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