Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Peter H. Diamandis,

Steven Kotler (Goodreads Author)

4.10 · Rating details · 9,973 ratings · 973 reviews

Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meet it.

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies a ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published February 21st 2012 by Free Press

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Abundance, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

books from TED

92 books — 371 voters

The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson

Automation & Technological Unemployment

65 books — 63 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.10 ·

Rating details

· 9,973 ratings · 973 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Jul 10, 2012 Todd Martin rated it it was ok

Shelves: environment-science

In Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, author and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis makes his case that the standard of living of the bulk of the world’s population can be raised to a level in which everyone’s basic needs are met within the next twenty-five years. How is this to be done you might ask given the many seemingly intractable problems that are present around the globe today? …. SCIENCE, the private sector and the largesse of billionaires!!

This might seem far-fetched, but yo In Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, author and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis makes his case that the standard of living of the bulk of the world’s population can be raised to a level in which everyone’s basic needs are met within the next twenty-five years. How is this to be done you might ask given the many seemingly intractable problems that are present around the globe today? …. SCIENCE, the private sector and the largesse of billionaires!!

This might seem far-fetched, but you don’t have to look very far into the past for other visionaries whose dreams have come true. In the 1940s and 50s there were crazy prophets who envisioned a future of jet packs, hover cars, transporters, ray guns, robot servants, food pills, 4-hour workweeks, space elevators, cryogenic freezers that would bring us back from the dead, colonies on the moon, mars and in our oceans and an abundance of shiny unisex jumpsuits. In the post WWII years, these individuals were viewed as seers, eccentrics, and dreamers with unrealistic expectations, and yet, look at us now … with … uh … exactly none of that stuff. Ok, it’s a bit odd that they didn’t get any of it right and that they failed to anticipate the negative aspects of technology such as nuclear waste, massive species extinction, global warming, thalidomide, the formation of the ozone hole, toxic waste, fishery die-off and oceanic dead zones.

But that’s all in the past, and now we have a fresh breed of Utopians who portend to usher in a new era of prosperity through chemistry. Could they be right this time? Well … it’s a nice thought, but no one really knows. It’s not possible to predict the future and the road is littered with the failed attempts of those who have tried. Data shows that prosperity is rising in most third world countries and that this rise is driven in large part by new technologies (in particular computers and the internet). Barring some catastrophe (such as the worst case predictions of global climate models) it’s reasonable to assume that this trend will continue in the near term. In the long term, one can’t ignore the fact that rising prosperity also leads to increased consumption, environmental degradation and pollution.

I didn’t feel like the book provided a convincing argument, instead, the bulk of the text simply consists of a survey of some of the technologies that are presently under development and a description of the purportedly benign global benefits that they will bring … that is, assuming that they wind up being technologically viable, scalable, cost effective and adopted into broad public use (a huge assumption, given that most technologies fail to satisfy these requirements).

Unfortunately, there are many claims that Diamandis’ makes that I found to be flawed (here are but a few):
1. Diamandis claims that cell phones reduce consumption because they obviate the need for such thing as TVs , stereos, flashlights, tools, video games, computers and home entertainment systems. How many people own not just all of these items but multiple versions of each? Lots. Cell phones are just another consumer item that people purchase on top of many other consumer items.
2. He repeatedly uses the term “sustainable growth” a phrase which is, at best, meaningless and at worst a disingenuous marketing ploy. The term is most often used as a green veneer to allay the guilt of hyper-active consumers. More to the point though, the U.S. EPA stated in a 2007 report: “While much discussion and effort has gone into sustainability indicators, none of the resulting systems clearly tells us whether our society is sustainable.” In other words … nobody even knows what the term means or how to measure it. The phrase represents little more than empty rhetoric.
3. Diamandis is enamored of the robber barons (which is weird on its face … given the fact that they were, you know … first and foremost “robbers”) and believes their philanthropy will save the planet (Diamandis falls into this category and clearly likes to thinks of himself in heroic terms). Here’s the thing though, robber barons and philanthropists have been around as long as civilization has existed. Ignoring the oppression they engender for the moment, they've had more than enough time to solve the world's problems and have not come close to doing so.
4. Along with the above, he believes the private sector will offer all the solutions, ignoring any role of government. That’s fine, but completely ignores the fact that all of the fundamental research for the programs he discusses had their origin in publically funded programs. The internet, space program and human genome project among others would not have existed but for government funded research. Private companies do not engage in basic research because their motive is profit (as opposed to knowledge).
5. Diamandis spends an entire chapter arguing that those who disagree with him do so because of the inherent psychological underpinnings of the brain, which cause us to be unduly influenced by an innate pessimism and to place increased weight on negative arguments and evidence (and to ignore positive news and events in turn). Evidently, if you disagree with Diamandis’ point of view, it is not because he failed to provide convincing evidence, but because of your unconscious pathologically negative patterns of thought. Interesting idea, but as a rebuttal to criticism it’s intellectually dishonest.

