The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny

By Michael G. Zey

Book Overview

The Future Factor offers an inspiring, optimistic view of the human future This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071343059
• ISBN13: 9780071343053
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Future Fabulous

I picked up "The Future Factor" after hearing Michael Zey describe his vision of the future on a radio program. I truly enjoyed The Future Factor and its optimistic message. This book definitely widened my vistas regarding the possibilities of technology and science--Zey claims that soon we will control the weather, live long and healthy lives, and inhabit other planets. Robots and other smart machines will become our species' partners in solving problems, curing diseases, and exploring the universe.While I personally found myself swept up in Zey's vision of human "destiny", I can see why some consider his views controversial, maybe even unsettling. He claims that humanity has a purpose, almost a mission, to change and "perfect" the universe. This is strong stuff-not for the pessimists (or perhaps these are the people that need this book most.). Zey definitely challenges the reader to "get involved" with helping make this new vision a reality. According to the blurb on the book jacket, Zey holds a Ph.D. in sociology, which might explain his concern over the social factors that will impact our future. Zey claims that various social groups are choosing sides in a growing debate in our society over the future of humankind. According to Dr. Zey, this "battle for the future" is between two camps, one which supports human growth, technology, and progress, the other an environmentalist/new age faction that feels that man must live in balance with nature. Supposedly, the outcome of this "battle for the future" will determine the fate of humankind and eventually the universe. I like the idea that you can go to his website, "zey.com", for more info on his book, news about technology, robots, the Internet, and politics, as well as "critical links" to other sites. The site also gives you info on the author's upcoming media appearances and lectures. I definitely recommend The Future Factor!

Sociology of the Future... Plus some technology stuff

This book was less about the future of technology than I had hoped. Although it does bring up a lot of diverse topics from many different areas of science that will *eventually* effect the future of mankind, it's more about a philisophical argument between New Agers and Expansionists.. Zey being a strong believer in the expansionist movement (Not to mention a Ph.D in sociology). It does cite 19 pages worth of refrences, so this book could be valuable as a guide to more in-depth study of many of the technological topics introduced. Many of the moral questions it contains have been covered in "STAR TREK: The Next Generation," and some of the events discussed stretch the bounds of rationality... Sure, someday our ever-accelerating universe will suffer entropy death, but why worry about that NOW?There is a certain beauty in being a futurist: Without giving dates, you will never be wrong.I rate this book a 4 because, even though it was not what I had expected, it did get me thinking. Hopefully it will help others to realize that we really are reaching "Technological Critical Mass" and that the world IS going to change A LOT within the coming century... And that's a good thing.

An Inspiring Vision of the Future

I have just read Michael G. Zey's The Future Factor, afascinating view of an emerging world of new technologies andscientific breakthroughs, and what effects they will have on ourlives. What drew me to this book in the first place was itsintriguing subtitle, "The Five Factors Transforming Our Lives andReshaping Human Destiny". Unlike other books in this area,"The Future Factor" delivers on its subtitle in everyway. Once I began reading the book, I simply could not put itdown-"The Future Factor" is simply one of the mostoptimistic books about the future of the human species I've everencountered. Zey paints a convincing portrait of an excitingfuture--we will be living to 150 years or more, using robots andcomputers to better our lives, and travel at superfast speeds (evenperhaps approach the speed of light). According to Zey, we arealready using genetic engineering, cloning, and bionics to improve thephysical condition of the human being in a process he labelsbiogenesis. (Zey has invented a new vocabulary of sorts to describehis vision.) The author makes a strong case that this world of spacecolonies, skycars, and "smart machines" no longer exists only inscience fiction, but is rapidly unfolding during this decade.What Ifound truly original, and inspiring, about this book is Dr. Zey'svision of human destiny. He says that he synthesized many differenttheories to develop this "Expansionary Theory of HumanDevelopment". According to this theory, the appearance of humanspecies was almost "mandated" by the universe itself. Why? If Iunderstand what Zey is saying, humanity's ultimate destiny is toreshape the universe, maybe even save it from what most cosmologistsinsist is a predetermined Big Bang-style ending. He says that overthe eons we will transform the universe into something he calls the"Humaniverse". Zey turns Darwin, the Big Bang theory, and mostof modern cosmology on its head to demonstrate the importance ofhumankind in the grand scheme of things.This is the kind of bookthat over a period of months should gain a wide audience simplythrough word of mouth. (I've told everyone in my circle about thisbook.) I feel changed (for the better) by reading "The FutureFactor", and I want friends and family to experience theexhilaration I felt as I pored through the pages. I think that overtime the ideas Zey presents in this book will be debated in the mediaand elsewhere...I rated this book a "5"-it's riveting,extremely well-written, and, to put it bluntly, has simply changed theway I think about the future and humanity's role in helping to createthat future.

A good introduction to Transhumanist & Extropian thinking.

Michael Zey has written a effective primer for what in other contexts would be considered Transhumanist or Extropian thinking about the human prospect, without calling it by those terms. Since his book adds several neologisms to our discussion about life in the future -- Expansionary thinking, dominionization, species coalescence, biogenesis, cybergenesis, Russian Cosmism and the Humaniverse, for example -- perhaps he felt that throwing in some other terms would overload the reader not already familiar with the large and growing literature (mostly now on the Web) about Transhumanist philosophy.Zey is particularly concerned about maintaining and enhancing human individuality when confronted with possibly quite invasive new technologies. Hence his criticisms of scientifically plausible notions that we are going to merge into some Borg-like "global brain" and nonsense of that sort. He's similarly critical of thinkers in the Transhumanist/Extropian camp, like Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil, who foresee the time when humans become subordinated to advanced artificial intelligences in the coming decades, pointing out that such scenarios are the flip-side of radical environmentalist and Neo-Luddite proposals to subordinate humans to other species or to the mystical "Gaia." No, Zey's primary focus is on the long-term welfare of individual humans, including their radical life extension, as we "dominionize" more and more of the universe for our own purposes, not those of other entities.I can't give this book the highest rating, however, because Zey mixes his generally good analysis up with some questionable, if not controversial, ideas from physics, such as non-Big Bang cosmologies, a version of the Anthropic Principle and his theory that quantum nonlocality will keep human minds basically thinking in the same way no matter how much we diverge across space-time. Still, for people wanting to know what Transhumanism is all about, this is a good place to start.