Books like The Rise of Technosocialism — picked by fans

I absolutely loved the optimism and excitement of this book.

Justin unpacks six megatrends that will shape and affect every sector, all of which are leading to a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative world. 

I cited this book at a recent event I ran called The Future of Leadership and one of the participants asked me why I was so positive about the trends that Justin featured.

"What about all the negatives and downsides?" I answered, "we go naturally to what could go wrong, it’s actually an effort to see what might go right," as the book title indicates.

But this book is not just a Pollyanna look at the future technologies, it’s a call to action for leaders to create the future we want by first imagining it.

When I interviewed Justin for my podcast, I was struck by how much foresight and deep thinking he brings to the… show more.

A rare book that is as funny as it is profound, illustrating why things feel so broken.

Tim is the creator of the popular blog Wait But Why, and his unique blend of curiosity and storytelling flair is on full display here. The book eschews the standard left-right political analysis for an exploration of how our brains work (and what impact this has on the decisions that shape societies). 

This was an inspiring and motivating book.

The case studies of leaders, businesses, government, and agencies implementing new technologies for the improvement of work, agriculture, nutrition, productivity, and the climate is amazing.

My favourite case study snapshot is of Vivobarefoot footwear brand that partners with algae technology startup Bloom and their patented BLOOM foam - which takes harmful algae blooms out of waterways.

Shoes made out of algae blooms. By making shoes, it’s actually making the environment better. This is the ‘beyond net zero’ promise and potential. So cool.

The authors offer provocative ‘what if…’ questions at the beginning and end of each chapter to help the reader explore what the trends mean and how they might affect their current leadership paradigm.

One of the most useful aspects of the book is the ‘industry playlist’ infographic at the back of the book. You can look up your own industry and… show more.

Who doesn’t love reading about themselves? 

Chromey has a whole different way of looking at generational differences. When I interviewed him on my podcast, he did a fair critique of the typical division of generations by arbitrary birth years.

Far more important, he says, is to look at the technology that shaped the environment, and hence the mindsets and attitudes of the people who adopted and used that technology as part of their growing up during their ‘coming of age’ years.

Huh. It’s obvious and makes complete sense to me. 

The book outlines the chief technologies that shaped attitudes: transportation-telephone, motion pictures, radio, vinyl, television, space, gamer, cable television, personal computer-cell phone, internet, iTech, robotics. And I’d add coming now - artificial intelligence.

On top of all that is the pattern of swinging between optimism and pessimism across the generations across a spring/summer/winter/autumn cyclical model. Very smart.

Chromey includes timeline… show more.

This book changed how I think about money.

I used to think of non-cash (credit cards, PayPal, and crypto) as a vague construct that wasn’t real, unlike cash. Now I think of money as a system. I saw the difference between what I was taught about finance and how digital money moves. 

More importantly, this book forced me to think hard about resilience because my desmoid tumor, which I had fought for years and thought was gone, grew back. And I've spent years building a brand without getting paid. I wondered for four years what I was doing wrong. I now see navigating modern financial systems isn’t about knowledge but about resilience instead. I must adapt, be aware, and be resilient.

This book made me face my mindset around urgency and taking shortcuts.

I lost $10,000 in 2017 in crypto right after my father passed away, when I was in shock. I look back at how my emotions and the need to get rich quickly overrode logic. I now love the idea of getting rich quickly, not from likelihood or being practical, but from seeing it as humor. I saw how I can’t compress my learning curves without consequences. I learned a huge lesson in paying the $10K tuition for a lesson in security and diligence.

GRQ helped me reshape my perspective so I no longer look at that experience as a failure, but as a necessary step to building with clarity instead of chasing outcomes.

I didn’t read this book about a hacker who broke into the phone number system just for a fun read. I read it as a chance to try something similar with artificial intelligence to protect myself. I get tons of spam and phishing emails.

I get fifty robocalls a day. At first, I just ignored them. But then they became impossible to continuously ignore because some seemed so real. I needed a way to understand the current landscape and how this stuff spreads.

I became a lot more curious and looked beneath the surface. The book forced me to stop just looking at face value. I stopped watching systems and started learning them. I can now spot the fraud attempts. I also discovered how much I care about ethics, values, and morals.

Often over the past few years, as a self-published author, I have felt invisible. But this book showed me what being invisible really is.

For me, this book is not just about immigration or labor. I can see how everything keeps running while leaving out the people who sustain the system. I thought I was outside the traditional system because with Bitcoin, I thought I was part of a rebellion and a new global movement.

I thought there was “the system” and then there was Bitcoin. I didn't realize Bitcoin is a system too. And I didn't see that some people have no system, and maybe never will. I started to be grateful to be part of something where I count, or at least have a chance to count.

I learned things in this book that I didn’t know, for example, about the history of the UBI, and I respect the politics overall. 

It has an admirably accessible tone, and the message that we should aim for utopia is so very needed today.  It helped me realize that we must all think about life after the end of work.  

Another unnamed narrator visits Roderick Usher, an old friend, in yet another decaying mansion that houses an isolated, disturbed family—Roderick and his twin sister, Madeline. They are the last of the Ushers, but she has fallen into a cataleptic state—one of Poe’s treasured themes! The manse itself is surrounded by a lake, and a crack runs the length of the house. Roderick tells his friend that the house is alive and entwined with his and Madeline’s fate. Madeline dies and is entombed in the family vault, but Roderick fears that she’s not really dead. During a cataclysmic storm, Madeline has indeed clawed her way out of her tomb and she attacks her brother. The narrator flees into the night, looking back to see the house split in two and crumble into fragments, becoming the final tomb for Roderick and his sister. Dark!