In Abundance: The Future is Better
Than You Think, Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler discuss what abundance
means and how we have moved from a linear to an exponential society. Linear growth is when growth increases
by the same rate each time whereas exponential growth increases at an expanding
rate. The authors claim that over
the past 150,000 years humans have evolved in a world that was “local and
linear,” but today we are experiencing an environment that is “global and
exponential.” In the past, change
was extremely slow, but now with the wealth of information available we have
emerged into a fast growing society.
Because this new pace of change is new to us, our brains have difficulty
comprehending it. We also fall
prey to the “hype cycle” which is that we have inflated expectations of a new
technology and are disappointed when the product doesn’t live up to the
excitement. Therefore, we
“literally have a blind spot for technological possibilities underlying our
vision of abundance” (35). The
authors believe that technology can make the once scarce now abundant. For example, Masdar City sits on the Persian
gulf which is entirely salt water.
If we could create technology for desalination, we would have plenty of
water to combat the problem of water scarcity. Few sources are truly scarce, but mainly inaccessible. Diamandis and Kotler think that we now
actually have the ability for abundance due to three new forces. The first is the newfound power of the
do-it-yourself innovators. The
second is using wealth to solve problems with the rise of philanthropy. The third is transforming the “poorest
of the poor” into an emerging market force. In terms of poverty, abundance is “not providing all with a
life of luxury, but a life of possibility” (13), which can now be possible. We now have the ability to do things we
don’t even understand by utilizing the “collective brain.” There are eight fields thought to be
growing exponentially: biotechnology, computational systems, networks and
sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing, medicine,
and nanotechnology (57). Ray
Kurzweil stated that progress and technology are exponential. He believes we are at a crucial point,
the “knee of the curve,” where exponential growth becomes explosive and notes
that the rate of exponential growth is growing exponentially. The ability to sustain future
generations and solve today’s global problems are right at our fingertips.