Adam Becker is a science journalist with a PhD in astrophysics. He has written for the New York Times, the BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, and other publications. His first book, What Is Real?, was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and was long-listed for the PEN Literary Science Writing Award. He has been a science journalism fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and a science communicator in residence at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. He lives in California.
""With a wild and utterly engaging narrative, Adam Becker gives us a refreshing reality check on the fantasies of billionaires, futurists, and utilitarian philosophers who are plotting to 'optimize' the future of humanity. A fascinating exposé of the extreme 'techno-solutionism' promoted by some of the most powerful and influential technocrats of our era.""--Melanie Mitchell, computer scientist and author of Artificial Intelligence ""Adam Becker's More Everything Forever dismantles the toxic techno-optimism endemic in Silicon Valley and outlines why the most pressing problems society faces can't be solved with technology alone. The book is a must-read for understanding why the visions of the future promoted by today's techno oligarchs are built on pseudoscience and far-fetched fantasies mixed with racism, eugenics, and colonialism. Becker argues that focusing on invented future problems that may or may not ever come to pass gives techno-optimists license to neglect urgent and real problems like global warming and income inequality that are threatening humanity in the here and now. More Everything Forever feels particularly urgent and timely as billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos vie for political power.""--Christie Aschwanden, author of Good to Go ""Our world has fallen into the clutches of billionaires who mistake dystopian science fiction stories for suggestions, rather than warnings. Speaking in my capacity as a dystopian science fiction writer, I can confirm that this isn't merely very 'stupid, ' it's also 'very, very bad.'""--Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother ""This is a really important contribution to our discussion of the future and what it might hold, and what we should be trying for now. Some of these current popular ideas about the future are foolish enough to distort our current reality, and they deserve to be revealed as such. Becker's book is very entertaining as it exposes how the emperor has no clothes.""--Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy