http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2006/10/23/what_the_poptech_gurus_read.html
"What the Pop!Tech Gurus Read"
"The bibliography of books written by this year's Pop!Tech speakers is pretty staggering, from Richard Dawkins's new book, The God Delusion, to Thomas Barnett's Blueprint for Action, to Tom Friedman's The World is Flat, to Bruce Sterling's Visionary in Residence (((those are SCI-FI STORIES in there, okay?! They're supposed to be funny, off the wall and entertaining, not "staggering"))), and on and on.
"But what interested me was what books these big thinkers said inspired them. So I started keeping a list.
"Here's a partial bibliography (in no particular order) of the works that the brainiacs go to for fresh thinking. "
Bruce Sterling:
World Changing: A User's Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen
(((This WorldChanging book genuinely is pretty "staggering," so read it))))
Alex Steffen: The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin
Juan Enriquez: 1776 by David McCullough
Thomas Barnett: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman
Richard Dawkins: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications by David Deutsch
Creation: Life and How to Make It by Steve Grand
Will Wright:
Managing the Commons by John A. Baden and Douglas S. Noonan Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
Stewart Brand: The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity by James Lovelock, J. E. Lovelock, and Crispin Tickell Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
Thomas Barnett: The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
Kevin Kelly:
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
(((So, yeah, the pundits are all sipping each other's bathwater.... How could they not? As to what pundits probably ought to be reading, instead of fellow pundits – I'd guess that, as a healthful corrective, they ought to read stuff that's completely practical, plonking and immediate, without any handwaving visionary theorizing whatsoever. Stuff like, say, this awesome site on how to tie knots.)))
(((Then when some brainiac neocon shows up and says: My reading of Samuel Huntington convinces me that we crush and hold an alien civilization the size of France with some cruise missiles and a light sprinkling of rapid-response forces, you could riposte: Hey! Great idea, partisan intellectual! Now, can you tie a search-and-rescue "tensionless hitch" with a high-test nylon line and a carabiner?
Mind you, I'm not saying he has to know that from the get-go; I'm just saying that you show him how to do it on this "Animated Knots" site, and have him actually tie that knot while inside a moving military helicopter, at high altitude, in a freezing wind. When he's done making the knot, then you tie the other end of the rope to his waistbelt and you throw him right out of the chopper. And if he dies, that's a big shame, but think of all the other people who *don't* die because Dr. Ideology there wasn't put in charge of anything crucial to the national interest.)))
