Review
“This book will make you uncomfortable and it will make you think. Enriquez challenges all of us to consider how our actions, decisions, and policies will be judged by future generations. And that judgment is not likely to be pretty unless we work through hard problems and make some big changes in a hurry.”
—John Palfrey, President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Don't get caught on the wrong side of changing ethics and exponential technologies. Juan Enriquez potently leverages the past to predict the future or, better yet, to change it. From COVID-19 to CO2 this book is timely, yet timeless. Could this beautiful little book depolarize our politics? Could it turn rationalization into rational rationales? Convert static, dismissive myopia into comprehensive exohexahedralism? Let's do more than hope so; let's make it so.”
—George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
“With wit, insight, and masterful storytelling, Juan Enriquez challenges our certainty about what's right and wrong in an age of rapid biological innovation and technologies that give us the power to literally transform our species. This book shows us how inextricably linked our ethics are to our technologies and reminds us with empathy and humility that even ethics evolve.”
—Jane Metcalfe, Cofounder of Wired and Founder of NEO.LIFE
“Juan Enriquez bravely asks ethical questions in the light of new technologies, thoughtfully examining topics that range from mass incarceration to artificial intelligence. Whether you agree with him or not, you will want to read what he has to say.”
—Danny Hillis, pioneer of parallel computing and artificial intelligence; Founder, Thinking Machines Corporation, and Cofounder, Applied Minds, and Applied Invention
“Here's a revolutionary idea: technology is changing daily, and therefore so are our ethics. But isn't ethics a bit academic, even boring? Not if an exploration of its mashup with technology makes you question whether you understand the difference between right and wrong. Along the way on this extraordinary journey of discovery about everything from the former oceans on Venus to our present day culture wars, Enriquez will introduce you to at least a thousand new facts—and ideas—that will leave your head spinning. This is a joyride for the mind, and like a good roller coaster, it's delightfully scary.”
—Stephen Petranek, former editor of Discover, the Washington Post Magazine, This Old House Magazine, and Time
“One of our nation's deepest thinkers about the long-term implications of technology on our society here provides a riveting case-book and compelling argument about how and why the passage of time changes all ethical considerations. How does it happen?Inexorable technological advances create new opportunities to make different, and better, ethical decisions, Enriquez argues. But this comes with a price: we face the overwhelming temptation to castigate our forebears for their unethical acts. This should humble us because this means our descendants will also be judging us, when their technology improves. Vivid, stimulating, and provocative.”
—Nicholas A. Christakis, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Review
"This book will make you uncomfortable and it will make you think. Enriquez challenges all of us to consider how our actions, decisions, and policies will be judged by future generations. And that judgment is not likely to be pretty unless we work through hard problems and make some big changes in a hurry. "
—John Palfrey, President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
"Don't get caught on the wrong side of changing ethics and exponential technologies. Juan Enriquez potently leverages the past to predict the future or, better yet, to change it. From COVID-19 to CO2 this book is timely, yet timeless. Could this beautiful little book depolarize our politics? Could it turn rationalization into rational rationales? Convert static, dismissive myopia into comprehensive exohexahedralism? Let's do more than hope so; let's make it so. "
—George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
"With wit, insight, and masterful storytelling, Juan Enriquez challenges our certainty about what's right and wrong in an age of rapid biological innovation and technologies that give us the power to literally transform our species. This book shows us how inextricably linked our ethics are to our technologies and reminds us with empathy and humility that even ethics evolve. "
—Jane Metcalfe, Cofounder of Wired and Founder of NEO.LIFE
"Juan Enriquez bravely asks ethical questions in the light of new technologies, thoughtfully examining topics that range from mass incarceration to artificial intelligence. Whether you agree with him or not, you will want to read what he has to say."
