Scan barcode
sdscattergood's review
4.0
A much needed agreement in the face of all the doomsayers, negative news, and general hysteria about humanity's future. Abundance does a wonderful job explaining how small changes can make the difference not for just a single life, but for an entire species.
thehappybooker's review
2.0
There are a few emerging technologies that have mind-boggling potential to change our lives, among them nanotechnology and nano-manufacturing, gene therapy, 3D printing, innovations in energy production and storage, and whole economies based on symbolic exchange without the intervention of a centralized bank (think what an international exchange of a next-gen Bitcoin system could do panic the fatcats at Citigroup). Fantastic possibilities.
This book didn't intrigue me, didn't inspire me, didn't give me nearly the jolt of hope/fear that Cory Doctorow's novels do. Doctorow talks about these disruptive changes bubbling up from the creative energies of everyday, working people. Diamandis thinks that the robber barons who have shown no indication that they care about humans outside their own circle will suddenly get the urge to fund innovation for the good of all. I'll charitably call that unlikely.
Agreed - humans have squandered resources but can reorganize, reprioritize, and redistribute the basic goods of life. Disagree - humans, as a species, have the will to change our ways before much, much pain forces us to readjust our expectations and commit effort and treasure toward a truly sustainable future.
And another thing! My opinions about the future are based on observation and analysis, not on lazy pessimism, as this author seems to assert. I'll thank him to cast his aspersions elsewhere.
I disagree with him that all we need is optimism and the solutions will appear. We have lots of possible solutions and the future, after some pretty awful upheaval, will be relatively comfortable for a greater percentage of humanity than now. However, between now and then lies a revolution. I'm hoping for a gradual, lawful shift of cultural values toward an Age of Aquarius, but in that hope I may be far too optimistic.
This book didn't intrigue me, didn't inspire me, didn't give me nearly the jolt of hope/fear that Cory Doctorow's novels do. Doctorow talks about these disruptive changes bubbling up from the creative energies of everyday, working people. Diamandis thinks that the robber barons who have shown no indication that they care about humans outside their own circle will suddenly get the urge to fund innovation for the good of all. I'll charitably call that unlikely.
Agreed - humans have squandered resources but can reorganize, reprioritize, and redistribute the basic goods of life. Disagree - humans, as a species, have the will to change our ways before much, much pain forces us to readjust our expectations and commit effort and treasure toward a truly sustainable future.
And another thing! My opinions about the future are based on observation and analysis, not on lazy pessimism, as this author seems to assert. I'll thank him to cast his aspersions elsewhere.
I disagree with him that all we need is optimism and the solutions will appear. We have lots of possible solutions and the future, after some pretty awful upheaval, will be relatively comfortable for a greater percentage of humanity than now. However, between now and then lies a revolution. I'm hoping for a gradual, lawful shift of cultural values toward an Age of Aquarius, but in that hope I may be far too optimistic.
jamieterv's review against another edition
fast-paced
2.5
The start of the book is interesting and has great info and ideas about how globally we can improve our circumstances by improving others we are all interconnected. But the back half is mostly a love letter to Silicon Valley and just an opinion piece on how tech will save us all.
antidietleah's review
3.0
I thought this was pretty fascinating and a good read for anybody interested in socioeconomics, education, technology advancements, and people generally interested in "saving the world". It did tend to drone on a bit for me as I'm not particularly passionate about this topics. I'd recommend the audio version for most people over the book to help overcome a bit of that. My boss is obsessed with this book and gives it to a lot of our clients and associates so I thought it was a good idea for me to know what the appeal is.
mjfmjfmjf's review
5.0
A fantastic read - and bizarre to be reading something so incredibly optimistic. Makes me think that I too should be trying to change the world - or perhaps get something else to drink. But seriously, well written with good ideas and charts and statistics.
aniket_shevade's review
4.0
An optimist story always helps in the middle of a pandemic, and the authors have a done an excellent job at convincing the reader that a small group of motivated, creative people can change the world and innovate our way into a future of abundance. This book comprises stories of many initiatives that have been taken around the world to solve the grand challenges we are facing in providing our growing population with food, water, energy, healthcare, education and even freedom.
This book is almost a decade old. It's commendable to see many of the innovation predicted in the book coming real according to the timeline mentioned.
Things I learnt:
1. Prosperity is time saved.
2. Individuals are getting empowered with the democratisation of knowledge, tools and network thus accelerating innovation.
3. many technologies like computational power, photovoltaic cells, AI, IoT etc. are getting better at an exponential rate. This growth has a lot of implications for achieving abundance.
4. Innovation competition is a great way to incentivise better solutions for global challenges.
5. There were countless inspiring stories of problem-solvers and their projects mentioned in the book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
Some criticism:
Though technology plays a vital role in solving global challenges, many global challenges require perhaps a more significant contribution from socio-political changes through policymaking or involvement of communities. This point was touched upon in the book through an example of women from a particular place in Africa vandalising water pipelines as they preferred spending a few hours to fetch water because it was the only time where they would feel free, away from domestic abuse. The book should have talked more about the role of governments or local authorities in solving problems.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation is also another global grand challenge which will require collaboration between governments. The problem can not be just addressed through technology. As my ecology professor told us that only 10% of ecological problems need a technical solution, 90% require a social solution.
This book is almost a decade old. It's commendable to see many of the innovation predicted in the book coming real according to the timeline mentioned.
