First published in 1980, Pornography, Psychedelics And Technology: Essays on the Limits to Freedom focuses on the crucial connections between technological growth and the more salient features of social malaise in the latter part of the twentieth century. Professor Mishan is one of the few economists absorbed by the larger social questions, and does not believe that the growth in state intervention and the decline of social liberty are simply the result of intellectual confusion and bureaucratic momentum. He sees them as unavoidable consequences of scientific and technical progress. While agreeing with many of his fellow economists in acknowledging the virtues of a competitive market economy, Professor Mishan is acutely aware of its limitations. Following the growth of self-styled liberation movements, seen as manifestations of a move towards a world of greater individual emancipation and fulfilment, the author nevertheless groups such movements together with the rising indices of violence, suicide, family breakdown and hooliganism, which have become indicative of a growing disorientation and social disintegration. These developments and the hazards they entail, however, are bound up with the rapid scientific and technological progress of the post-war world.

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the connection between processes of neoliberalization and the advancement and transformation of technoscience. Drawing on a range of theoretical insights, it explores a variety of issues including the digital revolution and the rise of immaterial culture, the rationale of psychiatric reforms and biotechnology regulation, discourses of social threats and human enhancement, and carbon markets and green energy policies. A rich exploration of the overall logic of technoscientific innovation within late capitalism, and the emergence of a novel view of human agency with regard to the social and natural world, this volume reveals the interdependence of technoscience and the neoliberalization of society. Presenting the latest research from a leading team of scholars, Neoliberalism and Technoscience will be of interest to scholars of sociology, politics, geography and science and technology studies.

Biometric technologies, such as finger- or facial-scan, are being deployed across a variety of social contexts in order to facilitate and guarantee identity verification and authentication. In the post-9/11 world, biometric technologies have experienced an extraordinary period of growth as concerns about security and screening have increased. This book analyses biometric systems in terms of the application of biopolitical power - corporate, military and governmental - on the human body. It deploys cultural theory in examining the manner in which biometric technologies constitute the body as a target of surveillance and as a data-information object. The book thereby provides a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of both the local and global ramifications of biometric technologies.

This book presents a celebration, survey and critique of the theological work of arguably the most important and most widely-read contributor to the modern dialogue between science and theology: John Polkinghorne. Including a major survey by Polkinghorne himself of his life's work in theology, this book draws together contributors from among the most important voices in the science-theology dialogue today to focus on key aspects of Polkinghorne's work, with Polkinghorne providing responses. Anybody exploring contemporary aspects of the science-religion debate will find this book invaluable.

All people desire to know. We want to not only know what has happened, but also why it happened, how it happened, whether it will happen again, whether it can be made to happen or not happen, and so on. In short, what we want are explanations. Asking and answering explanatory questions lies at the very heart of scientific practice. The primary aim of this book is to help readers understand how science explains the world. This book explores the nature and contours of scientific explanation, how such explanations are evaluated, as well as how they lead to knowledge and understanding. As well as providing an introduction to scientific explanation, it also tackles misconceptions and misunderstandings, while remaining accessible to a general audience with little or no prior philosophical training.

Ashkenazi Jews have the highest known population risk of carrying specific mutations in the high-risk breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. So what does it mean to be told you have an increased risk of genetic breast cancer because you are of Ashkenazi Jewish origin? In a time of ever-increasing knowledge about variations in genetic disease risk among different populations, there is a pressing need for research regarding the implications of such information for members of high-risk populations. Risky Genes provides first-hand intimate descriptions of women's experiences of being Jewish and of being at increased risk of genetic breast cancer. It explores the impact this knowledge has on their identity and understanding of belonging to a collective. Using qualitative data from high-risk Ashkenazi women in the UK, this book elucidates the importance of biological discourses in forging Jewish self-identity and reveals the complex ways in which biological and social understandings of Jewish belonging intersect. In Risky Genes, Jessica Mozersky reflects upon and offers new insight into the ongoing debates regarding the implications of genetic research for populations, and of new genetic knowledge for individual and collective identity. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, Jewish studies, medical genetics, medical ethics, religious studies, and race and ethnic studies.

What did you do before Google?

The rise of Google as the dominant Internet search provider reflects a generationally-inflected notion that "everything" that matters is now on the Web, and "should," in the moral sense of the verb, be accessible through search. In this theoretically nuanced study of search technology s broader implications for knowledge production and social relations, the authors shed light on a culture of search in which our increasing reliance on search engines influences not only the way we navigate, classify, and evaluate Web content, but also how we think about ourselves and the world around us, online and off.

