies and assesses their merit, using real science… An important and sober investigation of Silicon Valley’s boldest claims about the future.”―Kirkus (**Starred Review**)
“[Becker’s] penetrating critiques expose the self-serving narratives that prop up tech billionaires’ quest for ever more wealth. It’s a searing takedown of the Silicon Valley set.” ―Publishers Weekly
“A compelling survey of the ideas espoused by a band of futurist thinkers who have championed — and profited from — a boundless faith in the power of artificial intelligence...Engaging with these tech-infused visions is necessary because they are starting to affect how society is governed." ―Nature
"An urgent call to deflate the world-shaping power of tech billionaires....Becker articulates a timely and informed wake-up call....His vehement critique is fundamental to diminishing their power."―Science
“A clear-eyed assessment of today’s prophets.” ―Boston Globe
"Disconcerting....More Everything Forever is a disturbing and important book."―New Scientist
"Marvellous...a fascinating, terrifying and at times hilarious guided tour of the dreams and nightmares of these various schools of fantastic futurism....An astonishing book." ―Sydney Morning Herald
"Compulsive [and] brilliantly written...comes at the subject with the exasperated contempt it deserves. Think of it as Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley." ―New Zealand Herald
“A deeply researched and engaging narrative” ―Science News
“Becker’s sobering book provides a welcome alternative perspective on the technologies that are changing our world at breakneck speed, and, especially, on the people who control those technologies. At the very least, it should encourage us to think more carefully about the kind of future we really want.” ―Undark
“Excellent and lively… There are many books that will help you understand how AI technology works in practice but few that even begin to describe how it works as myth. If you want to understand why many AI leaders believe that their technology will heal the wounds of mortality, grant us nearly limitless abundance, and allow us to spread into the galaxy, this is the book you ought to read.” ―Lawfare
“In More Everything Forever, Adam Becker surveys the grand ambitions of our technological elite—their messianic faith in AI, their imperialist yearnings for space, their moral gymnastics in the name of humanity’s unborn trillions—with the sharp eye of someone watching a high-stakes magic trick where the rabbit never actually appears....This is the quiet devastation at the heart of More Everything Forever: the realization that these grand techno-utopian visions, rather than democratizing the future, consolidate control over it.” ―Worth Magazine
"This is an important book as well as a good one. More Everything Forever is a really significant contribution to our discussion of the future and what it might hold, and what we should be trying for now. Some of these popular ideas about the future are foolish enough to distort our current reality, and they deserve to be revealed as such. Becker's book is very entertaining as it exposes how the emperor has no clothes."―Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future
"With a wild and utterly engaging narrative, Adam Becker gives us a refreshing reality check on the fantasies of billionaires, futurists, and utilitarian philosophers who are plotting to 'optimize' the future of humanity. A fascinating exposé of the extreme techno-solutionism promoted by the most powerful and influential technocrats of our era."―Melanie Mitchell, computer scientist and author of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans
"Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever dismantles the toxic techno-optimism endemic in Silicon Valley and outlines why the most pressing problems society faces can’t be solved with technology alone. The book is a must-read for understanding why the visions of the future promoted by today’s techno oligarchs are built on pseudoscience and far-fetched fantasies mixed with racism, eugenics, and colonialism. Becker argues that focusing on invented future problems that may or may not ever come to pass gives techno-optimists license to neglect urgent and real problems like global warming and income inequality that are threatening humanity in the here and now. More Everything Forever feels particularly urgent and timely as billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos vie for political power."―Christie Aschwanden, author of Good to Go
“I love this book. We are sitting astride an inflection point. The world as we know it or think we know it is rapidly vanishing, replaced by something… Well, we’re really not sure what. It used to be that we could point to an Orwellian future where 2 + 2 = 5 and so on and so forth. Perhaps disturbing but still understandable. But nowhere in this can of worms is there a vision of the subjugation of everything to a dystopia of machines. As Adam Becker reports, we will all bow down before the specter of advanced technology, before the onrushing oligarchy. The only remaining question: will it be an oligarchy of advanced devices or just nasty, self-serving, delusional billionaires equipped with advanced iPhones? Becker has become our greatest prophet of doom.”―Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker and author of The Ashtray
"Our world has fallen into the clutches of billionaires who mistake dystopian science fiction stories for suggestions, rather than warnings. Speaking in my capacity as a dystopian science fiction writer, I can confirm that this isn't merely very stupid, it's also very, very bad."―Cory Doctorow, author of Red Team Blues and Little Brother
"More Everything Forever is a gripping book about the unlikely yet very real nexus of tech tycoons, eccentric philosophers, and grandiose futurists. Becker combines masterful storytelling and lucid exposition to lay out what’s at stake for the future of technology and, more importantly, humanity."―Arvind Narayanan, computer scientist and co-author of AI Snake Oil
About the Author
Adam Becker is a science journalist with a PhD in astrophysics. He has written for the New York Times, the BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, and other publications. His first book, What Is Real?, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and was long-listed for the PEN Literary Science Writing Award. He has been a science journalism fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and a science communicator in residence at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. He lives in California.
