The End of Life as We Know It

The Book in 1 Sentence

Science can and will be manipulated to fit the man behind the curtain

Brief Review

Dr. Guillen’s fact based presentation of the wins and woes of technology present a clear and direct path to the absolute destruction of our world if we are not careful. We will have to be careful about the way we move forward or every science fiction movie will be right.

Why I Read this book

No idea. I am very much a judge a book by its cover person, sorry Mom, and I love the idea of artificial intelligence. This books cover is a cool robot. Why wouldn’t I read it?

Honestly, I have no idea where I found this book (audible recommended?) but I am immensely glad I did. Till the last chapter.

In-Depth Review

I promise I’ll talk about my leading comment in the above paragraph, but not yet.

This book is probably one of my favorites that I’ve read recently. I have thrown books under the bus for bad organization, so let me highlight a book with great organization.

The division of technology and the explanation of the history of it is presented so clearly that it’s hard not to follow the information presented in the way I present it. What I mean by that, is the book is definitely leading you to feel a certain way. While 9/10 the book is leading you the right way, it is still leading you to feel a certain way.

From Web, robots, spying, and the monster we’ve created with technology, this books covers almost every technology we use one a daily bases. We, as westerners,  have allowed these technologies to infect us and without  a careful eye, they will rule us, more then they already do. It’s funny to me that I read this book now and it specifically talks about the invitation we have done to allow us to be like China and their social credit system, as the Chinese are sending spy balloons over us and Canada.

Ok so the last sentence. This book did a great job of not presenting politics or religious preferences about these polarizing topics until the last chapter. A chapter that is completely unneeded and is a full on, “I am right because my God is right” forced arguement. I have no issue with books presenting evidence one way or another about faith and in fact, I have recently been reading a lot of those books; However, the comments made had no place in a book about technology. Since this isn’t a work of fiction there is no real spoiler, but spoiler warning just to be consistent. The last chapter specifically talks about his belief in God and how that is what we all should do to fix the issues presented. It’s absolutely inaccurate and for a book talking about science, this presentation of information does not provide anything of value other than a shock factor or a “Win” for Christian Sciences. It is interesting to me that he mentioned an author I have read recently and haven’t reviewed as I am doing a larger piece on that book and another one. The points he makes have no place in this book, and I will be going more into those words in a review called [[God in 2 Parts]] which will cover [[The God Delusion]] Vs. [[The Return of the God Hypothesis]]. I will now be adding the ending of this book to that review as he makes some statements that have to be commented on.

How my life / behavior / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

Most of the items in this book, I am either intimately familiar with because of the work I have done for the last 15 years, or I am genuinely interested in it so I have some educational or anecdotal information about it.

With that, I don’t think my life will change. The information in this book is/should make a decision point for how we use technology. The reason my life won’t change is that I do not believe I am in a place to make a significant change. At the moment. Time will tell what happens and what I am able to do about it. For now, my smart home stays in place.

Rating

Like I said previously this is a fantastic book. Please read it and take heed of the message of what technological advances could mean for us. While the last chapter felt forced at best and stupid being a more apt term, I don’t think it takes too much from the book and I don’t want to bash a book because of a belief that someone has. That is what makes America great. 8/10.