Out Of Control: The Rise Of Neo-biological Civilization

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Basic Books, 1994 - Science - 521 pages
This is a book about how our manufactured world has become so complex that the only way to create yet more complex things is by using the principles of biology. This means decentralized, bottom up control, evolutionary advances and error-honoring institutions. I also get into the new laws of wealth in a network-based economy, what the Biosphere 2 project in Arizona has or has not to teach us, and whether large systems can predict or be predicted. And more: restoration biology, encryption, a-life, and the lessons of hypertext. Yes, it's a romp, in 520 pages. But the best part, my friends tell me, is the 28-page annotated bibliography. If you have suspected that technology could be better, more life-like, then this book is for you. -- Product Description.

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Contents

THE MADE AND THE BORN
1
HIVE MIND
5
MACHINES WITH AN ATTITUDE
29
Copyright

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About the author (1994)

Kevin Kelly was born in 1952 in Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Rhode Island but dropped out after one year. He became a freelance photo journalist. His photographs have appeared in several magazines including Life. In 1981, Kelly founded Walking Journal. He is a former editor of Whole Earth Review, Signal, and some of the later editions of the Whole Earth Catalog. With Whole Earth's founder, Stewart Brand, Kelly helped found the WELL, a highly regarded online community. He has been a director of the Point Foundation, which sponsored the first Hackers Conference in 1984 (before the word "hacker" had its current common, negative connotation). In 1994, Wired Magazine, for which Kelly was executive director, won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Kelly is now editor at large for the magazine. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Economist, Time, Harper's Magazine, Science, Veneer Magazine, GQ, and Esquire. He is the author of several books including What Technology Wants, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, and Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World.

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