But the biggest problem with the book is that Diamandis simply does not seem to understand human nature. Just as those who earn $1 per day wish to earn more to meet basic needs , so does the lower class want to become middle class, and the middle class to become millionaires, millionaires strive to become multi-millionaires, and multi-millionaires wish to become billionaires. Simply put, there is no such thing as 'enough' when it comes to human beings and their desires to acquire material wealth and possessions. Increased wealth begets increased consumption and as long as we continue to overlook the role of population, it will become increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that we live on a finite planet with finite resources. A far better solution than the ones Diamandis proposes, would be to put humane programs in place to systematically reduce human birth rates. The world is quite big enough to sustain many millions (as opposed to billions) of people in abundance, with plenty of room left over for other species and vibrant ecosystems. ...more

flag 69 likes · Like · see review

Dec 11, 2012 Andy rated it did not like it

Optimism makes things better. Hooray!

Scientists and engineers exist, and they will make super-duper new gizmos. Yay!

Everything in the whole wide world will soon be radically better because of the business-like innovations of the techno-philanthropists. They are like gods; praise them!

The problem for this goofy book is reality. As documented in Forbes, Fortune and other publications, the Gates Foundation (to use the biggest example of techno-philanthropy) actually has a pretty bad track record. T ...more

flag 50 likes · Like · see review

Feb 20, 2012 Lena rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Most human beings have a built-in tendency to focus on the negative, obsessing about all the things that are wrong with the world and how we're all on the fast track to hell in a hand basket. In this book, X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis tackles that view head on with a compelling argument that humanity is actually in far better shape than the 24/7 news cycle would have you believe.

The core of his argument is that a number of forces have come together to create an opportunity for problem solving Most human beings have a built-in tendency to focus on the negative, obsessing about all the things that are wrong with the world and how we're all on the fast track to hell in a hand basket. In this book, X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis tackles that view head on with a compelling argument that humanity is actually in far better shape than the 24/7 news cycle would have you believe.

The core of his argument is that a number of forces have come together to create an opportunity for problem solving unprecedented in human history. Among those forces are the explosive growth of computing technology, the democratizing power of the Internet, and the rise of billionaire technophilanthropists with a genuine desire to save the world.

Diamandis and co-author Steven Kotler spend good portions of this book looking at the most serious problems facing the world today, including water, food, sanitation, health care, energy and repressive governments. In doing so, they offer tangible examples of new technologies that have or soon will have the potential to eliminate those problems.

Among the most interesting sections for me were those on how cheap mobile diagnostic tools and cloud based medical computers can bring health care to remote regions of the planet; how Generation IV nuclear reactors can power the earth for 1,000 years using existing nuclear waste with zero risk of the dangers of current plants; the discovery that kids in an Indian slum who spoke no English and had no computer experience could teach themselves biotechnology if given a computer; and that a guy in Colombia with a Facebook page succeeded in taking down FARC, a rebel organization that had been terrorizing his country with kidnappings and violence for 40 years.

Examples like these were the most valuable part of this book for me, provided in enough abundance to combat my own natural "yeah, but..." tendencies. The author's attempt to provide a structural framework through which to view these examples - a pyramid of possibility inspired by Maslow - was less successful; it was too abstract and less engaging than the inspiring, real world examples.

In addition, I couldn't help noting that just because many technologies do drop dramatically in price as they increase exponentially in power doesn't mean that the exponential growth he anticipates can solve many of our problems will actually occur. Despite that, I found this book to be authentically hopeful; it pushes back hard enough against the doomsayers that I finished it feeling like we have a much better chance at solving our big problems than I did before I started it.

...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

Mar 13, 2014 David Sasaki rated it it was ok

Shelves: audio-book

When I worked at Open Society Foundations, we had a focus on defending rights, which derived from a worldview that assumes there are large institutions (mostly corporations and governments) that encroach upon our individual freedoms and our ability to live a prosperous life. By strengthening and defending rights, we can mitigate the negative effects of these large institutions. For all the insane blabber by Glenn Beck about George Soros being a Communist puppet master, the foundation actually ha ...more

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2014 Jonathan rated it it was ok

The basic premise of Abundance is that there are a lot of problems in the world, and its hard to get people to change, but the right technological innovations will fix everything.

As someone who notices many of the same problems in the world, I want to believe the authors' assertions. And the book inspired me! The characters and anecdotes are appealing. I finished the book feeling nagged by a few big holes, but overall excited.

Unfortunately, in reflection the excitement wore off. There are plent The basic premise of Abundance is that there are a lot of problems in the world, and its hard to get people to change, but the right technological innovations will fix everything.

As someone who notices many of the same problems in the world, I want to believe the authors' assertions. And the book inspired me! The characters and anecdotes are appealing. I finished the book feeling nagged by a few big holes, but overall excited.

