"How would it be if what we take for human advance were simply a technological progress which literally leaves us out of its equations? What if Progress is not humanity striking out bravely towards the future, but an ultimately destructive force?" "In a remarkable tour d'horizon, Paul Virilio paints a bleak picture of current scientific, cultural, social and political values. Art has succumbed to the techniques of advertising, while in politics the battle for hearts and minds has become a mere 'synchronization of opinion', and TV ratings have triumphed over universal suffrage. The events of September 11 reflect both the manipulation of a global sub-proletariat and the delusions of an elite of rich students and technicians who resemble nothing so much as the 'suicidal members of the Heaven's Gate cybersect'. And, in this post-humanist dystopia, we are morally rudderless before the threat of biological manipulations as yet undreamt-of."--Jacket.