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A review by tomstbr
Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen
3.0
Three stars for being average.
This book is about how much Tyler Cowen likes chess. No but really, chess is a good metaphor for what he is discussing, that is, machine intelligence and how machines will operate side by side with us meat bags.
First, try to understand what he means by average is over. Since WW2 we have lived in a very average world. General equality, everyone getting good pay and sufficient increases. Free or cheap education, housing and medical costs. Now I know some people will argue around semantics like women's rights etc, but the middle class (the average class) has been the majority and been very comfortable since WW2.
This book argues (and you have to go to the end of the book to look up references for what appear to be inferences that Tyler makes the whole way through) that the rise of machines will benefit those with wealth and those with the skills to successfull operate machines. Or at least, use them intuitively (machine brute strength with human creativity). There will be great inequality, but that isn't a necessarily bad thing. You can see examples of this everyday. For example, in the publishing industry there are fewer midlist authors, and those that there are don't do very well. What is left are the author giants with blockbuster books, and hordes upon hordes of self publishers making using of cheap technology to carve out a niche and a few nickels.
The book is little more than an elongated blog post, but it's well put together and has plenty of examples. He's a very entertaining and persuasive writer. The main take away is to educate yourself in technology AND other skillsets such as sales, take on the belief of meritocracy and willpower, and most likely be ready to deal with being subpar. 10% of the world will be winners, everyone else will get by.
This book is about how much Tyler Cowen likes chess. No but really, chess is a good metaphor for what he is discussing, that is, machine intelligence and how machines will operate side by side with us meat bags.
First, try to understand what he means by average is over. Since WW2 we have lived in a very average world. General equality, everyone getting good pay and sufficient increases. Free or cheap education, housing and medical costs. Now I know some people will argue around semantics like women's rights etc, but the middle class (the average class) has been the majority and been very comfortable since WW2.
This book argues (and you have to go to the end of the book to look up references for what appear to be inferences that Tyler makes the whole way through) that the rise of machines will benefit those with wealth and those with the skills to successfull operate machines. Or at least, use them intuitively (machine brute strength with human creativity). There will be great inequality, but that isn't a necessarily bad thing. You can see examples of this everyday. For example, in the publishing industry there are fewer midlist authors, and those that there are don't do very well. What is left are the author giants with blockbuster books, and hordes upon hordes of self publishers making using of cheap technology to carve out a niche and a few nickels.
The book is little more than an elongated blog post, but it's well put together and has plenty of examples. He's a very entertaining and persuasive writer. The main take away is to educate yourself in technology AND other skillsets such as sales, take on the belief of meritocracy and willpower, and most likely be ready to deal with being subpar. 10% of the world will be winners, everyone else will get by.