Unfortunately, in reflection the excitement wore off. There are plenty of technical problems with the book – for instance, a few of the stories (computer education in the villages, do-everything water filters) are exaggerated and don't pan out as well in the real world. Devoting a major pillar of the book to the author's own X-prizes project was lame. Wasting a whole chapter on the claim that all their opponents are just deluded by their brain chemistry was a waste of space. But the real difficulties are fundamental philosophical problems with expecting technology to change the world.

First off, the human tendency toward greed has proven able to absorb anything it's been given. Everyone always wants more. The idea that we could produce so much that the rich people would be satisfied and let the poor have enough, without major society changes, doesn't fit with any period in human history. The powerful have always been able to limit other people's access to resources whenever it benefited them, and the authors never explain how they'd keep powerful corporations and powerful governments from continuing to do such a thing. On occasion they allude to such problems (such as Monsanto's wield of patents to force farmers to be reliant on their products indefinitely), but they just “hope” such things will change.

Second, the degree to which wealth disparity, rather than absolute wealth alone, contributes to societal problems is never dealt with. Problems like violence and mental health appear not to be connected just to a nation's overall resources, but to its ability to deal out those resources evenly. That's one reason that Americans are less happy now than we were in the 1950s and 1960s (despite having FAR more stuff, including all the innovations the authors praise), and why many countries – including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, etc. - do better than America an d England on nearly every social index despite having far less money at their disposal. The authors don't deal with that issue at all.

Finally, the book shows absolutely no real interest in the people and things that the authors claim to be trying to preserve. They want to solve poverty, yet don't show any knowledge of the experience of the poor or any desire to ask them what they want. They want to save the environment, but everything they propose is irrelevant to and often disregarding of nature. They want to preserve land, but seem to think they could do that by just destroying small bits of land more efficiently, and hope that other land will be saved in the process. In general, they reach for technological numbers and statistics, but completely ignore the much greater damage to human societal structures and the Earth's environmental balance that are caused by both previous technological "advancements" and their own proposed technological "solutions".

As long as the people with power are obsessed with the greed for more things, they will continue abusing the poor, nature, and the land in order to satisfy their greed. Technology is neutral – no matter what you invent, the powerful aren't going to give up their desire to own more than everyone else, to possess the land, to control other peoples' lives. The authors are right that greed is part of the problem. They're right that people's nature is difficult to change. They're wrong that we can just hope that enough technology will just make that issue go away. It has never, ever worked before. ...more

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Feb 03, 2015 David Buccola rated it did not like it

Shelves: owned

A truly awful book. Take the futurism of a world's fair, add the hucksterism of a veteran of the start-up world, and rose-tinted outlook of a millennial and you get an idea of what this book is like. The book is littered with the false hope of NGO's and other companies that--just three years from publication--are already complete failures. But never fear, Peter Diamandis assures us, the world's billionaires will save us all! Conveniently missing from the narrative is the looming ecological crisi A truly awful book. Take the futurism of a world's fair, add the hucksterism of a veteran of the start-up world, and rose-tinted outlook of a millennial and you get an idea of what this book is like. The book is littered with the false hope of NGO's and other companies that--just three years from publication--are already complete failures. But never fear, Peter Diamandis assures us, the world's billionaires will save us all! Conveniently missing from the narrative is the looming ecological crisis posed by Global Climate Change. There is very little of substance here.

Just three years since publication, we already know that a number of the ideas espoused in this book are complete failures. The world's cheapest and most dangerous car, the Tato Nano, has not even close to meeting the expectations of shareholders. The devestation of the predatory micro loan industry has been well documented and has shook the Indian economy to its core. The much touted One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has already shuttered its doors after passing out a paltry 2.3 million laptops that are mostly junk. The guy who gave fat suburbanites the segueway claims to have invented a machine that's going to bring clean water to the poorest of the poor. It costs $100,000 at this point so a family making a few dollars a day might have to save up for a few generations before they can buy one. It goes like this, on and on throughout the book.

There are, of course, things aren't failures yet. Bill Gates is promoting the next generation of nuclear power that is supposedly safe and cheap. Of course that's been the mantra of the nuclear industry since its inception. With the recent disaster at Fukushima I think there's little reason to give this much credence. Even Gates admits that we're at least ten years away from a working prototype. So it's really just hype at this point. Other ideas, like the next generation of biofuels are also highlighted. I won't go on much here. Some of this stuff may indeed work out at some point down the line but it's mostly empty hype at this point.

There are points when Peter Diamandis comes dangerously close to touching on something worth while. He admits, for instance, that we already have enough food to feed everybody. We have an abundance of food! Yay, we're already there. But then he goes off the rails to explain to the patient reader that we don't have a distribution problem. Our problem, he insists, is that we need to move the farm!

