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A review by sharkycharming
Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner by Po Bronson, Arvind Gupta
5.0
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
This book blew me away. I was a bit anxious before I started it, because "the future of humanity" (from the book's original subtitle) seems so grim and I wasn't sure I could handle the details. The authors don't sugar-coat it -- many of Earth's problems are laid bare in this book. But this book did a lot of assuage my anxiety. It is very readable, not totally over my head, but also not condescending. If you are interested in articles from outlets like Popular Science, Scientific American, National Geographic, and Smithsonian, I think this book would interest you.
So many topics are covered -- medicine, COVID-19, various aspects of climate change, intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, genetics, lab-grown meat, human memory, venture capitalists, AI, cryptocurrency... this list barely scratches the surface. It is exciting to read about all the solutions that people are working on right now, and it made me feel a glimmer of hope that we aren't as doomed as I thought.
If I were teaching a creative writing class, I would have my students read this book to brainstorm ideas for speculative fiction.
This book blew me away. I was a bit anxious before I started it, because "the future of humanity" (from the book's original subtitle) seems so grim and I wasn't sure I could handle the details. The authors don't sugar-coat it -- many of Earth's problems are laid bare in this book. But this book did a lot of assuage my anxiety. It is very readable, not totally over my head, but also not condescending. If you are interested in articles from outlets like Popular Science, Scientific American, National Geographic, and Smithsonian, I think this book would interest you.
So many topics are covered -- medicine, COVID-19, various aspects of climate change, intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, genetics, lab-grown meat, human memory, venture capitalists, AI, cryptocurrency... this list barely scratches the surface. It is exciting to read about all the solutions that people are working on right now, and it made me feel a glimmer of hope that we aren't as doomed as I thought.
If I were teaching a creative writing class, I would have my students read this book to brainstorm ideas for speculative fiction.