This is a near 400 page book that is a must read, in my opinion, for every person. Young or old. One of the better books which takes a stab at trying to make sense of what is going on in the world. Not that the conclusions are going to be any less scary. But it frames all the changes in the world going on in a thoughtful framework.

Of the various systems – fascism, communism and liberalism, only the last had survived. First one died after Second World War. Second died with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But liberalism is also dying now. Ecological collapse and technological disruption (that brought globalization) has out sped liberalism. We know the system is not working but we do not know what the new system will be. Across the whole world, we are seeing this struggle against liberalism. While different people/country are taking different approaches all are agreed on good international relations and are equally against immigration.

The scariest prediction the author makes is that technology will concentrate wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer that will create massive new “useless” class. This will lead to social and political upheavals the likes of which we have never seen before.

We are looking at an era where technology changes will need people to continuously retool themselves. In theory, it sounds good. In practice, that is impossible. The emotional cost of realizing one does not have a job and skills are useless and needs to start re-learning… over and over again will give rise to mental issues that is going to throw the society into turmoils it has not seen.

The author gets into another controversial topic. It starts with the theory that democracy is a superior system because it gives everybody a choice to rationally decide what is best for them. And then goes to prove that the “rational” part is overblown. We are not rational at all and certainly most of us are not knowledgeable enough to know what is best for us. Richard Dawkins – the famous evolutionist – when asked about Brexit had asked the interviewer a head scratcher – “why are you asking me to vote? I am not an economist. I am not an expert on this. I want experts to tell me what is good for me.”. In the end, the author says, we vote the way we “feel” not what we “know” to be best for us.

One observation I am personally very aligned with the author is the fallacy in believing in what the media says. I get into regular debates with the TikTok generation on this. Media, as the author points out is not about truth. It is about getting your attention. Getting your eyeballs is what makes them money. The data they gather on you when you are paying attention to what they are saying is what is then sold to advertisers and others. You would do the same if owned a media channel (or were an influencer or had your podcast) – provided you wanted to make money off it.

The big question about AI and super accelerated technology is this… who gets to own “Big Data”? The author suggests both Big Tech and Government are extremely bad choices. Government slightly more so.

And this only concludes the first part of the five part book. If this has intrigued you, you will love the rest of the book too.