How to Fix the Future: Learning from Past Revolutions

In his new book, How to Fix the Future, Andrew Keen focuses on what we can do to prevent the Internet from further damaging our culture and society. Looking to the past to learn how we might change our future, Keen describes how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments and altered the business world beyond recognition. Keen travels the world to interview experts in a wide variety of fields, including Margrethe Vestager, EU commissioner for competition, whose recent 2.4 billion euros fine to Google made headlines around the world; successful venture capitalists who nonetheless see the tide turning; and CEOs from companies such as The New York Times.

According to Keen, there are five key tools for fixing the future: regulation, competitive innovation, social responsibility, worker and consumer choice, and education. His journey to discover how these tools are being practiced around the globe took him to digital-oriented Estonia, the place where Skype was founded, where every citizen can access whatever data the government holds on them, and where an e-residency program allows the country to expand beyond its narrow borders. Keen also traveled Singapore, where a large part of the higher education sector consists of professional courses in coding and website design.

Join us and learn more about the Internet’s hold on both American and world culture and how, according to Keen, we can disrupt this negative pattern. 

MLF Organizer Name

Gerald Harris

Notes

MLF: Science & Technology

Keen photo by Jens Panduro