Now much of what he has to saw about vertical farming and even urban farming is spot on. We would certainly benefit from moving the farm. But it doesn't matter how much we increase our food production if we don't allow hungry people access to that food. You can move the farm wherever you like, but until we start producing food to feed people we're going to still have this problem.

Diamandis' biggest problem is conflating a trend within the computing industry with a scientific law. Moore's law has lead to incredible advances in computing. They're faster and cheaper than ever. But most things we need, like major infrastructure projects, cars, housing and the like still require huge amounts of energy and cost. He talks about the smart water grid were going to build, which is essentially a bunch of sensors, but he's mute on how we're actually going to fix our aging water infrastructure and replace all those pipes. His answers again and again are essentially, "We'll let a computer do it."

When grandma needs to go to an old folks home because the rest of the family is working too many hours to look after her, she can talk to a robot! When we start running out of trained professional teachers, we'll just replace them with iPads and laptops! Again and again we're told that all of life problems will be solved with a giant technological bandaid.

I was told again and again that this was a book full of hope. I don't find techno-charlatanism hopeful. If anything, I found the "future of abundance" outlined here sounds like a complete nightmare where meaningful human interactions are replaced with machine interfaces with artificial intelligence. If you want a realistic look at our future with some hopeful observations I highly recommend Richard Heinberg's "The End of Growth." ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Mar 14, 2017 Alex Givant rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, tts, best-of-2019, read-again, best-of-2017

Excellent book about why our future is better than you think. Have you seen bunch of depressing news today on TV? Just switch it off and use this time to read more books like this one.

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2012 Shirley Freeman rated it it was amazing

This is an amazing book! The authors define abundance as 'providing all people with a life of possibility.' Imagine a world where 9 billion people have adequate clean water, food, shelter, energy, education and health. The authors not only imagine it, but think it is possible within the next 25 years. Yes, it seems overly optimistic but their argument (with supporting data) and their energy and enthusiasm are contagious. They outline the incredible technological advances that are occurring in ps ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

May 02, 2012 Jud Barry rated it liked it

The future according to our popular novelists is almost always dystopian. Peter Diamandis encourages us to imagine otherwise, based on the potential of recent developments in science and technology.
Taking a page from Ray Kurzweil (with whom he has established Singularity University), Diamandis's future is very much the present-day reality of artificial technology, nanotechnology, robotics, communications, and biotechnology, where the pace of innovation conferred by computerization has greatly im The future according to our popular novelists is almost always dystopian. Peter Diamandis encourages us to imagine otherwise, based on the potential of recent developments in science and technology.
Taking a page from Ray Kurzweil (with whom he has established Singularity University), Diamandis's future is very much the present-day reality of artificial technology, nanotechnology, robotics, communications, and biotechnology, where the pace of innovation conferred by computerization has greatly improved the prospects of the planet to support all of its inhabitants comfortably.

Thus, this is more than another account of gee-whizardy. It's about how technological progress can be translated into a higher degree of creature comfort for earth's creatures (well, at least its people), including those living at the "bottom of the pyramid." Indeed, one of the most encouraging messages of the book is how some parts of the world--Africa in particular--occupy in some respects an advantageous position vis-a-vis some of these new technologies. The advantage, such as it is, comes from the fact that they don't have the developed countries' huge invested interest in the old and expensive technologies of land lines, coal, and gasoline, which puts the under-developed countries in a better position to be early adopters of the new technologies, particularly solar power. Cell phones have already proven themselves to be a potent tool for delivering financial and public health benefits in such countries as Bangladesh and Kenya.

Diamandis places a great deal of faith on the ability of tech philanthropists to deliver the goods that will produce our abundant future. While never providing an overt critique of centralized governments, Diamandis consistently uses such examples as Bill Gates to show how much tech tycoons really care about the world and are the key to its salvation.

Unfortunately, he fails to make a distinction between private actions taken for public benefit--Wikipedia comes to mind--and private actions taken for proprietary benefit, like those of Craig Venter in the race to map the human genome. Diamandis's account of Venter's role is brief, glowing--and self-contradictory: "Building on work that had come before, Venter ... delivered a fully sequenced human genome in less than one year (tying the government's ten-year effort) for just under $100 million (while the government spent $1.5 billion)." Sounds like a wasteful government, doesn't it? What he doesn't say is that "government" (actually scientists using money from public sources) had done 80% of the work by the time Venter got to it--and copied it. That's what "building on work that had come before" means. And then, Venter wanted to declare private ownership of what his company had "discovered," whereas the "government" wanted to make the information available to create future wealth in the form of new knowledge by others "building on work that came before."

Diamandis also places a great deal of stock in prizes as an engine of progress. I have no beef with that, but if he wants to point fingers--even without seeming to do so--I do have to wonder why, five years after the awarding of an X-prize to not one but three winners of a competition to design "the world's first fast, affordable, production-ready car able to achieve over one hundred miles per gallon equivalent," there is still no such car on the market. The reason, I'm sure, has something to do with why American auto-makers were never able to release any fuel-efficient cars in the first place and had to have Japan show them how; it has something to do with the fact that so-called "fuel-efficient" cars are being marketed today that get less than 40 mpg, which is disgraceful. The reason is one that I don't fully understand, but it is a demonstrable phenomenon no less. And it has nothing to do with wasteful governments.

