We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About X-Events: The Collapse Of Everything
Product Description “Casti is at his best in presenting difficult philosophical ideas enthusiastically and lucidly, and in presenting everyday examples to illustrate them.” —New York Times Book Review A page-turning exploration of eleven scenarios that may trigger the collapse of the modern world, from pandemic viruses to nuclear apocalypse to robot uprisings. In the twenty first century, our world has become impossibly complicated, relying on ever more advanced technology that is developing at an exponential rate. Yet it is a fact of mathematical life that higher and higher levels of complexity lead to systems that are increasingly fragile and susceptible to sudden, spectacular collapse. In this highly provocative and grippingly readable book, John Casti brilliantly argues that today’s advanced, overly complex societies have grown highly vulnerable to extreme events that will ultimately topple civilization like a house of cards. Like Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan meets Jared Diamond’s Collapse, Casti’s book provides a much-needed wake-up call, sounding a fascinating and frightening warning about civilized society’s inability to recover from a global catastrophe. An eye-opening and necessary read, X-Events is a shocking look at a world teetering on the brink of collapse, and a population under constant threat from pandemic viruses, worldwide communication breakdowns, nuclear winter, or any number of unforeseeable “X-Events.” Fascinating and chilling, X-Events provides a provocative tour of the catastrophic outlier scenarios that could quickly send us crashing back to the preindustrial age – and shows that they may not be as far-fetched as they seem. Review “I am assiduous reader of John Casti’s books. He is a real scientific intellectual.” (NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, author of The Black Swan) “One of America’s greatest pioneers of simulation.” (London Times) “Casti is at his best in presenting difficult philosophical ideas enthusiastically and lucidly, and in presenting everyday examples to illustrate them. ... Entertaining and absorbing.” ( New York Times Book Review) “Dazzling ... A delightful tour de force ... Casti [is] a good teacher.” ( Los Angeles Times) “I can vouchsafe that X-Events is a book worth reading. Casti is a great author ... will be of great interest.” (JAMES WESLEY, RAWLES, SurvivorBlog.com) From the Back Cover An acclaimed theorist offers a provocative and chilling warning: today’s advanced societies have grown overcomplex and highly vulnerable to extreme events that could topple civilization The modern industrialized world is a complex system on a scale never before witnessed in the history of humankind. Technologically dependent, globally interconnected, it offers seemingly limitless conveniences, choices, and opportunities. Yet this same modern civilization may be as unstable as a house of cards, fear complexity scientists like John Casti. All it would take to "downsize" our way of life—to send us crashing back to the nineteenth century—is a nudge from what Casti calls an "X-event," an unpredictable occurrence with extreme, even dire, consequences. When an X-event strikes—and scientists believe it will—finance, communication, defense, and travel will stop dead in their tracks. The flow of food, electricity, medicine, and clean water will be disrupted for months, if not years. What will you do? A renowned systems theorist, Casti shows how our world has become impossibly complicated, relying on ever more advanced technology that is developing at an exponential rate. Yet it is a fact of mathematical life that higher and higher levels of complexity lead to systems that are increasingly fragile and susceptible to sudden, spectacular collapse. Fascinating and chilling, X-Events provides a provocative tour of the catastrophic outlier scenarios that could quickly send us crashing back to the preindustrial age: global financial "black swans"; a worldwide crash of the Internet that would halt all communication; the e
