Download The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future AudioBook Free
In 1969, Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill started looking outward to space colonies as the new frontier for humanity's expansion. A decade later, Eric Drexler, an MIT-trained engineer, transformed his attention to the molecular world as where society's future needs could be fulfilled using self-replicating nanoscale machines. These modern utopians forecasted that their technologies could transform contemporary society as humans mastered the ability to create new worlds, undertook atomic-scale anatomist, and, if truly successful, overcame their own natural limitations. The Visioneers says the storyline of how these researchers and the communities they fostered thought, designed, and popularized speculative technologies such as space colonies and nanotechnologies. Patrick McCray traces how these visioneers blended countercultural ideals with hard knowledge, entrepreneurship, libertarianism, and unbridled optimism about the near future. He shows the way they built systems that communicated their suggestions to freelance writers, politicians, and corporate leaders. But the visioneers weren't immune system to failure - or even to the lures of income, celebrity, and hoopla. O'Neill and Drexler faced difficulty funding their work and conquering colleagues' skepticism, and observed their ideas co-opted and changed by Timothy Leary, the scriptwriters of Legend Trek, and many more. Finally, both men battled to triumph over stigma and ostracism as they attempted to unshackle their visioneering from pejorative brands like "fringe" and "pseudoscience". The Visioneers provides a balanced go through the successes and pitfalls they came across. The publication exposes the problems of promotion - oversimplification, misuse, and misunderstanding - that can plague exploratory knowledge. But above all, it highlights the value of radical new ideas that inspire us to support cutting-edge research into tomorrow's technologies.
