Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meet it.
We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.
Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and …
Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meet it.
We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.
Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.
Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.
I have almost been persuaded by the author that the future is promising. But it's an illusion to believe that the advances of technologies alone would be able to save humanity. You cannot save the poor people by just giving them plenty of fresh water and by selling them cheap phones. These ideas are just rich people's wishful thinking. To have a better life for those poor people, the whole structure of their society has to be changed.
The global climate is changing and the ice caps are melting. Civil liberties are eroding. Romney is rising in the polls.
There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about the state of the world. If you are inclined that way, this book is a useful corrective.
I can't say that a whole lot of this book was new to me, since I follow many of these topics already. He brings in the exponential growth curves that Ray Kurzweil has popularized (think Moore's Law, but applied to a lot more than just transistors on silicon). And a key concept he brings in is that energy is very close to being abundant, cheap, and clean. We are within just a few years of solar voltaic electricity being cheaper than what you are buying right now from your utility. As Dana Blankenhorn likes to say "There is no energy shortage. The …
The global climate is changing and the ice caps are melting. Civil liberties are eroding. Romney is rising in the polls.
There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about the state of the world. If you are inclined that way, this book is a useful corrective.
I can't say that a whole lot of this book was new to me, since I follow many of these topics already. He brings in the exponential growth curves that Ray Kurzweil has popularized (think Moore's Law, but applied to a lot more than just transistors on silicon). And a key concept he brings in is that energy is very close to being abundant, cheap, and clean. We are within just a few years of solar voltaic electricity being cheaper than what you are buying right now from your utility. As Dana Blankenhorn likes to say "There is no energy shortage. The sun shines, the wind blows, the tides roll, we live on a molten rock." This one factor alone is going to make for radical change soon.
Another factor he points to is what he calls "the rising billions". People themselves are a resource, and we are creating the technology to empower them without even intending to do so. Even the poor now have access to the Internet through cell phones. So the future is going to be radically different.