Ken Hillis, Michael Petit, and Kylie Jarrett seek to understand the ascendancy of search and its naturalization by historicizing and contextualizing Google s dominance of the search industry, and suggest that the contemporary culture of search is inextricably bound up with a metaphysical longing to manage, order, and categorize all knowledge. Calling upon this nexus between political economy and metaphysics, "Google and the Culture of Search "explores what is at stake for an increasingly networked culture in which search technology is a site of knowledge and power.

In 1768, Ahmad al-Damanhuri became the rector (shaykh) of al-Azhar, which was one of the most authoritative and respected positions in the Ottoman Empire. He occupied this position until his death. Despite being a prolific author, whose writings are largely extant, al-Damanhuri remains almost unknown, and much of his work awaits study and analysis. This book aims to shed light on al-Damanhuri's diverse intellectual background, and that of and his contemporaries, building on and continuing the scholarship on the academic thought of the late Ottoman Empire. The book specifically investigates the intersection of medical and religious knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Egypt. It takes as its focus a manuscript on anatomy by al-Damanhuri (d. 1778), entitled "The Clear Statement on the Science of Anatomy (al-qawl al-sarih fi 'ilm al-tashrih),". The book includes an edited translation of The Clear Statement, which is a well-known but unstudied and unpublished manuscript. It also provides a summary translation and analysis of al-Damanhuri's own intellectual autobiography. As such, the book provides an important window into a period that remains deeply understudied and a topic that continues to cause debates and controversies. This study, therefore, will be of keen interest to scholars working on the "post-Classical" Islamic world, as well as historians of religion, science, and medicine looking beyond Europe in the Early Modern period.

Living in a contemporary developed society means having access to a myriad of ways to communicate. One can either use public or private transport to meet others and talk face to face, or use a variety of communication networks, like mobile or fixed telephones or the internet, to travel virtually. Personal Mobilities provides a systematic study of personal movement focusing on the dimensions of space, individuals, societies and technologies. Kellerman examines a variety of personal mobilities, including air transportation, through several perspectives, examining the human need for movement, their anchoring within wider societal trends, commonalities and differences among mobility technologies and international differences. Although spatial mobility seems geographical by its very nature, the topic has been so far treated only partially, and mainly by sociologists. Personal Mobilities highlights geographical as well as sociological aspects and is the first book to focus solely on personal mobilities.

Mobile Communication covers a wide range of topics. These include the replacement of co-present interaction with mediated contact and analysis of mobile-based cohesion and gender. The authors also explore the role of media choice and its effect on the quality as well as quantity of social cohesion. Other topics include mobile communication and communities of interest; and mobile communication, cohesion, and youth.

This volume brings together scholars from around the world to consider how mobile communication both builds and destroys our sense of social cohesion. There is no question that uses of technology can lead to increased cohesion within personal communities. For example, this volume includes research on caravan couples in Australia, factory workers in China, young couples in Germany, citizens in Slovenia, and sports clubs in Ireland. It also includes research on drunken calls between university students in the US, calls of international students in Switzerland and communications between immigrant women in Melbourne, Australia.

However, the contributors also argue that as social networks become inundated with mobile communication users, these users may become increasingly isolated and social division can ensue.

Nationwide, and indeed worldwide, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of access to information. Accordingly, information technology (IT), broadly defined and its role beyond the internal workings of businesses has leapt into the social consciousness.

Diving into the Bitstream distinguishes itself by weaving together the concepts and conditions of IT. What distinguishes these trends is their focus on the impacts of IT on societies, and the responsibilities of IT s creators and users. The author pulls together important, often complex issues in the relationships among information, information technologies, and societal constructs.

The text explores a synopsis of these issues that are foundations for further consideration.

What did you do before Google?

The rise of Google as the dominant Internet search provider reflects a generationally-inflected notion that "everything" that matters is now on the Web, and "should," in the moral sense of the verb, be accessible through search. In this theoretically nuanced study of search technology s broader implications for knowledge production and social relations, the authors shed light on a culture of search in which our increasing reliance on search engines influences not only the way we navigate, classify, and evaluate Web content, but also how we think about ourselves and the world around us, online and off.

Ken Hillis, Michael Petit, and Kylie Jarrett seek to understand the ascendancy of search and its naturalization by historicizing and contextualizing Google s dominance of the search industry, and suggest that the contemporary culture of search is inextricably bound up with a metaphysical longing to manage, order, and categorize all knowledge. Calling upon this nexus between political economy and metaphysics, "Google and the Culture of Search "explores what is at stake for an increasingly networked culture in which search technology is a site of knowledge and power.