—Danny Hillis, pioneer of parallel computing and artificial intelligence; Founder, Thinking Machines Corporation, and Cofounder, Applied Minds, and Applied Invention
"Here's a revolutionary idea: technology is changing daily, and therefore so are our ethics. But isn't ethics a bit academic, even boring? Not if an exploration of its mashup with technology makes you question whether you understand the difference between right and wrong. Along the way on this extraordinary journey of discovery about everything from the former oceans on Venus to our present day culture wars, Enriquez will introduce you to at least a thousand new facts—and ideas—that will leave your head spinning. This is a joyride for the mind, and like a good roller coaster, it's delightfully scary. "
—Stephen Petranek, former editor of Discover, the Washington Post Magazine, This Old House Magazine, and Time
"One of our nation's deepest thinkers about the long-term implications of technology on our society here provides a riveting case-book and compelling argument about how and why the passage of time changes all ethical considerations. How does it happen? Inexorable technological advances create new opportunities to make different, and better, ethical decisions, Enriquez argues. But this comes with a price: we face the overwhelming temptation to castigate our forebears for their unethical acts. This should humble us because this means our descendants will also be judging us, when their technology improves. Vivid, stimulating, and provocative. "
—Nicholas A. Christakis, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Whether you are conservative or liberal, there is so much sound and fury surrounding constant change. Perhaps that is one reason you’ve felt a touch uneasy lately? You are surrounded by so many people telling you, with absolute certainty, that you are doing x, y, or z wrong. And, at the same time, you too may feel: That is not how I was brought up, what I was taught. Why are so many doing really evil stuff?
It sometimes feels as though demons are loose everywhere, like never before. One ends up asking: Why is it so hard, for so many, to just understand and do what is RIGHT? In this Age of FEAR but also of GREAT Certainty, people take sides and barricade themselves behind positions they feel comfortable with. They declare they are tried-and-true (insert your favorite label): gay-rights activists, red-blooded conservatives, #MeToo, God-fearing X, Y, Zs, anti-vaxxers, #MAGA and so on. Many of us tend to judge an acquaintance as soon as we find out if they are R or D, for or against (insert favorite cause here).
Maybe even you feel that, unlike the rest of the surrounding, unwashed mob, you know Right from Wrong. And you loudly proclaim your absolute certainty, at school, in a stadium, on Twitter, Facebook, in bars, coffeehouses, and ballot boxes.
The far right and the far left have no monopoly on concern over the future. A lot of us are scared. For better, and worse, the speed of invention and adoption of new technologies is such that we have little time to consider, less time to adapt. Pick a random young adult book or movie: most are post-apocalyptic. The delicious terrors and perils of Harry Potter morphed into far darker takes: The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Matrix, Divergent, and Game of Thrones. How about videogames? Pong, Tetris, and Super Mario morphed into massive online multiplayer games where armies of millions do battle and die.
How did we get here? Why aren’t the old customs, norms, beliefs enough anymore? One thesis is: people are just so much more radical, evil, racist, deluded, and angry these days. I do not believe this. I think most people are kind, caring, and, sometimes desperately, want to do the right thing; they may hold opinions different from you or me, but outside a small coterie, on the extreme left and right, we are more connected, more aware of what should be done, of how we should treat others, than ever before. As we communicate more, we care ever more about what happens in Africa, in a ghetto, in a suburb, to those “like us,” and sometimes to those very different from us.
In a sense, as occurs with those constantly exposed to vast amounts of evil and blood—think doctors and soldiers—we end up thinking the whole world acts like this. We are so exposed and sensitized that we forget how much got so much better, and we forget, as things get better, ethics change across time. Most of us now hold ourselves, and others, to higher standards, and somehow we expect our ancestors to have lived up to our newly enlightened benchmarks.
We had better be careful because there is a powerful, longterm trend upending ethical debates: the rules change. What we consider to be Right, ethical, and normal is changing at an unprecedented speed. Many of the pillars of certainty, of faith, of what we have held to be self-evident and eternal truths have shifted—and they continue to shift rapidly. In most cases, this is a good thing.