I am hopeful that the future will turn out the way Diamandis describes. But there is one reason why dystopian fiction prevails--it is really more about people than technology. If, as J-P Sartre said, hell is other people, so might we say the same about the future. ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Aug 29, 2020 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is an optimistic non-fic from 2012, written mainly in 2010, that is a great alternative to doom and gloom of todays and even earlier near-future prediction literature. I read is as a part of monthly reading for August 2020 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

The book starts with an attempt to understand why most of the near-future prediction literature, starting roughly from 1972’s The Limits to Growth and continuing since is mostly saying: “we are on the bring (or just passed it) and there is This is an optimistic non-fic from 2012, written mainly in 2010, that is a great alternative to doom and gloom of todays and even earlier near-future prediction literature. I read is as a part of monthly reading for August 2020 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

The book starts with an attempt to understand why most of the near-future prediction literature, starting roughly from 1972’s The Limits to Growth and continuing since is mostly saying: “we are on the bring (or just passed it) and there is a great disaster ahead”, namely the fact that humans have evolved as pessimists, having a negativity bias—the tendency to give more weight to negative information and experiences than positive ones. This allowed us to survive, while more happy-marry cousins were eaten by predators or died from hunger. The same bias shaped our media, which much more likely will talk about disasters than about happier happenings. In no way this suggests that the are no disasters, for there are a lot, but more that nevertheless for the majority of Earth population the life is longer, happier, more diverse and fulfilling lives despite worsening environmental situation or growing income disparity in many countries.

It continues by giving examples of discovering and inventions, which were “just behind the corner” ten years ago, when the book was written. This include a lengthy discussion about cleaning the water, supplying/generating electricity, lowering carbon emissions, assessing knowledge with concrete examples of what has been done and can be done. The fact that it was mostly written 10 years ago gives a unique perspective on what has been realized and what still lags behind, so that we, the readers, can look deeper to answer why this is so.

I see that a lot of reviewer see this book as one-sided, but doom-and-gloom books are one-sided as well, so if seen in a larger context, it is ok. The book also actively praises “the new rich”, internet-era millionaires, who are seen here as the major drive of change. As a person from the formerly socialist country, I actually support the view that the newly self-made (wo-)men from the western world that quite actively spend their wealth – say Bill Gates or George Soros – to improve the livelihood of many, actually do a better job than the governments, to which they ought to give their money via taxes according to some. Alas, in the developing world, ‘new money’ are quite often made and later supported by corrupt practices, so as any solution ‘rich folk will save us’ isn’t that universal.
...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Mar 07, 2014 Adam Ford rated it really liked it

Abundance is one of the better books about the modern world that I have read. A very informative and well written book that flowed quickly. I highly recommend it. A few things that stood out to me:

1. The main forces pushing us forward are the buying power of the bottom billion (the poorest billion people on the planet), the exponential growth of technology, the rise of the super-smart techno philanthropist and the do-it-your-selfers.

2. We are heading into a significant shortage of doctors as the Abundance is one of the better books about the modern world that I have read. A very informative and well written book that flowed quickly. I highly recommend it. A few things that stood out to me:

1. The main forces pushing us forward are the buying power of the bottom billion (the poorest billion people on the planet), the exponential growth of technology, the rise of the super-smart techno philanthropist and the do-it-your-selfers.

2. We are heading into a significant shortage of doctors as the baby-boomers retire. There have never been enough doctors worldwide, but we are about to experience a major shortage in the first world. The best hope for dealing with the crisis will be technology. Health scans will engage in direct biocommunication and diagnostics with greater accuracy than possible with a live doctor. Exciting times lie ahead in medical technology.

3. More people should be working on things that are significant. The book quotes one of Google's founders saying that something is significant if it has the potential to affect the lives of 1 billion people in the next decade. This is thinking big. If more people stretched towards this goal, the world would be a much better place. I like this a lot and think I need to broaden my horizons significantly. I spend far too much time obsessing over the tiny religious sect I happened to be born into. It is a long-term historical irrelevancy and has distracted me for most of my life from applying my skills towards accomplishing great things. If your audience size is less than a million people, you are wasting your gift.

4. The bottom billion are a massive market with amazing growth potential for businesses and will not be ignored much longer. As these consumers are understood and targeted engineers and businessmen will be forced to lower the cost of their products. Nearly every household in the Philippines or Kenya or Nigeria or Pakistan have cell phones today. In a decade they will all have more than the average first world household has today due to advances in technology. The 3rd world is disappearing.