As technology comes to characterize our world in ever more comprehensive ways there are increasing questions about how the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of technological use can be adequately categorized. To date, the scope of such questions have been limited - focused upon specific technologies such as the internet, or bio-technology with little sense of any social or historical continuities in the way technology in general has been regulated. In this book, for the first time, the 'question of technology' and its relation to criminal justice is approached as a whole. Technology, Crime and Justice analyzes a range of technologies, (including information, communications, nuclear, biological, transport and weapons technologies, amongst many others) in order to pose three interrelated questions about their affects upon criminal justice and criminal opportunity: to what extent can they really be said to provide new criminal opportunity or to enhance existing ones? what are the key characteristics of the ways in which such technologies have been regulated? how does technology itself serve as a regulatory force - both in crime control and social control more widely? Technology, Crime and Justice considers the implications of contemporary technology for the practice of criminal justice and relates them to key historical precedents in the way technology has been interpreted and controlled. It outlines a new 'social' way of thinking about technology - in terms of its affects upon our bodies and what they can do, most obviously the ways in which social life and our ability to causally interact with the world is 'extended' in various ways. It poses the question - could anything like a 'Technomia' of technology be identified - a recognizable set of principles and sanctions which govern the way that it is produced and used, principles also consistent with our sense of justice? This book provides a key resource for students and scholars of both criminology and technology studies.

As technology comes to characterize our world in ever more comprehensive ways there are increasing questions about how the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of technological use can be adequately categorized. To date, the scope of such questions have been limited - focused upon specific technologies such as the internet, or bio-technology with little sense of any social or historical continuities in the way technology in general has been regulated. In this book, for the first time, the 'question of technology' and its relation to criminal justice is approached as a whole. Technology, Crime and Justice analyzes a range of technologies, (including information, communications, nuclear, biological, transport and weapons technologies, amongst many others) in order to pose three interrelated questions about their affects upon criminal justice and criminal opportunity: to what extent can they really be said to provide new criminal opportunity or to enhance existing ones? what are the key characteristics of the ways in which such technologies have been regulated? how does technology itself serve as a regulatory force - both in crime control and social control more widely? Technology, Crime and Justice considers the implications of contemporary technology for the practice of criminal justice and relates them to key historical precedents in the way technology has been interpreted and controlled. It outlines a new 'social' way of thinking about technology - in terms of its affects upon our bodies and what they can do, most obviously the ways in which social life and our ability to causally interact with the world is 'extended' in various ways. It poses the question - could anything like a 'Technomia' of technology be identified - a recognizable set of principles and sanctions which govern the way that it is produced and used, principles also consistent with our sense of justice? This book provides a key resource for students and scholars of both criminology and technology studies.

From facial recognition—capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn’t just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search. Expanding on the popular course they created at Columbia University, Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones illuminate the ways in which data has long been used as a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true, as well as a means of rearranging or defending power. By understanding the trajectory of data—where it has been and where it might yet go—Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose, with intentionality and purpose.

In this book, the authors illustrate how social networks can play a very significant role in the technological catch up process in moderate innovative countries. Using an innovative approach to the study of entrepreneurship in knowledge-intensive sectors, the book analyses the role of social networks in the access and deployment of the variety of competences and resources required for the successful creation of knowledge-intensive companies, which has not yet been studied sufficiently in this context.

In Unsettled Borders Felicity Amaya Schaeffer examines the ongoing settler colonial war over the US-Mexico border from the perspective of Apache, Tohono O'odham, and Maya who fight to protect their sacred land. Schaeffer traces the scientific and technological development of militarized border surveillance across time and space from Spanish colonial lookout points in Arizona and Mexico to the Indian wars, when the US cavalry hired Native scouts to track Apache fleeing into Mexico, to the occupation of the Tohono O'odham reservation and the recent launch of robotic bee swarms. Labeled "Optics Valley," Arizona builds on a global history of violent dispossession and containment of Native peoples and migrants by branding itself as a profitable hub for surveillance. Schaeffer reverses the logic of borders by turning to Indigenous sacredsciences: ancestral land-based practices that are critical to reversing the ecological and social violence of surveillance, extraction, and occupation.

The past few decades have seen the beginnings of a convergence between religions and ecological movements. The environmental crisis has called the religions of the world to respond by finding their voice within the larger Earth community. At the same time, a certain religiosity has started to emerge in some areas of secular ecological thinking. Beyond mere religious utilitarianism, rooted in an understanding of the deepest connections between human beings, their worldviews, and nature itself, this book tries to show how religious believers can look at the world through the eyes of faith and find a broader paradigm to sustain sustainability, proposing a model for transposing this paradigm into practice, so as to develop long-term sustainable solutions that can be tested against reality.

