David Birch – författare

Using a wide-ranging variety of texts the author reviews and evaluates a broad range of approaches to textual commentary, introducing the reader to the fundamental distinction between `actual' and `virtual' worlds in critical practice.

For almost every organization in the future, both public and private sector, identity management presents both significant opportunities and risks. Successfully managed, it will allow everyone to access products and services that are tailored to their needs and their behaviours. But successful management implies that organizations will have overcome the significant obstacles of security, individual human rights and social concern that could cause the whole process to become mired. Digital Identity Management, based on the work of the annual Digital Identity Forum in London, provides a wide perspective on the subject and explores the current technology available for identity management, its applications within business, and its significance in wider debates about identity, society and the law. This is an essential introduction for organizations seeking to use identity to get closer to customers; for those in government at all levels wrestling with online delivery of targeted services; as well as those concerned with the wider issues of identity, rights, the law, and the potential risks.

Navigating the Moral Maze is a teaching resource to help students understand and critically engage with the most pressing issues in the world today. From the ruin of Gaza to the climate emergency, from the repeal of Roe v Wade to rising inequality, young people are growing up in a world beset with moral concerns and predicaments. With this book teachers can equip students with the critical skills and conceptual clarity needed to navigate through these issues and reach a clear and articulate understanding of their own views.Each chapter features numerous lesson ideas with activities, texts and thought experiments that help refine and enrich students' thoughts on the topics while promoting discussion and reflection. Topics covered include:ReproductionEuthanasiaPovertyEnvironmentBordersWarApplicable to Religious Studies, Philosophy and Ethics, and touching on topics relevant to PSHE, History and Geography, this will be a valuable resource for secondary teachers wanting to enhance their students' critical writing and thinking skills.

Navigating the Moral Maze is a teaching resource to help students understand and critically engage with the most pressing issues in the world today. From the ruin of Gaza to the climate emergency, from the repeal of Roe v Wade to rising inequality, young people are growing up in a world beset with moral concerns and predicaments. With this book teachers can equip students with the critical skills and conceptual clarity needed to navigate through these issues and reach a clear and articulate understanding of their own views.Each chapter features numerous lesson ideas with activities, texts and thought experiments that help refine and enrich students' thoughts on the topics while promoting discussion and reflection. Topics covered include:ReproductionEuthanasiaPovertyEnvironmentBordersWarApplicable to Religious Studies, Philosophy and Ethics, and touching on topics relevant to PSHE, History and Geography, this will be a valuable resource for secondary teachers wanting to enhance their students' critical writing and thinking skills.

Using a wide-ranging variety of texts the author reviews and evaluates a broad range of approaches to textual commentary, introducing the reader to the fundamental distinction between `actual' and `virtual' worlds in critical practice.

For almost every organization in the future, both public and private sector, identity management presents both significant opportunities and risks. Successfully managed, it will allow everyone to access products and services that are tailored to their needs and their behaviours. But successful management implies that organizations will have overcome the significant obstacles of security, individual human rights and social concern that could cause the whole process to become mired. Digital Identity Management, based on the work of the annual Digital Identity Forum in London, provides a wide perspective on the subject and explores the current technology available for identity management, its applications within business, and its significance in wider debates about identity, society and the law. This is an essential introduction for organizations seeking to use identity to get closer to customers; for those in government at all levels wrestling with online delivery of targeted services; as well as those concerned with the wider issues of identity, rights, the law, and the potential risks.