Things I learnt:
1. Prosperity is time saved.
2. Individuals are getting empowered with the democratisation of knowledge, tools and network thus accelerating innovation.
3. many technologies like computational power, photovoltaic cells, AI, IoT etc. are getting better at an exponential rate. This growth has a lot of implications for achieving abundance.
4. Innovation competition is a great way to incentivise better solutions for global challenges.
5. There were countless inspiring stories of problem-solvers and their projects mentioned in the book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
Some criticism:
Though technology plays a vital role in solving global challenges, many global challenges require perhaps a more significant contribution from socio-political changes through policymaking or involvement of communities. This point was touched upon in the book through an example of women from a particular place in Africa vandalising water pipelines as they preferred spending a few hours to fetch water because it was the only time where they would feel free, away from domestic abuse. The book should have talked more about the role of governments or local authorities in solving problems.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation is also another global grand challenge which will require collaboration between governments. The problem can not be just addressed through technology. As my ecology professor told us that only 10% of ecological problems need a technical solution, 90% require a social solution.
cstack's review
3.0
This book was published in 2012 but I read it 2018, so I got to look up how a lot of his predictions panned out. And a lot of them did not turn out well. For example, the sustainable city Masdar mentioned near the beginning still only has grad students living in it. The energy company Aquion is bankrupt. I realize part of his argument is that we should be trying lots of stuff and failing at most of it, but you don't necessarily take that to heart when you're reading about all these amazing technologies.
On the other hand, this book legitimately changed my view on water scarcity. Aluminum used to be super expensive, but it's the third most common element in Earth's crust. Once we figured out a cheap way to extract it, it became disposable. 97% of water on earth is salt water. If we can make desalination cheap, water scarcity means a lot less. Same goes for electricity. More solar energy reaches the earth than we'll ever need, if we can only utilize it cheaply.
On the other hand, this book legitimately changed my view on water scarcity. Aluminum used to be super expensive, but it's the third most common element in Earth's crust. Once we figured out a cheap way to extract it, it became disposable. 97% of water on earth is salt water. If we can make desalination cheap, water scarcity means a lot less. Same goes for electricity. More solar energy reaches the earth than we'll ever need, if we can only utilize it cheaply.
dunguyen's review
5.0
Abundance: The future is better than you think by Peter H. Diamandis is a book about technology's role in creating a better future. Diamandis is better known as the founder of the X PRIZE foundation which would award $10 million to whoever could create a private passenger carrying spaceship.
In Abundance, Diamandis sets out the vision of every person on Earth having abundance which in his eyes means food, water and shelter, abundant energy, ubiquitous communication and information, freedom and health. Through each of these topics, he looks into the current technologies which is at an experimental stage and could achieve the breakthrough to create abundance for each of these subjects.
I really like this book. Not only because of the breadth of it and the different technologies mentioned but because it is so positive it its outlook. Diamandis explains how humans think linearly, if something goes well, we assume it will be doubly as good next year, and three times as good the year afterwards. But the world often moves exponentially which is his argument to how this is possible. Even if there might be some flaws in this thinking (Earth has limited resources for example, how can exponential growth ever go on forever before the resources run out?), it's refreshing to read something that is unabashedly optimistic for once.
Lastly, one of the last chapters is about his inspiration of the X PRIZE Foundation and the power of incentive prizes. This was for me an extremely interesting chapter and really inspiring as well.
I would highly recommend this book, especially if you are feeling a bit climate-depressed (as in depressed about climate change) or lament the state of the world. This optimistic book can provide the impetus to go and change the world or at least believe that change is possible.
In Abundance, Diamandis sets out the vision of every person on Earth having abundance which in his eyes means food, water and shelter, abundant energy, ubiquitous communication and information, freedom and health. Through each of these topics, he looks into the current technologies which is at an experimental stage and could achieve the breakthrough to create abundance for each of these subjects.
I really like this book. Not only because of the breadth of it and the different technologies mentioned but because it is so positive it its outlook. Diamandis explains how humans think linearly, if something goes well, we assume it will be doubly as good next year, and three times as good the year afterwards. But the world often moves exponentially which is his argument to how this is possible. Even if there might be some flaws in this thinking (Earth has limited resources for example, how can exponential growth ever go on forever before the resources run out?), it's refreshing to read something that is unabashedly optimistic for once.
Lastly, one of the last chapters is about his inspiration of the X PRIZE Foundation and the power of incentive prizes. This was for me an extremely interesting chapter and really inspiring as well.
I would highly recommend this book, especially if you are feeling a bit climate-depressed (as in depressed about climate change) or lament the state of the world. This optimistic book can provide the impetus to go and change the world or at least believe that change is possible.
iggymcmuffin's review
1.0
In which the author argues that technophilanthropists, inventors, and entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezo will save the word by doing what we’re already doing by relying almost exclusively on the testimony of those same technophilanthropists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Also selling stuff the world’s poorest billion. And almost every real world example of abundance creation which author cited has turned out to be a pipe dream. One example was a company town in Middle East (Masdar City: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-14/the-reality-of-abu-dhabi-s-unfinished-utopia) that was supposed to be the green carbon neutral city of the future. The project was proposed and never went anywhere. Another example is Theranos (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020116/theranos-fallen-unicorn.asp), which has turned out to be a complete fraud.
I get that there’s a market for books saying everything is fine, keep the status quo... but ugh.
I get that there’s a market for books saying everything is fine, keep the status quo... but ugh.