Smashbomb

Bill Gates recommended Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in Books (curated)

"This look at the entire history of the human race sparked lots of great conversations at our family’s dinner table. Harari also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future."

Source

Kudos

Merissa (12795 KP) created a post

Apr 22, 2020

TOUR, EXCERPT & #GIVEAWAY - Counting on Trust (Audio Book) by Mary Ferguson Powers - @GoddessFish, @Archaeolibrary, #Mystery, #Suspense

In this suspense-charged, touching novel, Counting on Trust, information is stolen from a U.S. genetic engineering company (Omniprotein) by an employee promised payment by a Chinese general who wants to profit from selling the company’s technologies in the military region of China he commands.

https://archaeolibrarian.wixsite.com/website/post/counting-on-trust-audio-book-by-mary-ferguson-powers

Kudos (1) Comment

Otway93 (580 KP) rated Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) in Movies

Oct 21, 2019

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

2018 | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

6

7.1

(185 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Cast (0 more)

Storyline (1 more)

CGI

Enjoyable, but unoriginal.

Contains spoilers, click to show

The film is described as an adventure to save the island from a volcano, but it soon turns into exactly the same as the first Jurassic World film: genetic engineering, made-up dinosaur out of control etc.

The cast is good, Chris Pratt is excellent as ever, but unfortunately he is the only redeeming feature.

The story, as mentioned, is dull and a repeat of the first Jurassic World, but another disappointment is the use of CGI. Somehow, 25 years after the original Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs have become less realistic, moving down from high quality animatronics to average quality CGI, taking away all the charm.

Kudos

Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow in Books

Jan 10, 2018

An interesting theory undermined by flimsy argument and unconvincing evidence

@Yuval Noah Harari once again returns with another thought-provoking anthropological book, similar to @Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, however, this time he turns his focus toward humanity's future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

The implications for the developments in artificial intelligence and genetic engineering - and the combining of the two are mind-blowing and we ignore them at our peril. The same applies to the amount "the system" knows about us from how we use the internet. It is alarming how willingly we have walked down that path.

While Sapiens had a few historical tenets and facts that Harari was able to access with a clear argument, given his historian background, there was a tendency in this volume to set up unrealistic false dichotomies, and 'creatively' misinterpret belief systems in order to bolster his increasingly thin argument.

The thrust of what Harari is saying may well be true, but what I would have liked to see him do is to discuss the implications a bit more thoughtfully and, in effect, set an agenda for discussion.

Kudos

Hazel (1853 KP) rated The Switch in Books

Aug 16, 2017

The Switch

Jasmina Robson | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

1

1.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

What's going on?

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

“Harmony welcomes it model citizens.” The Switch by Justina Robson takes place on a … planet? … space station? … named Harmony. Only perfect people are allowed to be part of society, which is bad news for orphans Nico and Twostar. No defects are allowed, including homosexuality, which puts the main characters in a dangerous situation. So, when they are offered a chance to escape, they leap at the chance without stopping to think about the consequences.

In order to be truly free, Nico has to have some form of artificial intelligence inserted into him. What he does not realise is that this will make him more trapped than he was before. Someone wishes to control him in order to find out information. Only when that task is fulfilled will he and his friend Two be free. Until then, Nico has to survive being sentenced to death for a murder he has no recollection of committing.

The Switch is a very complicated and confusing story. To be completely honest, I have no idea what happened in it. I got the vague gist of the story, which I have just summarised, but the rest of it went straight over my head. It all seems to be about artificial intelligence versus some weird religion … I think. Genetic engineering appears to be some kind of theme, too, although I may be wrong. One thing that definitely features in the story is violence; too much violence.

Hand in hand with the violence is filthy language. There is far too much swearing that it becomes meaningless and comes across as a lack of vocabulary on the author’s part.

It is hard to review a book that you do not understand. Either it is written really badly or my brain is not wired in the right way to understand all the sci-fi language and ideas.

Kudos

Rachel King (13 KP) rated Wither (The Chemical Garden, #1) in Books

Feb 11, 2019

The world that Lauren DeStefano builds in this book combines several dystopian concepts - genetic engineering and reproduction, a virus of epic proportions, anarchy and survival of the fittest. 70 years ago mankind finds a way to make "perfect" babies, and then their babies suffer the consequences - death at 25 for men and 20 for women - with no cure on the horizon. Prostitution, polygamy, human experimentation, wide-scale murder, the prevalence of orphanages, and a country divided on whether mankind is worth saving are all issues in the plot. Plus, all of this takes place after a world war has destroyed all but North America - or so the history goes.
The main character, Rhine Ellery, is forced into a polygamous marriage at the age of 16 to the rich Linden, age 21, along with the flighty 14-year-old Cecily and ex-prostitute, 18-year-old Jenna. Rhine's main goal is escape, but each girl in the marriage has her own motivations and goals. I found their relationships with one another far more interesting than each one's relationship with Linden. Poor Linden lives under the illusions that his aging father feeds him while suffering from the loss of his first love, Rose. While Rhine makes part of her goal to avoid consummating the marriage with Linden, her sister wives have other ideas, but ironically, jealousy among the wives is not the green-eyed monster that I think many would expect. While Cecily is typically self-absorbed and high maintenance, she still wants her sister-wives to bear children, and even Jenna, who hates Linden from the first day, sees no hypocrisy in sharing a bed with him. I also admired Rhine for her extreme patience and endurance with Cecily's immature and naive behavior, though I don't think I would have chosen denial over full disclosure to both Cecily and Linden.
Rhine's secret relationship seems to find it's power in free-formed friendship, without any expectations or requirements. Simply put, Rhine wants her freedom, and she will find it in any form she can grasp. Except for Rhine's memories, almost the entire book takes place on the grounds of Linden's mansion, so I am anxious to see what will happen in the next book in the series, Fever.