David Birch's Provocations: Philosophy for secondary school will help teachers to present ideas and stimulate discussions which both accommodate and engage adolescent appetites.Foreword by A. C. Grayling.Are human beings flawed? Is murder an act of insanity or just plain thoughtlessness? Do we need a soul?From the fall of Icarus to the rise of Caesar, this practical resource draws upon history, philosophy and literature to provoke students to think, question and wonder. Divided into chapters on the world, self, society and others, the book is designed to give secondary school teachers the means to listen rather than teach - and to allow the ideas and thoughts of students to form the centre of the lesson.It shares a set of mature and challenging philosophy sessions predicated on the pedagogical methods of The Philosophy Foundation, and which explore, among other things: Wagner and desire, Shakespeare and madness, Joan of Arc and gender, Faust and temptation, and Nostradamus and time. The sessions dare students to think philosophically, to generate and test ideas, and to gain deeper insights - and raise questions on slavery, consumerism, utopia, the nature of evil, the limits of freedom, belief in God, and a whole lot more.The book sets out a clear introductory outline on its use both in and out of the classroom, and contains helpful tips and advice to guide teachers to span the curriculum - covering areas applicable to history, geography, religious studies, science, art, English and citizenship. There is also an extensive bibliography for those who wish to explore the topics in greater depth.Designed for all teachers, whether they are Philosophy for Children (P4C) trained or just experimenting with philosophy, of learners aged 11-18.There is also a hardback edition available, ISBN 9781845908881.

Dare to think. Are you inside your body? Does yesterday still exist? Is it possible to have dignified sex? This book is filled with such questions, hundreds of them. Its aim is not to teach or lecture, but to jolt you into thinking for yourself. It asks you to embrace the spirit of Pandora. To open your mind, release your thoughts and let curiosity get the better of you. David Birch draws on a cornucopia of excerpts from a range of writers and philosophers. You are not entirely left to your own devices: from Plato to Isaac Newton to D. H. Lawrence, these thinkers will be your partners in conversation, galvanising and challenging your thinking.

A book for thinkers young and old, Befuddled is a journey back in time to explore the lives, legends and ideas of ancient philosophers. Theories on the origin of the universe, the nature of the mind, and much more are presented alongside bizarre stories of mad emperors and talking skulls. Featuring an array of iconic figures, including Socrates, Pythagoras and the Buddha, Befuddled superbly illustrates how lives devoted to confusion and wonder not only give rise to fascinating ideas about reality, they also brim with wild moments and remarkable tales. Author David Birch invites you to add your own life to the collection. With questions and activities designed to start you on your own extraordinary explorations, Befuddled will help you discover your own powers of thought while you experience for yourself the freaky thrills of befuddlement.

Language and Context breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationship between register, genre and context. Leckie-Tarry argues convincingly and engagingly for a functional theory of language which specifies register in terms of contextual and linguistic features, and which suggests a discursive relationship between the two. Moving beyond the limits of much of today's theory, this accessible volume develops a theoretical understanding of the relationship between text, context, langage function and linguistic form. Helen Leckie-Tarry, a specialist in the area of 'register and applied linguistics', died in 1991, aged 49. Although she had finished a large part of this work, her notes and draft chapters have been extensively edited by Professor David Birch. David Birch is currently Professor of Communication and media Studies at Central Queensland University, Australia, and previously taught at Murdoch University, Western Australia, and the National University of Singapore.

This book argues that identity is changing profoundly and that money is changing equally profoundly. Because of technological change the two trends are converging so that all that we need for transacting will be our identities captured in the unique record of our online social contacts. Social networks and mobile phones are the key technologies. They will enable the building of an identity infrastructure that can enhance both privacy and security - there is no trade-off. The long-term consequences of these changes are impossible to predict, partly because how they take shape will depend on how companies (probably not banks) take advantage of business opportunities to deliver transaction services. But one prediction made here is that cash will soon be redundant - and a good thing too. In its place we will see a proliferation of new digital currencies.

Money is changing, and this book looks at where the technology of money might be taking us in the future. Technology has moved our concept of money from physical things, to unseen bits of information. With the arrival of smart cards, mobile phones and Bitcoin, it has become easier than ever to create new forms of money. Crucially, money is also inextricably connected with our identities. Your card or phone can identify you for security - and also enable information about you to be associated with your money (think for example of store 'points' cards). To understand all of this and to see where we might be going, the author first of all looks back over the whole history of money, which spans thousands of years. He sees evidence for possible futures in the past, both recent and ancient. After all, not all 'future' starts from today. For example, it can be argued that the future of money began back in 1971, when money became a claim backed by reputation rather than by commodities of any kind. At this point, money became bits. Looking much further back to a world before cash and central banks we see multiple 'currencies' operating at the level of communities, and the use of barter.The newest technologies will take money back to where it came from: a substitute for memory, to record mutual debt obligations within multiple overlapping communities.This time though money will be smart. It will be money that reflects the values of the communities that produced it. Future money will know where it has been, who has been using it and what they have been using it for.

