Book Forum # *Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World* (Cambridge University Press, 2008) ##### Watch the Event [Get Flash](http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer) to see this player. Embed this video on your web site: [![ipod](/images/icons/ipod.jpg)](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2008/cbfa-11-06-08.mp3)[Download a Podcast of the Event (MP3)](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2008/cbfa-11-06-08.mp3) Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute. Date and Time November 6, 2008 1 - 3 PM EST Location Auditorium/Foyer Share This Event ##### Featuring Featuring the author, **David D. Friedman**, Professor of Law, Santa Clara University. [ [![Media Name: future-imperfect.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/optimized/public/download-remote-images/object.cato.org/138620933958/future-imperfect.jpg?itok=L_Jk8YEX)](/sites/cato.org/files/download-remote-images/object.cato.org/138620933958/future-imperfect.jpg) Purchase at Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521877326/?tag=catoinstitute-20) David Friedman, author of such books as *The Machinery of Freedom* and *Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life*, now looks at a variety of technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain. Technological changes already begun could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality or the elimination of our species, and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play. “If it can be done, it will be done,” David Friedman has said. “So the interesting thing to me is not what should you stop but how do you adapt.” We do not know which future will arrive, but it is unlikely to be much like the past. It is worth starting to think about it now. [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).