Kudos

BookblogbyCari (345 KP) rated Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in Books

Aug 5, 2018

This book was chosen to be the first book read and discussed in an online non-fiction book club I recently joined – and I’m glad we did choose this one!

The book is an overview of homo-sapiens as a species, and how we have changed over the ages, and what we have done, before finally touching on where we are going. As such the book is a cross-pollination of history, sociology, and economics.

As you may expect from a book with such a broad scope, there are some sweeping statements, and rather than being a neutral dispassionate account, Harari makes his opinions very evident. However rather than being irritating, I feel this makes for a more entertaining read.

The book begins by introducing the theme of homo-sapiens in the context of the presence of the other human species that used to exist. He then goes on to describe the cognitive and agricultural revolutions. Then it’s the establishment of patriarchal social hierarchies across the world, largely based on historical conventions. Next Harari states that the purpose of religion is to unify fragile societies with superhuman legitimacy.

Harari then moves on to the scientific revolution, describing how an admission of ignorance by Europeans, along with a desire to discover and conquer new lands was key to the movement.

The conversation moves swiftly then to economics, using the fact that a bank can loan £10 for every £1 it has, to argue that our economics is based on trust in the future. Harari states that a country’s credit rating is more important than its actual resources. Harari describes capitalism and consumerism as being 2 sides of the same coin with two commandments: rich must invest, rest of us must buy. Consumerism, he says, aims to convince people that indulgence is good and frugality is self-oppression.

Harari also argues that, now, instead of relying on local communities the individual relies on the market or the state. Parental authority no longer sacred, he says, and state intervenes. And so when Harari asks if we are any happier now than when we were hunter-gatherers, he argues that our rise of wealth is offset by the disintegration of community life.

Harari also speaks of ecological degradation and our tendency to treat other species as a means to an end, for example, the farming of cow's and chickens has cut years off the lives of both, since they are killed as soon as they reach their maximum weight.

In the final chapter, Harari speculates on the future of mankind. With improvements in medical knowledge comes new ethical conundrums, he says. How will we handle the options of genetic engineering? What will the advent of artificial intelligence mean for humanity?

In my book club, we found that the book generated a lot of talking points. What would the world be like now, had the other species of humans survived? Why have so many cultures across history and the world had patriarchal hierarchies? Can societies improve over time, or is one style better than another? Can communism be considered a religion? Are human rights really just a figment of our collective imagination?

Whilst not everyone in my book club enjoyed the book equally, I would say that it’s as enlightening as it is thought provoking. By the end, it was hard to argue with the author's conclusion that homo-sapiens are like dissatisfied and irresponsible gods.

Kudos

Andy K (10823 KP) rated What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Deep Space Nine (2018) in Movies

Jul 23, 2019

Where would we be without DS9?

Maybe the best Trek of all time?

Sisko, Odo, Kira, O'Brien, Dax, Quark, Bashir and the rest of the massive cast brought Star Trek to life as never before in this vastly different "station"ary style of Trek.

At the time, syndication was where it was at for reruns and additional revenue for a TV program. DS9 bucked the trend of wrapping up everything within one episode and began a TV serial which pretty much ran almost the entire run, much to the dismay of studio executives. Nowadays, shows like The Walking Dead, Lost, or Game of Thrones do this every week, but in the mid 90s this was not common.

Sandwiched in between The Next Generation and Voyager, DS9 did not get a lot of respect during its initial run at all. Also at that time, Trek TNG movies were in full swing so the show had to compete with that as well. Television stations would often preempt the show, skip a week or run the show in the early morning hours which made it even harder for its audience to keep track of the action.

DS9 certainly got a 2nd life with the current popularity of "binge watching" on your favorite streaming service. Having the ability to watch multi-part episodes or entire seasons within a few weeks brought back to life the en genius writing, acting and production quality of the series.

For this documentary, former showrunner Ira Steven Behr took several years worth of cast, crew and fan interviews, clips, behind the scenes footage and compiled a wonderful interesting film for any Trek fan. Many cast members major and minor as well as producers, writers and tech workers told tales of working on the show and how they very much enjoyed their time.

Throughout the many iterations of Trek, original creator Gene Roddenberry felt the show should entertain as well as provide social commentary on the issues of the time and DS9 was no exception. Throughout the show's 7 year run they dealt with issues such as racism, homelessness, same sex relationships and even genetic engineering.

One of the most fun subplots of the film was gathering the show's original writers in a room to formulate the first episode for the fictitious "Season 8" which will never actually happen (although I wish it would). The ideas, plot points and arcs they went through and came up with were extremely interesting, keep with the high level of writing the show originally produced, but also through us a few curveballs with some fun surprises.

Through the cast interviews we got to hear how the crew got along, some of their favorite and least favorite episodes and even the friendships they have maintained with one another.

The DVD set I received also had included a vast assortment of additional footage featuring even more nuggets and stories of what made the show great.

Overall, this film was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen about one of my favorite television programs in my lifetime. I might have to start binge watching the show again very soon.

Did I mention my name appears in the end credits?!? 😊