Seeing the Swarm

Chapter 1. Seeds of the Future: Food
o Autocatalytic Runaway
o Changing Phase
o Eat Your Heart Out
o Seeds as Factory Embryos
o Food Machines
o Future Tense

Chapter 2. Rebooting Reality: Labor
o Network Reactions
o Birth of a Notion
o Prime Movers
o A Synergetic Machine
o Rebirth
o In the Grip of a Metal Hand

Chapter 3. Dynamo: Resources
o The King’s Last Argument
o Amalthea’s Recursive Horn
o Trigger Effect
o We, the Cheapskates
o Some Assembly Required
o Spirits from the Vasty Deep

Chapter 4. Sweat of the Sun God: Wealth
o Wolf in the Fold
o See. Want. Take.
o Weaving the Web
o The Non-Elephant in the Living Room
o Bright Lights, Big Cities
o The Price of Life

Chapter 5. Economic War: Poverty
o Insolubles
o The Properties of Property
o Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night
o Swimming with Barracuda
o Fogy Boom
o Utopia Dead Ahead

Chapter 6. Connect the Dots: Thought
o The Very Pulse of the Machine
o Organon
o A Microscope Made of Numbers
o Whirlpool of Conjecture
o Round Up The Usual Suspect
o Wiring the World

Chapter 7. The How and the Why: Life
o Sparks of Life
o Diversity and Density
o Entelechy Shmentelechy
o Frothy Bubbles
o Termite Swarm
o Life Is a Verb
o Cave Canem

Chapter 8. Faster than Life: The Future?
o Foretelling
o Where Is Fancy Bred?
o Crisis? What Crisis?
o Curses! Foiled Again
o Running with Scissors
o In a Dark Night with Anxious Love Inflamed

Glossary
Thanks
Notes