Peter Norton – författare

Peter Norton covers a topic of great relevance to students of early Church history and late antiquity alike. He challenges the conventional view that after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman empire the local community lost its voice in the appointment of bishops, and argues that this right remained in theory and practice for longer than is normally assumed. Given that bishops became important to the running of the empire at the local level, a properunderstanding of how they came into office is essential for our understanding of the later empire.

Peter Norton covers a topic of great relevance to students of early Church history and late antiquity alike. He challenges the conventional view that after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman empire the local community lost its voice in the appointment of bishops, and argues that this right remained in theory and practice for longer than is normally assumed. Given that bishops became important to the running of the empire at the local level, a proper understanding of how they came into office is essential for our understanding of the later empire.

“The foundation has been laid for fully autonomous,” Elon Musk announced in 2016, when he assured the world thatTesla would have a driverless fleet on the road in 2017. “It’s twice as safe as a human, maybe better.” Promises oftechno-futuristic driving utopias have been ubiquitous wherever tech companies and carmakers meet.In Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving, technology historian Peter Norton argues that driverless carscannot be the safe, sustainable, and inclusive “mobility solutions” that tech companies and automakers are promising us.The salesmanship behind the driverless future is distracting us from investing in better ways to get around that we canimplement now. Unlike autonomous vehicles, these alternatives are inexpensive, safe, sustainable, and inclusive.Norton takes the reader on an engaging ride —from the GM Futurama exhibit to “smart” highways and vehicles—toshow how we are once again being sold car dependency in the guise of mobility. He argues that we cannot see what techcompanies are selling us except in the light of history. With driverless cars, we’re promised that new technology willsolve the problems that car dependency gave us—zero crashes! zero emissions! zero congestion! But these are the samepromises that have kept us on a treadmill of car dependency for 80 years.Autonorama is hopeful, advocating for wise, proven, humane mobility that we can invest in now, without waiting fortechnology that is forever just out of reach. Before intelligent systems, data, and technology can serve us, Norton suggests,we need wisdom. Rachel Carson warned us that when we seek technological solutions instead of ecological balance, wecan make our problems worse. With this wisdom, Norton contends, we can meet our mobility needs with what we haveright now.

The danger of a driverless future built on false promises—now with a new preface and afterword and a revised introduction by the author“The foundation has been laid for fully autonomous,” Elon Musk announced in 2016, when he assured the world that Tesla would have a driverless fleet on the road in 2017. “It’s twice as safe as a human, maybe better.” Promises of technofuturistic driving utopias have been ubiquitous wherever tech companies and carmakers meet.In Autonorama, technology historian Peter Norton argues that driverless cars cannot be the safe, sustainable, and inclusive “mobility solutions” that tech companies and automakers are promising us. The salesmanship behind the driverless future is distracting us from investing in better ways to get around that we can implement now. Unlike autonomous vehicles, these alternatives are inexpensive, safe, sustainable, and inclusive.Norton takes the reader on an engaging ride—from the GM Futurama exhibit to “smart” highways and vehicles—to show how we are once again being sold car dependency in the guise of mobility. He argues that we cannot see what tech companies are selling us except in the light of history. With driverless cars, we’re promised that new technology will solve the problems that car dependency gave us: Zero crashes! Zero emissions! Zero congestion! But these are the same promises that have kept us on a treadmill of car dependency for eighty years.Now with a new preface and afterword and a revised introduction by the author, Autonorama is hopeful, advocating for wise, proven, humane mobility that we can invest in now, without waiting for technology that is forever just out of reach. Before intelligent systems, data, and technology can serve us, Norton suggests, we need wisdom. Rachel Carson warned us that when we seek technological solutions instead of ecological balance, we can make our problems worse. With this wisdom, Norton contends, we can meet our mobility needs with what we have right now.