5. The next decade will see an explosion in game-based learning. Video games are not harmful and in fact can be a very powerful tool in teaching. We are just figuring out how to use the video game format to revolutionize teaching and learning. It will be exciting to watch this happen. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Oct 02, 2016 Mehrsa rated it liked it

You should probably read this in tandem with Robert Gordon's "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" because they come to exact opposite conclusions. I hope these guys are right, but since their claim is based on a few cool tricks and the other one is based on rigorous data, I doubt it. Still, this is worth reading because I think half the premise is sound: technological answers to intractable problems are in the wings. The future will not be as anticipated. However, there are several broad econo ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Apr 01, 2012 Carl rated it it was ok

If you live in a rich abundant area and avoid the poor hungry and desolate then you might buy into this one but in the real world these guys are out of touch with the real world.

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 26, 2019 Amber rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019, audio, dude-lit, non-fiction

In certain very limited ways, this book is really exciting and full of great news. The incredible technologies that have the potential to virtually eliminate problems of water scarcity, food scarcity, energy scarcity, healthcare scarcity, and education scarcity will make your jaw drop. But I found myself having a lot of, “Yes, but...” questions along the way, like:

If the planned petroleum-free, carbon-neutral, “one planet living” city of Masdar outside Abu Dhabi is so great, did it ever get buil ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

May 31, 2012 Glenn Capuano rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone with an interest in cutting-edge technology

Recommended to Glenn by: Neil Creek

This book was recommended by a friend, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. The main premise is that the doom & gloom which dominates the media is ill-placed and we are in fact much better off and will soon have the means at our disposal to beat the challenges facing humanity today. Much of this makes sense to me - certainly there is a tendency to focus on the negative, and it's good to see a book which catalogues some of the good inventions which do have the potential to change our lives in the This book was recommended by a friend, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. The main premise is that the doom & gloom which dominates the media is ill-placed and we are in fact much better off and will soon have the means at our disposal to beat the challenges facing humanity today. Much of this makes sense to me - certainly there is a tendency to focus on the negative, and it's good to see a book which catalogues some of the good inventions which do have the potential to change our lives in the foreseeable future.

As far as how believable some of their predictions are - well I think they vary. I found the section on water quite interesting, and some of the technologies discussed around the provision of clean water are very exciting. Also the education section is worth a read, as I think the authors are onto something with the profound way the internet has penetrated our lives and made so much information accessible, and the availability of mobile apps replacing many devices.

I'm a little more skeptical about their claims on energy generation and health care - claiming that there are trends for both of these becoming much cheaper and affordable which seems to be exactly the opposite of what we're seeing in the real world at the moment (both electricity and health care costs increasing rapidly).

At times it seems to be a little too self-promoting, with many passages little more than ads for the authors' companies (eg. the X-prize and Singularity University). There is also a lot of faith placed on continued exponential growth, almost to the point of it being a religion - eg. Moore's Law will continue to apply indefinitely - not considering things like quantum limits where it starts to break down. Just because something has grown exponentially in the past doesn't mean it will continue to do so in the future.

In the end, the book is a good read (and quite easy to read) if you want to know about some of the more exciting technologies which are being developed and appearing on the horizon, and how they might affect our lives. I certainly found it engrossing and wanted to read more.

In terms of providing an overarching view of argument in the title that "the future is better than you think" I think it falls a little short, and didn't leave me convinced of the broader view but predicting the future is a difficult game and I'm looking forward to a follow-up in a few years where the same authors evaluate their own predictions against reality.

...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 05, 2012 Kater Cheek rated it liked it

The cover of this book, which you can't really see from the snapshot, has been done to look like it's wrapped in aluminum foil. Aluminum was once the most precious metal on earth, and now technology has made it so cheap it's ubiquitous.

That's basically the premise of the book; technology brings about abundance. Diamandis has oodles of examples, and he backs them up with a thick selection of charts and graphs in the back. For every doom-and-gloom prophecy that journalists have brought up to frig ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 12, 2013 Loraine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I love tomorrow and its potential. I have no nostalgia for the past. So this is a perfect book for me. I want to hear the message that this book presents and I got what I was looking for. Lots of it. No wasted words here and never over my head.
Some examples: "We used to think that healthy and wealthy meant you had to be fat. We don't think that anymore. Today, we think that to be healthy and wealthy we need a ton of things, but maybe that too will become old thinking. Technology can replace much ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 05, 2019 Siah rated it it was ok

This book trivializes the magnitude of some of our greatest existential challenges as humans. The authors use simplistic analogies and argue that technology fixes all of our problems. From climate change to war. Some of the problems that they enumerate have nothing to with technology and that is my primary problem with this book. For instance, take the problem of excess green house gases in the atmosphere, this has become a political and policy challenge rather than a technology challenge. One c ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2012 Andy rated it it was amazing

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It holds an excellent analysis of what the future holds. It changed my opinion about a lot of technologies (solar and medical) for the better. The section on the future of power collection was very interesting. I do hope their predictions about robots come true... imagine finally having a robot that would clean your house.
My favorite part of the book dealt with people who are attempting to reform the educational process throughout the worl ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 21, 2019 Shahrazad rated it liked it

There are enough resources in the world for everyone , the world is better and quality of life is higher than any other time in history , we can solve modern day problems like we have solved other problems in the past to ensure more prosperity. These are the main themes in the book demonstrated with stories from different domains.
Very informative, it’s refreshing to listen to an optimistic scientist for a change even if he hyped it up a bit.

