Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials - Malcolm Harris

A brilliant analysis by a Millennial of the economic and social forces at work over the past twenty years or so that created the environment which has shaped his generation's culture and outlook.
A very pointed examination of the role of corporate culture, economic individualism, and the every-man-for-himself  ethos of the ruling oligarchy of the U.S. in shaping the stressful, isolated and alienated space we now occupy.
The book is well-divided into sections on various important shaping influences, starting with the mania around homework, moving through university, changes in the work environment, decline of social support networks, identity politics, pills and so on.

Not a hopeful book.  At best 50/50 - he sees either fascism or rejection/revolution as the two alternate paths...

Worth rereading as there is a lot to absorb.

Utopia for Realists - Rutger Bregman

This book opens with a set of surprising statistics that make you realize how much the world has changed in a positive way since 1900 - deaths from all causes are way down, wars are less common, major infectious diseases are disappearing, extreme poverty is down, hunger is down, literacy is up.  Such a contrast to the picture you get reading the daily news media.
His central argument is how we need to rethink our relationship to work and income in this age of plenty, especially as machines become a progressively more productive part of our economy.  One idea is that the time has come for a guaranteed minimum income for everyone - this includes a look at two surprising experiments with this idea back in the 60s in the US (associated with Nixon!) and Canada.  The other idea is that we need to look beyond work to give meaning and purpose to our lives - the kind of socially positive activities that can be engaged in when work doesn't eat up all your time.
There are lots of other threads attached to this central idea - it is a rather dense book.  Worth a reread.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

A very interesting look at some of the possible important trends emerging as a result of technological change largely.  A look at how human potential is shifting as technology changes.
Some main themes:

- human immortality; the possibility of drastically increasing the human life span

- the slow, step-by-step ceding of control of decisions to technology (smartphones), big data and AI; what happens if (when?) AI begins to set its own priorities

- a brutal look at how humans have manipulated biology to produce the modern meat factory;  the possibility that intelligent computers could come to treat humans in a similar fashion

- the importance of the stories we tell in the evolution of humans and society

- threats to liberalism as humans become less necessary as a work force

- the concept of living beings as algorithms; problems and issues with this idea

A brief summary.  A very dense book.  Worth rereading.