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To Be a Machine
- Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
- Narrated by: James Garnon
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
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Publisher's summary
Meet the visionaries, billionaires, professors, and programmers who are using groundbreaking technology to push the limits of the human body - our senses, our intelligence, and our lifespans
Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a biotech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging.
In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement. He travels to the laboratories, conferences, and basements of today's foremost transhumanists, where he's presented with the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries of new technologies like mind uploading, artificial superintelligence, cryonics, and device implants.
A contributor to Slate, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine, O'Connell serves as a sharp and lively guide to the outer limits of technology in the 21st century. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising, singular meditation on what it means to be human.
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The Antidote
- Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
- By: Oliver Burkeman
- Narrated by: Oliver Burkeman
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
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The Antidote is a series of journeys among people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. What they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that it’s our constant effort to eliminate the negative that causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. And that there is an alternative "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid.
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The Antidote explores the negative path.
- By Bonny on 05-15-14
By: Oliver Burkeman
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Infinity Born
- By: Douglas E. Richards
- Narrated by: Corey Gagne
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.
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Excellent ScoFi Mystery Thriller...
- By shelley on 08-14-17
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Borrowing Brilliance
- The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others
- By: David Kord Murray
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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As a former aerospace scientist, Fortune 500 executive, chief innovation officer of two major companies, inventor and software entrepreneur, David Murray has made a living by coming up with new and innovative ideas. In Borrowing Brilliance he explains the origins and evolution of a business idea by showing you how new ideas are merely the combination of existing ideas.
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Really good but...
- By MasterMind Mentor International on 07-20-20
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The Life We're Looking For
- Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
- By: Andy Crouch
- Narrated by: Andy Crouch
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Our greatest need is to be recognized—to be seen, loved, and embedded in rich relationships with those around us. But for the last century, we’ve displaced that need with the ease of technology. We’ve dreamed of mastery without relationship (what the premodern world called magic) and abundance without dependence (what Jesus called Mammon). Yet even before a pandemic disrupted that quest, we felt threatened and strangely out of place: lonely, anxious, bored amid endless options, oddly disconnected amid infinite connections.
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Way too much scripture
- By Lee Nettles on 05-11-22
By: Andy Crouch
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What the Bleep Do We Know
- Discovering the Endless Possibilities for Altering Your Everyday Reality
- By: William Arntz, Betsy Chase, Mark Vicente
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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With the help of 14 leading physicists, scientists, and spiritual thinkers, this book guides listeners on a course from the scientific to the spiritual, and from the universal to the personal. Along the way, it asks such questions as: Are we seeing the world as it really is What is the relationship between our thoughts and our world? How can I create my day every day? What the Bleep answers this question and others through an innovative new approach to self-help and spirituality.
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Attacking straw men
- By Henrik on 08-06-11
By: William Arntz, and others
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Worker in the Light
- Unlock Your Five Senses and Liberate Your Limitless Potential
- By: George Noory, William J. Birnes
- Narrated by: George Noory
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Abridged
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George R. Noory is the host of America's top late-night talk show, Coast to Coast AM, broadcast to nearly 500 radio stations in the United States and Canada. Noory truly believes that there are forces, both good and evil, at work on Earth and beyond. Fueled by a transcending experience at a very young age, he's turned his life into an investigation of the possibilities and influences of such forces, and how we can use them to enhance our lives.
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Almost as good as Coast to Coast AM.
- By Sharri Lorraine on 12-06-12
By: George Noory, and others
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The Brain Electric
- The Dramatic High-Tech Race to Merge Minds and Machines
- By: Malcolm Gay
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Leading neuroscience researchers are racing to unlock the secrets of the mind. On the cusp of decoding brain signals that govern motor skills, they are developing miraculous technologies to enable paraplegics and wounded soldiers to move prosthetic limbs, and the rest of us to manipulate computers and other objects through thought alone. These fiercely competitive scientists are vying for Defense Department and venture capital funding, prestige, and great wealth.
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Refreshingly not pop-neuro or pseudoscience
- By Jordon on 06-28-16
By: Malcolm Gay
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The Mind Club
- Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters
- By: Daniel M. Wegner, Kurt Gray
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.
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Who is the self in me? Am I part of something bigger?
- By Philomath on 03-24-16
By: Daniel M. Wegner, and others
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The Geography of Genius
- A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley
- By: Eric Weiner
- Narrated by: Eric Weiner
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity.
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Very, very disappointing
- By Tamara Greer on 06-08-16
By: Eric Weiner
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Brief Candle in the Dark
- My Life in Science
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this hugely entertaining sequel to the New York Times best-selling memoir An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins delves deeply into his intellectual life spent kick-starting new conversations about science, culture, and religion and writing yet another of the most audacious and widely read books of the 20th century - The God Delusion.