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 11, 2017 Abby Smith rated it it was ok

Not at all what I thought it would be. Seems like a lot of hype for a lot of theories. There are a lot of problems in the world but science --> technological advances will fix EVERYTHING. Change is hard.

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

May 27, 2015 J.F. Penn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, self-help, entrepreneur

Stop reading the papers and listening to the negative media. Read this book and marvel at the amazing things happening in the world!

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 29, 2019 posthuman rated it really liked it

Shelves: business, favorites, ai, inspirational, non-fiction, economics

Despite the authors getting lost on rabbit trails in a couple of chapters, this was a rather memorable and enjoyable read by the founders of the X Prize. An invaluable dose of rational optimism in the face of our daily barrage of irrational doom and gloom.

The premise is that humanity's evolutionary adaptations for surviving in the Pleistocene are holding most of us back from realizing scarcity is entirely contextual. Instead of responding to scarcity by slicing our pie thinner or redistributing ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Nov 16, 2016 Charlene rated it really liked it

Shelves: climate, innovation, politics, constructs

In her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein stated how much she disliked scientists who focused on innovation over conservation. For this reason, Klein would absolutely hate Peter Diamandis. He began his book with example after example of why we worry too much about depleting Earth's resources. He even went so far as to Kahneman shame his reader. (I have decided that Khaneman shame should be an actual term). I usually enjoy being Kahneman shamed because I know that even the most logical ind In her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein stated how much she disliked scientists who focused on innovation over conservation. For this reason, Klein would absolutely hate Peter Diamandis. He began his book with example after example of why we worry too much about depleting Earth's resources. He even went so far as to Kahneman shame his reader. (I have decided that Khaneman shame should be an actual term). I usually enjoy being Kahneman shamed because I know that even the most logical individuals among us hold biases that are held from their consciousness. But Diamandis' Kahneman shaming rubbed me the wrong way. I remember thinking, "You are joking right? You are lecturing your reader while you are, yourself, failing to seek out evidence against your own argument?" Clearly I was not a fan of this book, at first anyway.

However, as I continued to read, I came to understand he is just terrible at conveying what steps he took to look at both sides of the coin. The early part of the book reads like a pollyanna approach to the future-- everything looks great! We shouldn't worry now or worry then. He didn't seem, to me, to engage in critical thinking in the way his colleague Kurzweil did, as evidenced by his constant homage to the old guard, gene jocks like Pinker and Ridley. However, toward the middle of the book he became more problem oriented and began to illustrate one solution after the other, and it was beautiful!

Here are some examples of limited resources and the possible solutions for providing everyone on Earth with an abundance of these limited resources:

- Water is hard to come by for those in many developing countries, but laying pipes that carry clean water to everyone around the globe is ridiculously costly. One solution to this problem is to provide them with filters that have pores only 15 nm wide (I love that someone invented such a filter)! That means water is filtered so thoroughly, it will even keep bacteria from getting through. Using these filters, people can turn undrinkable water into drinkable water in seconds at much less cost than running pipes all over the world.

- Many people in developing countries don't have waste systems. When human waste sits around, humans get sick, very sick. Recall the plagues throughout history and the pandemics of more recent times. To address the lack of sanitation, the Malinda and Bill Gates Foundation is working to provide these countries with the best waste system I have ever heard of. They are providing high tech outhouses that powder and burn up feces. Human feces hold more than a megajoule of energy! When that energy is harvested and released by the powder and burn process, it can be used to get rid of the urine, and the left over energy can be sent to a grid and used to power things, such as a cell phone. I know Klein has it in for scientists who innovate over conserve, but Naomi, even you have to love this! Right?

- Of course, providing water and waste systems to people around the world won't amount to much if we end up using more carbon in order to keep progress progressing. Poisoning our planet while trying to provide abundance would be the stupidest thing imaginable. Addressing that concern was perhaps the best part of the entire book. How can we have create an abundance of energy *and* keep atmosphere intact? There are many methods being researched and implemented that could provide not only the energy we need for daily life, but the energy needed to help combat climate change (not a bad plan if we can make it work). Diamandis is clear in his suggestion to take conservation efforts very seriously. I am certain he would suggest that we fight against Trump's plans for the usage of coal- and fight hard. Trump calls everything a huge disaster. Yet, he fights for coal, the use of which would actually be a huge disaster, on a global scale. Coal isn't just a little bit bad for Earth; it is one of the most significant contributors to climate change. That is precisely why there are regulations limiting and prohibiting its use. Our better bet, according to Diamandis, is to restrict the use of coal and use incentives to get the best minds all over our world to come up with alternative ways to generate energy, ways that don't have harmful waste products (e.g. carbon) that destroy our planet. So far, it's looking pretty promising. Now if we can only stop Trump and others like him until we can develop and implement safer energy generating mechanisms.

