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Wise Animals

How Technology Has Made Us What We Are

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Wise Animals

By: Tom Chatfield
Narrated by: Tom Chatfield
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About this listen

Evocatively read by the author, Tom Chatfield.

'Powerful, profound and completely engrossing, a meditation on not only technology but also history, culture, ideas, ethics, psychology and, above all, what it means to be human.' – Michael Bhaskar, co-author of The Coming Wave

Wise Animals explores the history of our relationship with technology, and our deep involvement with our creations from the first use of tools and the taming of fire, via the invention of reading and printing, to the development of the computer, the creation of the internet and the emergence of AI.

Human children know no more of modern technology than their ancestors did of older technologies thousands of years ago, and develop in relation to the technologies of their time. We co-evolve with technology as individuals as we have as a species over thousands of years.

Rather than see technology as a threat, this deeply humanist contribution to the debate proposes that we are neither masters nor victims of our technologies. They are part of who we are, and our future – and theirs – is in our hands.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Tom Chatfield (P)2024 Macmillan Publishers International Limited History History & Culture History & Philosophy Science Technology & Society Technology

Critic reviews

Tom Chatfield is one of the smartest and most original tech thinkers writing today. Both thought-provoking and startlingly original, Wise Animals is his magnum opus. (Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor)
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This is an excellent synopsis of a wide range of science and humanities related topics centered on what our relationship with technology has been and may be in years to come. It’s highly ambitious in scope but introduces important novel concepts as a series of ‘delusions’ that underpin most assumptions of technology’s role in our lives. Read by the author it is an easy and stimulating listen.

Superb

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