|
Showing 1 - 11 of
11 matches in All Departments
Science and politics have collaborated throughout human history and
science is repeatedly invoked today in political debates, from
pandemic management to climate change. Leading policy analyst Geoff
Mulgan here calls attention to the growing frictions caused by the
expanding – and unsolicited – authority being heaped upon
science. As science increasingly competes with politics, a defined
plan of cooperation is urgently needed. Mulgan outlines science and
politics as two distinct, imperfect forms of collective
intelligence. Whereas science is ordered around what we know and
what is, politics engages what we feel and what matters. Politics
functions because it recognises the limits of power, the need for
delegation and expert advice. The intellectual logic of science, on
the other hand, focuses on detail and depth, struggling to place
its knowledge in wider contexts. The crux of the matter, Mulgan
argues, is how can we ensure that crucial decisions taken in
democracies are both well informed and legitimate? Rooted in
understanding that science and politics are not just fields of
ideas but also fields of action, this book proposes ways to ensure
that the two work effectively together.
This Element asks if the arts can help us imagine a better future
society and economy, without deep social gulfs or ecological harm.
It argues that at their best, the arts open up new ways of seeing
and thinking. They can warn and prompt and connect us to a bigger
sense of what we could be. But artists have lost their role as gods
and prophets, partly as an effect of digital technologies and the
ubiquity of artistic production, and partly as an effect of
shifting values. Few recent books, films, artworks or exhibitions
have helped us imagine how our world could solve its problems or
how it might be better a generation or more from now. This Element
argues that artists work best not as prophets of a new society but
rather as 'prophets at a tangent'.
Calls for an imaginative surge to fix our battered societies,
fusing bold ideas and practical experiment. As the world confronts
the fast catastrophe of Covid and the slow calamity of climate
change, we also face a third, less visible emergency: a crisis of
imagination. We can easily picture ecological disaster or futures
dominated by technology. But we struggle to imagine a world in
which people thrive and where we improve our democracy, welfare,
neighbourhoods or education. Many are resigned to fatalism-yet they
desperately want transformational social change. This book argues
that, although the threats are real, we can use creative
imagination to achieve a better future: visualising where we want
to go and how to get there. Political and social thinker Geoff
Mulgan offers lessons we can learn from the past, and methods we
can use now to open up thinking about the future and spark action.
Drawing on social sciences, the arts, philosophy and history,
Mulgan shows how we can recharge our collective imagination. From
Socrates to Star Wars, he provides a roadmap for the future.
How collective intelligence can transform business, government, and
our everyday lives A new field of collective intelligence has
emerged in recent years, prompted by digital technologies that make
it possible to think at large scale. This "bigger mind"-human and
machine capabilities working together-could potentially solve the
great challenges of our time. Gathering insights from the latest
work on data, web platforms, and artificial intelligence, Big Mind
reveals how the power of collective intelligence could help
organizations and societies to survive and thrive.
The strategies adopted by governments and public officials can have
dramatic effects on peoples' lives. The best ones can transform
economic laggards into trailblazers, eliminate diseases, or sharply
cut crime. Strategic failures can result in highly visible
disasters, like the shrinking of the Russian economy in the 1990s,
or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.
This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money,
people, technologies, and public commitment can be mobilized to
achieve important goals. It considers the common mistakes made, and
how these can be avoided, as well as analysing the tools
governments can use to meet their goals, from targets and behavior
change programs, to innovation and risk management.
Written by Geoff Mulgan, a former head of policy for the UK prime
minister, and advisor to governments round the world, it is packed
with examples, and shaped by the author's practical experience. The
author shows that governments which give more weight to the
long-term are not only more likely to leave their citizens richer,
healthier, and safer; they're also better protected from being
blown off course by short-term pressures.
The book is essential reading for anyone involved in running public
organizations--from hospitals and schools to national government
departments and local councils--and for anyone interested in how
government really works.
The 21st century has brought a cornucopia of new knowledge and
technologies. But there has been little progress in our ability to
solve social problems using social innovation - the deliberate
invention of new solutions to meet social needs - across the globe.
Geoff Mulgan is a pioneer in the global field of social innovation.