- Providing an abundance of eduction to everyone around the world is also a really worthwhile goal. I loved the plans for this. It was not the first time I have read about these same methods-- computer / game oriented learning with oversight by teachers who are more like tutors than traditional tutors. This will not only solve the education crisis in developing countries, it might help fix the rigid teaching style that destroys plenty of children's love for learning in schools all over America.

- With better global education comes longer-lived individuals who will need an abundance of access to healthcare. No problem. Innovators of the future have this covered. Smart medicine (e.g. smart phone diagnosis, surgeons in LA who robotically operate on patients in developing countries in their spare time, etc) will change the face of treatment. For more on this, I highly recommend Eric Topol's The Patient Will See You Now.

- And finally, these healthy, well-educated individuals will need an abundance of access to political power. How can we help that happen? Through the internet of course, but as Diamandis will tell you, that might only be accessible to the young ;)
...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Nov 02, 2013 Marti rated it it was amazing

Possibly the most fascinating nonfiction book I have read in a decade: a reader-friendly overview from the originator of the X Prize, this book covers advances and reasons for optimism in areas of food, water, shelter, energy, commerce, healthcare, education and more. While realistically laying out causes for concern (over-population, climate change, poverty), the author counters each of these with a solid reason for optimism. Many of these causes for hope come from advances in technology, but t ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2013 Joe rated it liked it

I want to believe the hype, but the authors seem too entrenched in the establishment and faithful in the market system and "technology" to solve all the world's problems. I don't see their dreams coming to fruition anytime soon, but I hope they prove me wrong. I don't think they give enough space to counterarguments and the possibility of things going exponentially wrong rather than getting exponentially better. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 01, 2019 Hưng Đặng rated it did not like it

I dropped it because each time I tried to read, it feels like something eats up my soul. I would rather read Factfulness or Enlightenment now!

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2015 Krista rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, nonfiction

Cornucopians feel that the rate of technological growth will outpace the rate of population growth, and that will solve all our problems. Malthusians believe that we've already exceeded the planet's carrying capacity, and if population growth continues unchecked, nothing we invent will be powerful enough to reverse those effects.

I finally know what to call myself: I am definitely a Cornucopian (even if those killjoy Malthusians don't mean the term kindly). I am firmly within the camp that sa ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 01, 2015 Nicole Anderson rated it it was amazing

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 s ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 28, 2020 Jordan rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Non Fiction Book ...: Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think: Aug 15 - Sept 30 2020	8	29	Aug 29, 2020 08:09AM
oversight	1	3	Jul 01, 2016 01:29PM
Bad editing	1	1	Jul 01, 2016 01:21PM
Goodreads Librari...: Description with bad html	2	59	Jan 21, 2014 11:10AM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Nonfiction

399 users

Business

226 users

Science

204 users

Science > Technology

129 users

Economics

101 users

Futurism

75 users

Philosophy

34 users

Politics

34 users

Self Help

31 users

Business > Entrepreneurship

28 users

See top shelves…

About Peter H. Diamandis

Peter H. Diamandis

537 followers

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis is an international pioneer in the fields of innovation, incentive competitions and commercial space. In 2014 he was named one of "The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders" – by Fortune Magazine.

In the field of Innovation, Diamandis is Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, best known for its $10 million Ansari XPRIZE for private spaceflight.

Diamandis is also the Co ...more

Books by Peter H. Diamandis

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives

Exponential Organizations: Why New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, Cheaper Than Yours (and What To Do About It)

Hopping over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure into Success

More…

Famed Biographer Walter Isaacson on Gene Editing, Science, and Good Books

Walter Isaacson, it’s safe to say, is not afraid of tackling the really big topics. In 2011, he wrote about our ubiquitous computer culture...

Trivia About Abundance: The Fu...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Abundance: The Fu...

“Abundance is not about providing everyone on this planet with a life of luxury—rather it’s about providing all with a life of possibility.” — 28 likes

“Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant.” — 21 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Peter H. Diamandis

Books by Peter H. Diamandis

Related Articles

Trivia About Abundance: The Fu...

Quotes from Abundance: The Fu...

See a Problem?

Preview — Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Peter H. Diamandis

Books by Peter H. Diamandis

Related Articles

Trivia About Abundance: The Fu...

Quotes from Abundance: The Fu...

new topic
Discuss This Book