The movie everyone should have been waiting to see….on your computer before at the cinemas.
In an unusual move Freakonomics the Movie is coming to iTunes first on September 3rd and then to a theater on October 1.
Since I read this book (review)
Tags: SUPERFreakonomics, Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt, Economics, datasets, innovation, energy, population, poverty, technology, Sudir Venkatesh, terrorist, trends
I was looking forward to George Friedman‘s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. I found this to be a very compelling read due to the simple nature that predictions in general are always horribly incorrect.
Friedman’s background provides a true global, military view of the world’s future and his role at Stratfor, a global intelligence service provides direction to his book.
Yet I could not help but think twice about some of the aspects of his work. I agree with his points that in the future countries including Poland can become a superpower, but at the same time to predict in 40 years America will be at war with Mexico after fighting Japan and Turkey are a bit…on the surface, a stretch.
For the strangest reason Friedman seems to be able to tie some of his predication today. Following the fall of the USSR and the Orange Revolution not many would predict that Ukraine and Russia would sign a joint agreement in April 2010 to keep Russian Naval forces in their former communist republic in Sevastopol.
At the same time his prediction of Poland’s coming success as a global power could not have taken into account the April 2010 tragedy in Katyn. I do not believe this will stop Poland from gaining power in the future, but it appears to be slowing down (potentially) the process by a decade.
I do feel the first half of the book hold chapters that are solid and well written:
Chapter 1: The Dawn of the American Age
Chapter 2: Earthquake: The US – Jihadist War
Chapter 3: Population, Computers and Culture Wars
Chapter 4: The New Fault Lines
Chapter 5: China 2020: The Paper Tiger
However Chapters 6 – 13 layout the world order from 2020 to 2080. Again the further out the more difficult to predict IMHO. Interesting reading for sure since most today would never foresee Mexico winning a war against America.
Tags: The Next 100 years, George Friedman, 21st Century, America, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, future, reading, trends
Al Gore’s latest book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis should be considered by anyone interested in learning how the world can conserve resources with next generation technologies to reduce the globe’s carbon footprint.
Its easy to think this book is a political sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. That would be a mistake. The book has set off all the political rhetoric one would expect.
I found Chapter 11: Population rather interesting and worth the read alone. Clearly we live in a world that is experiencing a sustained population boom in China and India.
This brings ultra-large scale social responsibility as well. The impact of population on energy and food is obviously critical but the underlying issue on this still taboo subject must be moved to the forefront.
How will China and India care, feed and shelter their children? More importantly how can green fuels be utilized in favor of coal and other cheap, outdated solutions? There are options.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have released SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance a long awaited follow up to their hit Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
If you enjoyed Freakonomics (my review here) or even Sudir Venkatesh‘s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the runaway hit from chapter three, then you will enjoy SuperFreakonomics.
I recall learning the book would be released in late 2009 but as soon as I saw it on the shelf I picked up a copy and began reading that night. They have done another great job exploring new datasets. Most readers will enjoy reading the data underlying a murder in New York of a woman in-front of 38 witnesses. Nobody called the police for help. They explore what this says about society. The book is more of the same: exploring the hidden side of everything.
From comparing street prostitution to a department store Santa to why suicide bombers should buy life insurance, Levitt and Dubner succeed in sharing unique datasets and telling a compelling story. How did television empower women in India? On the surface it may sound strange until you consider how they tell the story.
They provide inspiration as well. Their segment ‘The garden hose to the sky’ about global warming sounds funny on the surface until they share the idea is from Microsoft’s former technology director. He is the principal owner in a scientific research firm that is developing tools to cool the earth. It gets more interesting when you learn Bill Gates is an investor in the company.
Most recognize Fareed Zakaria from his CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS. His book The Post-American World is an enjoyable read. The bottom line: The US is not falling behind but rather (quite simply) the world is catching up. Some amazing technologies are lifting the citizens of the poorest third world countries.
The biggest elephant called out in his book is America’s educational system. It needs a much required re-boot in order to compete against tomorrow’s globalized students who have access to free, powerful computing tools including Linux, or new technology like water pumps in Africa. He references Tom Friedman‘s The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century which I found to be a great read as well.
Zakaria is able to simply convey that America remains the top country for innovation, technology and intellectual property but India and China are catching up fast by introducing more of their citizens to the global economy. India is first only in population growth while their level of poverty slowly dropped.
While true to some extent the reader may be surprised to see the detail about how splintered Al-Qaeda has become. In Iraq for example the aim of this terrorist group has moved from targeting American and Israel to fighting other Muslim warlords and religious groups for control of Al-Qaeda’s future.
It should be noted Zakaria also addresses the issues of global climante and energy. But to again point to Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America not a lot of new ideas or information.
Overall Zakaria’s book is a gentle wake up call for America and is much smoother on the American reader than Mark Steyn’s America Alone. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan while critical, reveals Al-Qaeda‘s struggle since 9/11 to deliver any significant violence on American soil. Why? Zakaria’s position is that Bin Laden has been so tightly curtailed, his organization still under a microscope has evolved into a communications company and is no longer a true terrorist organization.