Authors Peter H. Diamandis and Steve Kotler have created
just about the perfect handbook when it comes to envisioning a technically
advanced, democratic and thriving society. Written in 2012, this book is still
an important read for anyone who’s interested in a technical future where
humanity finally rises above the mire it has been tethered to for millennia.
Much can be said about the book, but there are two aspects
that put Abundance at the top of my recommended reading list. First, Diamandis
starts out by addressing the most obvious elephant in the room when it comes to
hindering progress: our Cognitive Biases. We tend to be negative creatures,
programmed from birth to fear our world and each other. Scarcity is driven into
our minds, from supply-side economics to original sin. The media focuses on bad
news because that’s what the human mind responds to. While we claim to desire
happiness and peace, most people simply don’t believe that they, or anyone
else, deserve it.
Diamandis goes straight to the heart of the matter by
addressing this flaw, and why it holds us back. The reason technology hasn’t
lived up to its promise is because we’ve been thwarting progress with our
negativity. In order to free technology and allow it to evolve, we too must
free our own minds and evolve from our reptilian, amygdala driven patterns, to
higher order thinking and use of the frontal lobes of our brains. This is not a
simple task, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing more important
than for us to realize that life is actually much better than it’s ever been
and that the future will serve us even more when we trust in the abundance of
both the Earth and our capabilities.
Basically we need to rewire our brains. We’re still heavily
relying on a hardware platform designed to keep us safe from wild animals,
weather and other threats our ancient ancestors had to deal with. As Diamandis
writes,
“…our early warning system evolved in an era of immediacy, when threats
were of the tiger-in-the-bush variety. Things have changed. Many of today’s dangers
are probabilistic—the economy might nose-dive, there could be a terrorist
attack—and the amygdala can’t tell the difference. Worse, the system is also
designed not to shut off until the potential danger has vanished completely,
but probabilistic dangers never vanish completely.”
Physically our brains have grown in size, particularly in
the frontal lobe, since the days of the caveman. We have an entire neurology we
can embrace, and with it, a totally different perspective of life. Essentially
we’ve evolved the hardware to be capable of seeing the systems before us and
know that scarcity is something we can overcome, if we chose to believe in it.
There’s really no other way.
As long as we remain
stuck in the endless negative threat loop, our technology will be held hostage
by fearful minds.
Diamandis goes on to point out,
“For abundance, all this carries a triple penalty. First, it’s hard to
be optimistic, because the brain’s filtering architecture is pessimistic by
design. Second, good news is drowned out, because it’s in the media’s best
interest to overemphasize the bad. Third, scientists have discovered an even
bigger cost: it’s not just that these survival instincts make us believe that
the hold we’re in is too big to climb out of, but they also limit our desire to
climb out of that hole.”
What follows after this realization is an attempt by the
authors to show your logical brain, that part of you that thinks beyond threat,
why you can believe in a better future, using both science and personal stories
to prove their point. It’s a brilliant exercise in cheerleading for their
cause: an abundant future for all Earth’s citizens.
The second reason I recommend this book is because of its
treatment of the BOP, or the over four billion people on our planet who live at
the Bottom of The Pyramid, on less than $2 a day. Imagine it, four billion of
us live in extreme poverty. Many of us spin our wheels trying to figure out how
to get our resources to this group. This book actually gives us a blueprint
that doesn’t merely suggest we share our resources with these folks, rather
that we make the resources of the Earth and technology available to them in a
variety of ways. From Technophilanthropists to the effects of putting cheap
Smartphones in the pockets of villagers in West Africa, the possibilities to
liberate half the world from poverty are literally in the palm of our hands.
For example, we in the west often look at our Smartphones as
luxuries, but to someone in the BOP, it’s a way to share goods with others,
discover information about clean water sources, and inform the world when
violence erupts in the middle of the night. As they come online, they become a
part of the global economy, which changes everything.
Not enough is written about the BOP as a group of consumers.
Recipients of charity, yes. But as the old saying goes, “You can give a man a
fish, but better to teach him how to fish,” the same holds true for the BOP and
technology. This is the market place where solar paneled eco-friendly housing
and inexpensive water filtration systems will come to be. Food distribution and
agriculture as we know it will dramatically change when we invest in the BOP,
which in turn will teach us how to manage the world when 9 billion of us roam
the streets.
Abundance—The Future is Better Than You Think was a great read,
and belongs on home bookshelves everywhere. Next on my reading list, BOLD,
the authors how-to-guide follow up. If anyone can inspire us to make a
difference, it’s Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler.
