How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity

Workers lose to automation, investors lose to algorithms, and even tech developers lose their visions to the demands of the startup economy.

According to Douglas Rushkoff's new book, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, the digital economy has gone wrong, and no one quiet knows how to fix it. The problems lie not with digital technology itself, but in the ways we are deploying it: instead of building a distributed digital economy that new networks could foster, we're doubling down on the industrial age mandate for growth above all.

But it doesn't have to be this way. In the era of big data, robots, and the gig economy, Rushkoff calls for a bridge to the human-technology divide in a way that optimizes the economy for the people it's supposed to serve.

Join us for a conversation with Douglas Rushkoff and the Open Technology Insitute's Georgia Bullen on how to reboot out obsolete economic operating system from the inside out – and prosper along the way.

Participants:

Douglas Rushkoff
Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics, CUNY/Queens
Author, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
@rushkoff

Georgia Bullen
Director of Technology Projects, Open Technology Institute, New America
@georgiamoon

Copies of Douglas Rushkoff's Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus will be available for purchase. Join the conversation online using #ThrowingRocks and by following @NewAmericaNYC.

This event is presented in partnership with Civic Hall.