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Michael Hanlon

Eternity

As a species we tend to be very short term in our thinking - we are preoccupied with the way things are now, and find it hard to think that it may be otherwise. In Eternity: Our Next Billion Years Michael Hanlon tries to get away from such parochialism and looks at our prospects for the long term.

Of course some things may not be so easy to change - global warming and the inequalities in wealth, for instance - but it is likely that in a century or so our concerns will be very different. Enhanced health and intellectual life are probable, although Hanlon doesn't think that the 'simgularity' particularly likely. Hanlon worries about what will happen to other species on our planet, as well as the loss of linguistic diversity. There's also a running theme throughout the book looking at what might happen if machines really did take over. The final chapter looks at the likely state of the earth in a billion years time.

I didn't think that the book was particularly deep - Hanlon is giving an broad overview of possible futures, rather going into detail of what the technology might be like or trying to argue for one particular path. However, it is an entertaining read, and has some thought provoking ideas.

Amazon.com info
Hardcover 280 pages  
ISBN: 0230219314
Salesrank: 2118874
Weight:0.79 lbs
Published: 2008 Palgrave Macmillan
Amazon price $24.95
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Amazon.co.uk info
Hardcover 312 pages  
ISBN: 0230219314
Salesrank: 470205
Weight:0.79 lbs
Published: 2008 Palgrave Macmillan
Amazon price £11.39
Marketplace:New from £2.44:Used from £0.01
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Amazon.ca info
Hardcover 280 pages  
ISBN: 0230219314
Salesrank: 566685
Weight:0.79 lbs
Published: 2008 Palgrave Macmillan
Amazon price CDN$ 20.56
Marketplace:New from CDN$ 11.46:Used from CDN$ 10.97
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Product Description
It has become received wisdom that our world is doomed, that we live in the End of Days. Bleak predictions by psychics and scientists alike portend extreme weather, droughts, famines and floods that will overtake humanity within the century, or sooner. If not global warming, then supervolcanoes, meteoric impacts, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or natural plagues will get us. But whatever happens, Michael Hanlon believes that humankind will go on...and on. The shape of things to come will be strange, and somewhat terrifying, but will very likely seem banal to the people who inhabit it in the future. Humankind may be thrown back to the Stone Age on hundreds of occasions and may come close to extinction. But recovery will follow--each time more rapidly than the last. The world of 10,000 years hence, let alone 100,000,000 years hence, will be strange and almost unrecognizable. But no matter how battered and re-born, it will still be our world, populated by us through eternity.