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A review by aniket_shevade
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Steven Kotler, Peter H. Diamandis
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.