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Futurology(未来学)explores how organizations can look at uncertainty, risk，and opportunity in a way that produces more value than just marching forward with yesterday’s assumptions. Here are four well-received books about it.
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Abundance
This is a 243-page book by American writers Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler that was published in 2012. The writers refer to the book’s title as being a future where nine billion people have access to clean water, food, energy, health care，education，and everything else that is necessary for a first-world standard of living, thanks to technological developments.
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Superintelligence
Published in 2011, this is a 416-page book by the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom from the University of Oxford. It argues that if machine brains surpass human brains in general intelligence，then this new superintelligence could replace humans as the major life form on Earth. Sufficiently intelligent machines could improve their own abilities faster than human computer scientists, and the outcome could be a disaster for humans.
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Physics of the Future
Published in 2014, this is a 352-page book by the Japanese theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, author of Hyperspace and Physics of the Impossible. In it, Kaku predicts possible future technological developments over the next 100 years. He interviews notable scientists about their fields of research and lays out his vision of coming developments in medicine, computing, artificial intelligence, and energy production.
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The Next Decade
Published in 2010, this is a 400-page book by George Friedman, who addresses the United States’ relationships with other countries and the state of the world in general throughout the 2010s. The book also discusses the paradox(悖论)of "the empire and the republic", and addresses some demographic, technological, and economic issues, primarily those that will affect the 2010s.
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21. What’s the text intended to introduce?
A. Some popular futurology books.
B. Some predictions about the future.
C. Some future technological developments.
D. Some famous writers and their typical works.
22. In which way is Abundance different from the other three?
A. It discusses future resource supplies.
B. It is not finished by one single writer.
C. It is written by a non-native English speaker.
D. It is based on interviews with famous scientists.
23. Which book talks about politics?
A. Superintelligence. B. Abundance.
C. The Next Decade. D. Physics of the Future.
