Like a thief in broad daylight: power in the era of post-humanity

Description

In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely. But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph-lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our ever eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it.;Machine generated contents note: 1.The State of Things -- The Topsy-Turvy World of Global Capitalism -- Virtual Capitalism and the End of Nature -- Of Mice and Men -- 2.Vagaries of Power -- Lenin Navigating in Uncharted Territories -- Elections, Popular Pressure, Inertia -- Welcome to the Boredom of Interesting Times! -- 3.From Identity to Universality -- What Agatha Knew -- How to Fight Huntington's Disease -- The Eternal Return of the Same Class Struggle -- 4.Ernst Lubitsch, Sex, and Indirectness -- From Indirectness to Ratatatata -- Against Contractual Sex -- Cynicism, Humour and Engagement -- A Leninist Gesture in La La Land and in Black Panther.;Introduction -- 1.The state of things -- 2.Vagaries of power -- 3.From identity to universality -- 4.Ernst Lubitsch, sex, and indirectness -- Notes.