● Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation
Greg M. Epstein
Q&A with author via The.ink
Q: How does it help us to frame “tech” — and that’s a thing distinct from “technology” as you put it in the book — as religion, and are there ways that analytic frame might hinder our understanding?
A: It helps us to understand how far removed from reality a lot of what we’re told about tech. I want people to really look at what we’re doing when we’re interfacing with what this mythical Silicon Valley and its people are doing. When we’re creating these fantasies of a kind of technological heaven, these terrifying scenarios of a technological hell, then we’re literally in the business of creating tech gods.

● The New Cold War: How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century
Robin Niblett
Review via the Lowy Institute
Robin Niblett, a former director of British think tank Chatham House, has published a new book that has received high praise from notables such as Hillary Clinton, Kevin Rudd and Lawrence Freedman. The New Cold War: How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century is a lucid and excellent guide to the state of play in international politics – reviewing the strengths and weakness of both sides, and the roles that emerging powers, international institutions and ideologies play in this new phase of superpower competition.

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