Money is changing, and this book looks at where the technology of money might be taking us in the future. Technology has moved our concept of money from physical things, to unseen bits of information. With the arrival of smart cards, mobile phones and Bitcoin, it has become easier than ever to create new forms of money. Crucially, money is also inextricably connected with our identities. Your card or phone can identify you for security - and also enable information about you to be associated with your money (think for example of store 'points' cards). To understand all of this and to see where we might be going, the author first of all looks back over the whole history of money, which spans thousands of years. He sees evidence for possible futures in the past, both recent and ancient. After all, not all 'future' starts from today. For example, it can be argued that the future of money began back in 1971, when money became a claim backed by reputation rather than by commodities of any kind. At this point, money became bits. Looking much further back to a world before cash and central banks we see multiple 'currencies' operating at the level of communities, and the use of barter.The newest technologies will take money back to where it came from: a substitute for memory, to record mutual debt obligations within multiple overlapping communities. This time though money will be smart. It will be money that reflects the values of the communities that produced it. Future money will know where it has been, who has been using it and what they have been using it for.

The way that money works now is a blip. It’s a temporary institutional arrangement agreed in response to specific political, technological and economic circumstances. As these circumstances change, so money must change. Many people think that it will undergo a pretty significant change in the very near future and we need to start planning for the coming era of digital currency. The historian Niall Ferguson wrote in 2019 that “if America is smart, it will wake up and start competing for dominance in digital payments”. Competing for this new currency dominance could mean a new cold war in cyberspace with, for example, Facebook’s private currency facing off against China’s public currency facing off against a digital euro. Or would a digital dollar win this new space race?This is not just the concern of wide-eyed technologists obsessed with Bitcoin. In a 2019 speech the governor of the Bank of England said that a form of global digital currency could be “the answer to the destabilising dominance of the US dollar in today’s global monetary system”. But which digital currency? Will we really be choosing between the Federal Reserve and Microsoft (between dollar bills and Bill’s dollars)? Or between Facebook’s Libra and the Chinese Digital Currency/Electronic Payment system “DC/EP”? Between spendable SDRs and Kardashian Kash? It would be a mistake to see this as a technical debate about cryptocurrencies and blockchains, about hash rates and key lengths. It matters far beyond the virtual boundaries of the new age. The dollar’s dominance gives America the ability to exert soft power through the International Monetary and Financial System. A serious implication of replacing existing monetary arrangements with new infrastructure based on digital currency is that this power might be constrained. How might America respond to losing its hegemony?Now that the technologists, the business strategists, the economists and the national and international regulators are beginning to glance in the direction of these alternatives, the whole topic of digital currency needs to be explored. In this book, industry expert David Birch sets out the economic and technological imperatives, discusses the potential impact, and highlights a series of tensions—between public and private and, most importantly, between East and West—to contribute to the high-level debate that we must have to begin to shape the International Monetary and Financial System financial system of the near future.

The Metaverse - built from virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality - is arriving via wearable headsets that have cameras, microphones, speakers, sensors and communications built in. These spatial computing technologies create new social and economic connections, and while some of these connections are virtual, the business implications are very real.The authors set out the potential for financial services in metaverses and the 'always-on' immersive future internet, beginning with a look at the key technologies needed to make these metaverses useful for businesses. They then go on to explore the emerging realities in which new markets will function and the digital assets that will be exchanged in transactions between online identities.The book develops a comprehensive and practical model of the Metaverse and the nature of those new transactions in a business environment. It has a clear view of virtual worlds and it provides both a simple taxonomy for digital assets and a tried-and-tested model of digital identity that will provide a better understanding of the opportunities that exist in the many metaverses where we will work, rest and play in the near future.