Cybernetic Revolution And Global Aging

This book explores the global technological transformations that have shaped development of society for eons, from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the modern day. Looking at a potential future for all of this century and the beginning of the next, the book explores how society is changing as a result of the two most powerful trends: technological advances and global aging. It studies the forthcoming technological wave – the Cybernetic Revolution, which will encompass AI, medical technology and biotechnology, robotics, cognitive, nanotechnology etc. In turn, it shows why and how global aging will become one of the most powerful factors, influencing the evolution of society and the World System as a whole. Lastly, the book demonstrates how technological innovations can change the way people live and the society of the future, assessing both the new opportunities and threats posed by uncontrolled technological progress. Accordingly, it will appeal to social scientists, political scientists, economists and historians who are interested in technological transformations and their social and economic impacts.

Echoing the famous "The Limits to Growth" report from 1972, this edited volume analyses the changes that the World System has undergone to the present, on the fiftieth anniversary of the original report. During the past fifty years, both the concept and understanding of these limits have significantly changed. This book highlights that the evolution of the World System has approached a new critical milestone, moving into a fundamentally new phase of historical development, when the old economic and social technologies no longer work as efficiently as before or even begin to function counterproductively, which leads the World System into a systemic crisis. The book discusses the transition of human society to a new phase state, the shape of which has not yet been determined. New approaches are needed for both, for the analysis of the global situation, and for forecasts. The book is based on an integrated approach including the world-systems, historical and evolutionary perspectives, as well as a systematic view of society, in which changes in one subsystem cause transformations in others. Through mathematical modeling, it defines the main vectors of transformations of the World System; makes a detailed forecast of the development of all the main subsystems of the society and the World System, while presenting horizons of changes from short-term to ultra-long-term; and presents different development scenarios as well as recommendations on how to achieve a transition to the most favorable scenario. The book will appeal to members and followers of the Club of Rome, policy-makers, as well as to scholars from various disciplines interested in a better understanding of the World System evolution, global futures, development studies, climate change, and future societies.

The scope of human thought along with its ability to proceed from reconstruction of the most ancient periods to anticipation of the distant future, from small objects to galaxies and the Universe as well as, to embrace different trends and dimensions of reality never ceases to amaze us. You are reading a new issue of the Yearbook which contains some ‘grains’ of the description of the billion years' path. This Yearbook presents the global studies which cover different fields of research. The present volume is the sixth in the series of yearbooks with the title Globalistics and Globalization Studies. The subtitle of the volume is ‘Global Evolution, Historical Globalistics and Globalization Studies’ which reflects the contents. The present issue brings together a variety of contributions devoted to mega- and global evolution (Part I); historical globalistics (Part II); globalization and glocalization (Parts III–IV). Besides, Part IV comprises some issues on the view in the future. We become more and more accustomed to think globally and to see global processes. The yearbook will be interesting to a wide range of researchers, teachers, students and all those who are concerned about global issues.

The present volume is the fifth issue of the ‘Evolution’ Yearbook series. Our Yearbooks are designed to present to its readers the widest possible spectrum of subjects and issues: from universal evolutionism to the analysis of particular evolutionary regularities in the development of biological, abiotic, and social systems, culture, cognition, language, etc. The main objective of our Yearbook is the creation of a unified interdisciplinary field of research, within which scientists specializing in different disciplines could work within the framework of unified or similar paradigms, using common terminology and searching for common rules, tendencies and regularities. Global evolution (in connection with the Big History) becomes the main subject of our Yearbook. We strive to arrange each issue in such a way that the line from cosmic evolution to the human future is evident. What is the subject of the present issue of the Yearbook? Similar to the previous issues, it shows some aspects of the evolutionary advance from the earlier phases to the anticipated future of human society. But on the whole, this volume is devoted to different aspects and facts of megaevolution and some universal theories in an attempt to find common ground in the diversity of manifestation of evolution and its forms at different stages of development. So the title of this issue, ‘Evolution and Big History: Dimensions, Trends, and Forecasts’, is fully justified (besides, several papers contribute to the field of Big History). The volume consists of four sections: Dimensions, Trends, and Aspects; Big History's Manifestations; Trends and Forecasts; and Reviews and Information. This Yearbook will be useful both for those who study interdisciplinary macroproblems and for specialists working in focused directions, as well as for those who are interested in evolutionary issues of Cosmology, Biology, History, Anthropology, Economics and other areas of study. More than that, this edition will challenge and excite your vision of your own life and the new discoveries going on around us.

Innovation, in economic activity, in managerial concepts and in engineering design, results from creative activities, entrepreneurial strategies and the business climate. Innovation leads to technological, organizational and commercial changes, due to the relationships between enterprises, public institutions and civil society organizations. These innovation networks create new knowledge and contribute to the dissemination of new socio-economic and technological models, through new production and marketing methods. Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 2 is the second of the two volumes that comprise this book. The main objectives across both volumes are to study the innovation processes in todays information and knowledge society; to analyze how links between research and business have intensified; and to discuss the methods by which innovation emerges and is managed by firms, not only from a local perspective but also a global one. The studies presented in these two volumes contribute toward an understanding of the systemic nature of innovations and enable reflection on their potential applications, in order to think about the meaning of growth and prosperity

Among different important issues, which are discussed in Political Demography the issue of global ageing becomes more and more pressing every year. It is sufficient to take into account the point that within two forthcoming decades a rapid global increase in the number of retirement-age persons will lead to its doubling within this fairly small historical period. The concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In forthcoming decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and the direction of technological development. The present volume of the Yearbook (which is the fifth in the series) is subtitled ‘Political Demography & Global Ageing’. It brings together a number of interesting articles by scholars from Europe, Asia, and America. They examine global ageing from a variety of perspectives. This issue of the Yearbook consists of two main sections: (I) Aspects of Political Demography; (II) Facing Population Ageing. We hope that this issue will be interesting and useful both for historians and mathematicians, as well as for all those dealing with various social and natural sciences.

This book introduces a 'Big History' perspective to understand the acceleration of social, technological and economic trends towards a near-term singularity, marking a radical turning point in the evolution of our planet. It traces the emergence of accelerating innovation rates through global history and highlights major historical transformations throughout the evolution of life, humans, and civilization. The authors pursue an interdisciplinary approach, also drawing on concepts from physics and evolutionary biology, to offer potential models of the underlying mechanisms driving this acceleration, along with potential clues on how it might progress. The contributions gathered here are divided into five parts, the first of which studies historical mega-trends in relation to a variety of aspects including technology, population, energy, and information. The second part is dedicated to a variety of models that can help understand the potential mechanisms, and support extrapolation. In turn, the third part explores various potential future scenarios, along with the paths and decisions that are required. The fourth part presents philosophical perspectives on the potential deeper meaning and implications of the trend towards singularity, while the fifth and last part discusses the implications of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars from various disciplines interested in historical trends, technological change and evolutionary processes.