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The transition will bring cheaper energy, cleaner air, and more jobs. It will remove some of the factors behind oppression, injustice, and conflict. And it is supported by an overwhelming majority of the world's population. 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How has that trust - in our laws, our media, our governments - been lost, and how can it be won back? Examining the police, the rule of law, artificial intelligence, the 21st century city and social media, Ros Taylor imagines what life might be like in years to come if trust continues to erode.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Have conspiracy theories permanently damaged our society? Will technological advances, which require more and more of our human selves, ultimately be rejected by future generations? 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That somewhere inside us, under the clothes, the make-up, and self-tan, lurks a hard 'pearl', a kernel of truth called 'me'. And it's big business uncovering that 'authentic' kernel. It's also a fool's errand, because that 'true self'? It doesn't exist.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Self is no more than a story we tell ourselves. It's mutable, pliable as Plasticine. Worse, it's not even strictly autobiographical, but co-authored with those around us. And as such, there is no one version, but myriad, and the number is growing as we are exposed to ever more connections.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e We are already seeing the effects travel, television, and celebrity culture can have on the formation of self, but as digital and social media exposure grows, and in the advent of AI, what will happen to our sense of self? Can we become ever more multiple and adapt better to our globalised world? 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Seemingly every few years, a critic will read it the last rites - yet the form remains more popular than ever with readers. In \u003ci\u003eThe Future of the Novel\u003c\/i\u003e, author Simon Okotie presents a bold future for long-form fiction, and suggests its evolution is far from over.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Okotie begins by responding to and critiquing John Carruthers' book \u003ci\u003eScheherezade, or The Future of the English Novel\u003c\/i\u003e, published in 1927 as part of the 'To-day and To-morrow' series - the inspiration for our present-day FUTURES. He then cites others who have since meditated on the direction of the form: Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, William Burroughs, Anaïs Nin, Zadie Smith, and China Miéville, among others. 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