Building on his experience advising international governments,
businesses and foundations, he explains how it provides answers to
today's global social, economic and sustainability issues. He
argues for matching R&D in technology and science with a
socially focused R&D and harnessing creative imagination on a
larger scale than ever before. Weaving together history, ideas,
policy and practice, he shows how social innovation is now coming
of age, offering a comprehensive view of what can be done to solve
the global social challenges we face.
The recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism
can both produce and destroy. It's a system that by its very nature
encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff
Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book,
the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose
a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its
creative power and minimizes its destructive force. In an engaging
and wide-ranging argument, Mulgan digs into the history of
capitalism across the world to show its animating ideas, its
utopias and dystopias, as well as its contradictions and
possibilities. Drawing on a subtle framework for understanding
systemic change, he shows how new political settlements reshaped
capitalism in the past and are likely to do so in the future. By
reconnecting value to real-life ideas of growth, he argues,
efficiency and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to promote better
lives and relationships rather than just a growth in the quantity
of material consumption. Healthcare, education, and green
industries are already becoming dominant sectors in the wealthier
economies, and the fields of social innovation, enterprise, and
investment are rapidly moving into the mainstream--all indicators
of how capital could be made more of a servant and less a master.
This is a book for anyone who wonders where capitalism might be
heading next--and who wants to help make sure that its future
avoids the mistakes of the past. This edition of The Locust and the
Bee includes a new afterword in which the author lays out some of
the key challenges facing capitalism in the twenty-first century.
A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few
years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it
possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale.
This "bigger mind"--human and machine capabilities working
together--has the potential to solve the great challenges of our
time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart
results? Gathering insights from diverse fields, including
philosophy, computer science, and biology, Big Mind reveals how
collective intelligence can guide corporations, governments,
universities, and societies to make the most of human brains and
digital technologies. Geoff Mulgan explores how collective
intelligence has to be consciously organized and orchestrated in
order to harness its powers. He looks at recent experiments
mobilizing millions of people to solve problems, and at
groundbreaking technology like Google Maps and Dove satellites. He
also considers why organizations full of smart people and machines
can make foolish mistakes--from investment banks losing billions to
intelligence agencies misjudging geopolitical events--and shows how
to avoid them. Highlighting differences between environments that
stimulate intelligence and those that blunt it, Mulgan shows how
human and machine intelligence could solve challenges in business,
climate change, democracy, and public health. But for that to
happen we'll need radically new professions, institutions, and ways
of thinking. Informed by the latest work on data, web platforms,
and artificial intelligence, Big Mind shows how collective
intelligence could help us survive and thrive.
The strategies adopted by our governments and public officials can
lead to significant change in citizens' lives --smoking bans,
carbon markets, even the reunification of a country like Germany.
Equally, strategic failure can result in highly visible disasters,
such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money,
people, technologies, and public commitment can be mobilized to
achieve important goals. It considers the common mistakes made, and
how these can be avoided.
Written by Geoff Mulgan, a former head of policy for the UK prime
minister, and advisor to governments round the world, it is packed
with examples and shaped by the author's practical experience. The
author's central point is that we as citizens deserve governments
that pay more attention to the long-term, rather than to tomorrow's
opinion poll or newspaper editorial. The evidence shows that those
governments that have learned how to be strategic have helped to
make their citizens healthier, richer and happier.
The book is essential reading for anyone involved in running public
organizations--from hospitals and schools to national government
departments and local councils--but also for anyone interested in
how government really works.
Although housing in Bethnal Green was often appalling, a complex
network of relatives - families of three generations held together
by the powerful mother-daughter bond at the centre - was always
available to provide mutual aid and a sense of community. It was
when families were rehoused in the immaculate new estates outside
London, miles away from their kin, that the vital support system
broke down, with disastrous effects on the quality of people's
lives. This famous book, based on a major three-year research
project, makes clear how planners have frequently failed to
understand real human needs; it also provides a marvellous portrait
of the resilience and generosity of spirit which went at least some
way to compensate for the deptivations of inner-city working-class
life.
|
You may like...
This Is Why
Paramore
CD
R148
R138
Discovery Miles 1 380
|