Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions of people. But it is closing - fast. The authors document how four forces - exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the technophilanthropist, and the rising billion - are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic road map for governments, industry, and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism. This book is an antidote to pessimism by tech-entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist Peter H. Examining human need by category - water, food, energy, health care, education, and freedom - Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Stephen Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kah

Informative, but written like a 300 page commercial for his products. Solomon Yakubov Very informative, but tons of Mr. Diamandis' self-promotion holds it back. From the beginning, you hear about Peter's Singularity University, you learn about all of it's founders, etc. It's like, for every bit of useful information that has to do with abundance, you get the equivalent of a commercial, about how this guy keeps founding companies to teach you how to impact the world. I'm sure he's great at what he does, but being reminded over, and over, and over again about how he will teach you. Happy Shiny People Having Fun The world is going to be perfect. Technology will save us. Save the poorest to save the planet. That pretty much summarizes the book. Nothing technical here.But it is refreshing to read a pop-science book on the issues facing humanity where things aren't all gloomy and we aren't all going to be cyborgs. Easy enough to read, so I'd buy the softcover or listen to the book-on-tape version (I bought both). It's worth it alone as an aide to help the despairing messages we are faced with continuously. Overly optimistic Sandra Clark One comment the authors made at the beginning of the book was that the availability of clean drinking water would lower the fertility rates. I haven’t been able to wrap my brain around that one yet.I enjoyed reading about all the technological advances being made, and particularly about the X Prize Foundation offering incentive $$ for all participants, professionals or just ordinary folks. However, aside from the ‘abundance’ of the word “exponentially” throughout t