I believe I’m a little late to the party, but I still wanted to offer my thoughts and casually review Ev Bogue’s latest book Augmented Humanity.

“I am a cyborg. I have been from the start… and there’s a good chance that you are one too.”

With these words, Ev Bogue begins this amazing book. To some people, this sentence can be a little intimidating. The idea of being a “cyborg” causes many people to think about implanted hardware or The Terminator. No need to be afraid. Augmented Humanity talks about how technology is becoming more intertwined with our everyday lives, and how harnessing the power of this technology can liberate you.

In determining how to write this review, I made the decision to simply give you a bunch of quotes from the book and therefore illustrate Ev Bogue’s primary propositions in Augmented Humanity:

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“The Net wired us to be it, and we wired it to be us. The Net is more human than we ever imagined, and we are far more Net than we were ever intended to be.”

“In a very short time, we will not have to imagine what the Internet looks like. It will be all around us, on every sidewalk, in every tree, in every home. We will interface with the Net as if it was always here, walking side-by-side amongst us.”

Bogue speaks of the relationship between humans and technology right from the start.

“Our only boundaries are the filters we set, and these filters need to get higher and higher as we embrace the technologies. We can only take in so much information. Just because we can know everything, doesn’t mean we should know it all right now. Trinity only downloaded the helicopter flight manual when she needed it, not the entire Internet all at once.”

Part of mindful technology use involves filtering out the “noise” and getting straight to deeper interaction and content. Cutting through the “Likes” on Facebook and diving into deeper work.

“Meeting can now become explosions of high-bandwidth knowledge, the kind that cannot traverse the Net (yet.) The days of ‘so, what do you do?’ are over. People with a command of mental cybernetics never ask about the weather. We’re so beyond small talk by the time we finally meet each other.”

Ultimately, F2F (face-to-face) interaction is still the best way to communicate and transmit information. The Net is able to help facilitate more productive F2F meetings.

“We now have two selves. One is here, in the physical world, and then there is us in the digital reality that we’ve created. We are creating this self with every interaction on the web. This self will live forever, it exists 24/7.”

“The reality is that the Internet wants us to be immortal. It wants our ideas, our forms, our connections with each other to live on for eternity. This isn’t a choice, it’s the truth.”

“The deeper—almost secret—nature of augmented humanity is that eventually we’ll be able to turn off the screens. Some have already.”

The Net immortalizes you inside of the machine. It creates a version of you that travels through space and time interacting, creating, and consuming. Eventually, technology will be advanced enough that our “second selves” will be able to support and sustain us without us even having to get on the machine.

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This review is short, and deliberately so, but I feel it gives a good snapshot of what the book has to offer. This has been one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in quite some time. Even though I was familiar with some of the concepts in this book, Ev Bogue has a refreshing and intriguing angle which was equal parts gripping, and challenging.

You need this book if you are interested in…

- Harnessing the power of technology
- Becoming who you are
- Building better relationships
- Understanding where society is headed
- Being ridiculously awesome
- Jumping on a plane anytime without having to worry
- Enjoying life
- Understanding minimalism
- Writing

Click here if you want to go ahead and purchase Augmented Humanity now.

If anything in this review compelled or interested you, then I can safely guarantee that this book will not fail to disappoint.

Bravo Ev. Extremely privileged to access this content.

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Preview the first 25 pages:

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The links in this article are affiliate links. That means that if you purchase the book using one of these links, I will receive a small commission from the sale. The purchase will benefit Ev in his work and also help support me in my work. Thanks.