The speed and cost effectiveness of new information technology has prompted many to view these innovations as a panacea for social and economic development. However, such a view flies in the face of continuing inequities in education, health, food, and infrastructure. This volume explores these issues - along with questions of access, privilege, literacy, training, and the environmental and health effects of information technologies in the developing world - arguing that a higher level of development does not always result from a higher level of technologization.

The essays in this volume discuss both the culture of technology that we live in today, and culture as technology. Within the chapters of the book cultures of technology and cultural technologies are discussed, focussing on a variety of examples, from varied national contexts. The book brings together internationally recognised scholars from the social sciences and humanities, covering diverse themes such as intellectual property, media and architecture, satellite debris, server farms and search engines, art installations, surveillance, peer-to-peer file-sharing, the construction of techno-history and much more. It contains both historical and contemporary analyses of technological phenomena as well as epistemological discussions on the uses of technology.

Modern technology has changed the way we live, work, play, communicate, fight, love, and die. Yet few works have systematically explored these changes in light of their implications for individual and social welfare. How can we conceptualize and evaluate the influence of technology on human well-being? Bringing together scholars from a cross-section of disciplines, this volume combines an empirical investigation of technology and its social, psychological, and political effects, and a philosophical analysis and evaluation of the implications of such effects.

What is the 'posthuman'? Is becoming posthuman inevitable-something which will happen to us, or something we will do to ourselves? Why do some long for it, while others fearfully reject it? These questions underscore the fact that the posthuman is a name for the unknown future, and therefore, not a single idea but a jumble of competing visions - some of which may be exciting, some of which may be frightening, and which is which depends on who you are, and what you desire to be. This book aims to clarify current theological and philosophical dialogue on the posthuman by arguing that theologians must pay attention to which form of the posthuman they are engaging, and to demonstrate that a 'posthuman theology' is not only possible, but desirable, when the vision of the posthuman is one which coincides with a theological vision of the human.

'This is a welcome book. The issues of public understanding of science open many questions. What does "understanding" mean? How does understanding translate into attitudes towards science and trust in scientists? What is the role of the mass media? The essays in this book shed light on such questions bringing insights from several disciplines. They help to define a meaningful research agenda for the future. - Professor Dorothy Nelkin, New York University

A vivid look at China's shifting place in the global political economy of technology production How did China's mass manufacturing and "copycat" production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets? Prototype Nation offers a rich transnational analysis of how the promise of democratized innovation and entrepreneurial life has shaped China's governance and global image. With historical precision and ethnographic detail, Silvia Lindtner reveals how a growing distrust in Western models of progress and development, including Silicon Valley and the tech industry after the financial crisis of 2007-8, shaped the rise of the global maker movement and the vision of China as a "new frontier" of innovation. Lindtner's investigations draw on more than a decade of research in experimental work spaces-makerspaces, coworking spaces, innovation hubs, hackathons, and startup weekends-in China, the United States, Africa, Europe, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as in key sites of technology investment and industrial production-tech incubators, corporate offices, and factories. She examines how the ideals of the maker movement, to intervene in social and economic structures, served the technopolitical project of prototyping a "new" optimistic, assertive, and global China. In doing so, Lindtner demonstrates that entrepreneurial living influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation. Prototype Nation shows that by attending to the bodies and sites that nurture entrepreneurial life, technology can be extricated from the seemingly endless cycle of promise and violence. Cover image: Courtesy of Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space and Spru th Magers

A hack is any means of subverting a system's rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn't computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them "loopholes." We call exploits "tax avoidance strategies." And there is an entire industry of "black hat" hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys. In A Hacker's Mind, Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyse the systems that underpin our society: from tax laws to financial markets to politics. He reveals an array of powerful actors whose hacks bend our economic, political and legal systems to their advantage, at the expense of everyone else. Once you learn how to notice hacks, you'll start seeing them everywhere-and you'll never look at the world the same way again. Almost all systems have loopholes, and this is by design. Because if you can take advantage of them, the rules no longer apply to you. Unchecked, these hacks threaten to upend our financial markets, weaken our democracy and even affect the way we think. And when artificial intelligence starts thinking like a hacker-at inhuman speed and scale-the results could be catastrophic. But for those who would don the "white hat," we can understand the hacking mindset and rebuild our economic, political and legal systems to counter those who would exploit our society. And we can harness artificial intelligence to improve existing systems, predict and defend against hacks and realise a more equitable world.