{"title":"Alexander Bard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"netocracy-book-alexander-bard-9781903684290","title":"NETOCRACY","description":"\"Digging deeper and wider than any previous effort into what the information revolution truly means, Netocracy is the must-read.  Netocracy is the unsurpassable how and when of this whole revolution.\"  Kjell A. Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, authors of Funky Business  The world will not live without logos, but neither will capitalism silently take over democracy. What comes next? Forget capitalism and the class struggle, we are witnessing the birth of a whole new world. The digital revolution is, in fact, changing things far more dramatically  then the hype-mongers of tech Internet ever imagined - only not in the way that they and their investors hoped.  The move from a society dominated by print and broadcast mass media to the age of interactivity is at least as dramatic as the move from feudalism to capitalism. After capitalism comes attentionalism. Those who can harness global networks of information and master new forms of communication will control business, finance and legislation, forming the new business and government elites. They will inherit the power; they are the Netocracy.Driven by the Internet and mobile communications, networks are turning into the major means of doing business, organising action, getting knowledge; the organising principle for the information age.  Simply put, networks will make the world go round. So controlling the networks of this world will soon count for more than controlling the capital. Harness the right network and yuo can do anything, anywhere. Manuel Castells has described the Internet as the most extraordinary technological revolution in history. But he also suggests it is as underdeveloped socially as it is overdeveloped technologically. The societal implications of the communications revolution are going to hit soon. Netocracy predicts what they will be, where the power will flow and draws some remarkable conclusions about life after capitalism. And who will have the power in a world dominated by networks? The Internet has often been touted as a radically decentralized unpredictable phenomenon thriving beyond the control of individuals, corporations or governments.In Netocracy, Bard and Soderqvist state show that the transparent and non-hierarchical society proclaimed by the enthusiastic early Internet pioneers is one of the greatest myths of the information age. Future society will be hierarchical. It will be divided - but not along lines of wealth and academic merit. Capitalist structures will be broken down.  Power will not lie with those who own the means of production, but with those who sort and provide information : \"It is the people who can create and sustain attention that are the Netocracy, the new holders of power, not those who simply supply capital.\"People who can manipulate networks and the information that runs through them will inherit the future. These are the netocrats. The netocracy consists of people with excellent social skills and a talent for the adept manipulation of information. Those without this ability to use the new interactive media technology to their advantage will form the lower classes of the digital age.  netocrat [neA'to-krat] n. The netocrat has created and not inherited his social identity. He\/she is self-made in the most fundamental meaning of the word.The netocrat has money but it is a means and not an end goal. He\/she outsmarts the capitalist by ruling the networks that now rule the world. The netocrat is an artistic and political manipulator who has turned networking into an artform.  \"An extraordinary book.\" Computer Weekly \"Alexander Bard, author of 80 hit singles in Scandinavia, is a record producer, Internet mogul, philosophy enthusiast, and much more.  \" FTDynamo, Euro-Gurus \"He's seen the future.  A renaissance man of many talents, Bard is either a genius or a madman.  You decide\"  The Times Magazine, July 2003","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49505004323089,"sku":"GOR001522897","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49515169054993,"sku":"GOR010503144","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49758128963857,"sku":"CIN1903684293G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50235908882705,"sku":"CIN1903684293VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52862628069649,"sku":"GOR002895286","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1903684293.jpg?v=1751123825"},{"product_id":"process-and-event-book-alexander-bard-9789179653415","title":"Process and Event","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe have to improve our thinking. We must think in terms of motion and change, and we must abandon all childish dreams of a reality more real than the real one. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf, for example, we play with the idea that the Process called History leads to the Event called God, we have to understand what that means. Namely: that God is something we humans create because we have that need - not something that created the world or us humans (or anything else). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis God of the new era does not yet exist, but the current technological revolutions mean that the moment of creation is near. Good news, you might say, but thereby Man reduces himself to a historical parenthesis, at least if we are to believe cyberphilosophers Alexander Bard and Jan S derqvist. And we are closer to the age of the gods than you think. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoin in a breathtaking expedition that takes us from the infancy of religions in the form of magic and superstition via Persian mystics and iconoclasts to the age of enlightenment, modernity and artificial intelligence. Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist carry out a necessary and radical rewriting of the history of Western ideas and explain why Man's search for the divine inevitably leads us to a Messiah machine with an agenda of its own. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Process and Event\u003c\/em\u003e rounds off a quarter of a century of systematic thinking and concludes the internationally acclaimed Narratology trilogy. It sets every imaginable form of erudition in motion and is exactly as entertaining and provocative as only a book by Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist can be.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49571153281297,"sku":"GOR013657393","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9179653413.jpg?v=1750903962"},{"product_id":"digital-libido-book-alexander-bard-9789189954137","title":"Digital Libido","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51066536165649,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51066538885393,"sku":"NIN9789189954137","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9189954130.jpg?v=1751032597"},{"product_id":"process-and-event-book-alexander-bard-9789189954106","title":"Process and Event","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51066672644369,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51066674872593,"sku":"NIN9789189954106","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9189954106.jpg?v=1751286815"},{"product_id":"body-machines-book-alexander-bard-9789190020753","title":"The Body Machines","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe digital revolution entails that all important aspects of our existence fundamentally change: How we see the world and how we see ourselves, how we think, how we work, how we relate to and communicate with each other, and what is even possible to imagine. Everything is set in motion, which means that Philosophy must also set itself in motion. It must philosophize about its own movement, and even about movement as such. The history of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going must be rewritten. This is what Alexander Bard and Jan S derqvist perform in The Futurica Trilogy, originally published between 2000-2009.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Body Machines delves into the philosophical consequences of the dissolution of the concept of The Individual, which follows from the new all-powerful network structures.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52761675268369,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52761675661585,"sku":"NIN9789190020753","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"syntheism-book-alexander-bard-9789189954175","title":"Syntheism","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter the monumental Futurica Trilogy comes a book that dares to describe individualism as the now defunct religion it always was and describe a reality that is primarily virtual, rather than physical. While the authors do not mind challenging the readers view of the self and the world, their main intention here is to induce passive receivers of the future to become more active participants. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis work offers engaging observations and perceptive interpretations of contemporary society. Alexander Bard and Jan S derqvist are Swedish philosophers and authors of the internationally successful Futurica Trilogy. They lecture the world over about the current global internet revolution. Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist are regarded as pioneers in the literary genre futurica, where philosophy, social theory, and futurology merge. After joining forces in the late 1990s, Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist argued that the interactive revolution is the most profound and radical of all technological revolutions in the history of mankind, that it completely transforms society in every aspect: politics, the economy, culture, social power structures, the collective world view and the whole concept of being human. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBard \u0026amp; S derqvist demonstrated the effects of network dynamics on various levels of a globalized world. They not only made controversial predictions in the early years of the new millennium (and cleverly foresaw both the dot.com crash and the September 11 terror attacks), they have since then been proven right in virtually every aspect and even in the most minute of details. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot only did Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist foresee revolutionary innovations such as Google, Facebook, Al-Qaida and Wikileaks; they also went deeper and looked into the very power struggle of the ongoing revolution itself. Bard \u0026amp; S derqvist are now back with a proposal for a complete new metaphysics for the digital age, and it is called Syntheism - Creating God in The Internet Age.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52763150745873,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52763151204625,"sku":"NIN9789189954175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"global-empire-book-alexander-bard-9789190003343","title":"The Global Empire","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52763160117521,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52763160740113,"sku":"NIN9789190003343","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789190003343.jpg?v=1763605142"},{"product_id":"netocrats-book-alexander-bard-9789190003251","title":"The Netocrats","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52763160215825,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52763160641809,"sku":"NIN9789190003251","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-alexander-bard.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}