Understand the perspectives and arguments of important researchers and writers more quickly, and discuss them together
Below is an overview of worthwhile non-fiction books relating to the focus topics of this educational initiative, with the choice of each book explained in a comment alongside it. The list is organized by the following themes:
Daniel Lieberman; Michael Long (2025): A Hormone Governs the World. How Dopamine Drives Our Behavior - And Determines the Fate of Humanity. Munich: Riva.
Comment
The renowned behavioral scientist Daniel Lieberman explains in this book how our dopamine-based reward system drives our behavior and motivation and makes us susceptible to manipulation.
Noreena Hertz (2021): The Lonely Century. On the Power of Connection in a Fragmented World. Hamburg: Harper Collins.
Comment
The economist Noreena Hertz describes in this book highly worthwhile connections between the rise of virtual substitute gratifications for missing social relationships and the consequences this has for society.
Anna Lembke (2021): Dopamine Nation. Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. London: Headline.
Comment
Professor Anna Lembke is an expert on addictive behavior and explains, using many examples, why we live in a hypermanipulative time of omnipresent temptations, and what we can learn from those affected by addiction.
Joachim Bauer (2023): Loss of Reality. How AI and Virtual Worlds Are Taking Possession of Us and Threatening Humanity. Munich: Heyne.
Comment
The psychiatrist and brain researcher Joachim Bauer explains in this book which common myths accelerate people's escape from reality into ever more appealing virtual worlds, and clears up misconceptions.
Jannis Brühl (2026): Disruption. The Ideology of the Tech Oligarchs and the End of Democracy as We Know It. Munich: DVA.
Comment
Jannis Brühl has reported for years on the manipulation and political strategies of the tech elites from Silicon Valley, and here describes, in a highly illuminating way, how US democracy has already been dismantled as a result.
Marietje Schaake (2024): The Tech Coup. How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Comment
The former EU parliamentarian Marietje Schaake works especially to raise awareness of the gradual shift of power from democratic parliaments to the big tech companies of Silicon Valley.
Kai Strittmatter (2028): The Reinvention of Dictatorship. How China Is Building the Digital Surveillance State and Challenging Us With It. Munich: Piper.
Comment
The award-winning investigative journalist and sinologist Kai Strittmatter reports here, in a highly impressive way, how far state-of-the-art technologies have already been used to test the digital surveillance state.
Yuval N. Harari (2017): Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow. Munich: C.H.Beck.
Comment
The historian Yuval Harari describes in this book, in a highly instructive way, which technological developments and dynamics could abolish democracy and subjugate us as subjects ruled by AI technologies.
