Before Covid-19, humanity was heading towards two doors. Behind one door stood the opportunity to create the closest thing to utopia that has ever existed. Behind the other was a path paved with the threat of growing inequality, eroding privacy, authoritarianism, conflict, and then, at the end, stood dystopia. The great pandemic of 2020 has brought both these doors much closer.

Technology is mutating and nothing in our evolution has prepared us for the changes that are set to follow. It is accelerating at an accelerating rate (in other words, it is experiencing a jerk).

This is not some distant future we are predicting. The change has begun and already we are seeing political division, extremism and social unrest. Strap yourself in because the current political and economic turmoil is nothing compared to what the next two decades will bring.

Technology will enable these changes during the lifetime of most readers of this book.

The consequences are terrifying yet wonderful, for not since we discovered agriculture and moved from hunting to farming have we witnessed so much change.

We can emerge from the technology change that is occurring triumphant, basking in the glory that is human civilisation. We can enjoy a kind of utopia, but we risk, too easily, to descend into a totalitarian disaster.

Living In The Age of The Jerk is for those who care. It is for people who care about their future or the future of their children and grandchildren. It is a book about extraordinary opportunity; it is a book about danger.

If you want to see opportunity triumph over defeat, hope over despair then join the debate.

Michael Baxter

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