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I'm a Dawkins Groupie but...
- By Anne on 10-18-15
By: Richard Dawkins
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The Worm at the Core
- On the Role of Death in Life
- By: Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
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More than 100 years ago, the American philosopher William James wrote that the knowledge that we must die is "the worm at the core" of the human condition - a universally shared fear that informs all our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage.
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Skeptical at first, but they won me over.
- By Tory Giddens on 06-07-20
By: Jeff Greenberg, and others
What listeners say about To Be a Machine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- A G
- 08-09-17
Wonderful book. Very engaging and well written.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. The author asked a lot of insightful questions, chronicled many actors in the transhumanist movement, and pointed out intelligent metaphors to human desires in the past. Also, his writing style is both humorous and informative. Wonderful book. I will keep an eye for any other books from this author.
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1 person found this helpful
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- ryan
- 09-22-18
A must read!
An excellent overview of Transhumanism. Tech geeks aspirations at becoming the priests of techno centric religion that hopes to avoid death by the induction of technology into the human mind and body. A modern day recreation of the Tower of Babel. Well written, informative, humorous, entertaining and well read.
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- Hegerty
- 04-08-17
Wonderful insight into our future
Whether you are aware of Transhuman work or not, the future is coming and it is not scifi!
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- Dark Dee
- 04-12-23
Well written!
Great topic, great narration and incredibly well written. Would love to read more by this writer.
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- aaron
- 03-04-17
An Excellent All-Encompassing Look at Futurists
While futurists like Kurzweil and Elon can write their own books (Kurzweil), and have books written about them (both), this one of the best books I've read about Futurists (Transhumanists, et al) in general. It is wide-reaching, well researched, and at times quite funny! O'Connell spared no expense in talking to as many experts in the field as he could possibly find, and the listener is greatly rewarded for his efforts.
His writing style reminds me a lot of Jon Ronson's, but maybe a tad more scientific and a tad less witty.
If you're looking for a good primer on where the mindset of Transhumanists, Futurists, and Scientific Optimists are at these days, this is the book for you. It gives a litany of perspectives on where we're headed as a society, in terms of technological advancement, and very few of these lack believability. To that point, depending on which side of the argument you fall on, the stuff on A.I.s eventually driving us to extinction was particularly disconcerting, and worth the read all by itself.
The narrator was great.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-02-20
Keeps you interested while informing you about topic
Have been listening this book on holiday, where ypu need and a lighthearted tone and story, while getting information that can be used in my case for consultancywork on digital transformation.
Each part had enough new elements to keep me interested. And the personal elements of the writers made it funny and easy to consume.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Maria
- 04-17-18
Fascinating horrifying and funny
O'Connell has written a wonderful book, well researched and thorough, encompassing all kinds of possible implications for our future. He is also delightfully witty and self aware. The narration is excellent, though occasionally veers unnecessarily into a slightly snide tone. He also reads all women's voices as if they were on the air headed side.
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- Spyro Bogdanos
- 08-22-20
Will make dumb people feel smart for being dumb.
At least for Americans, we probably assume we're hearing someone intelligent and well informed speak because of the narrators performance. But that is misleading. This book is just the lazy, personal rumination of someone who has no special interest or education on the topics he writes about. The whole book felt awkward and uncomfortable, and devoid of meaning or value. I get the feeling that ignorant people might align themselves with the authors skepticism without having actually learned anything, simply because the narrator sounds intellectual and brooding. That's not good, in my opinion.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nat Smith
- 05-08-18
Mercifully, this book had an ending
Almost no new information presented regarding the subject matter. 95% fluff. Suppose I was writing a book on a new medical procedure. Now suppose that 95% of everything in my book was nothing more than the description of my cab ride to visit the doctor who invented the procedure. That’s what you have with this book. For now, we are all going to die. Don’t waste your precious time reading this book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jack Frasier
- 02-20-19
no research, snarky and dismissive
author speaks very eloquently about how he had the opportunity to speak to leading researchers on anti aging, and simply dismissed them without getting onto the details of their research. no attempt to understand scientifically the experts, simply arrogant and smug. narrator good, not at fault. terrible AB for those interested in the science of transhumanism and life extension. worst part is 2nd half he tours with a wacko riding a bus to political platform 4 prez on transhumanist ticket. objectivist/transhumanists will not happy about that. makes fun of Aubrey de greys beard and way he talks. no attempt to understand his research. cruel and dismissive of a brilliant man. read "Ending Aging" by Aubrey DeGrey instead
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3 people found this helpful