The Second Curve
Thoughts on Reinventing Society
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Random House Uk
BBB Library: Technology and Globalization
ISBN: 978-1847941329
Editorial Review
Too many of the customs, practices, and institutions of society were designed for a time that has passed. The Internet and its corollaries are revolutionizing much of our lives. The Western world seems to have gone into retirement mode, settling for a cautious life after the financial scares of the last decade, hoping that the comfortable life we had become used to will soon return if only we keep our nerve. The reality, however, is that we can neither bring back the past nor prolong the present indefinitely. When the world changes around us we have to change as well. But, unfortunately, bold thinking has become suspect or too risky among those supposedly responsible for our future. Governments tweak and twist and adapt but they are more concerned to stay in power than to conjure up new visions and responsibilities.
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Wisdom to Share
Governments tweak and twist and adapt but they are more concerned to stay in power than to conjure up new visions and responsibilities.
However, many of our assumptions about how our lives work are being turned upside down by new technologies and new values.
Anyone who has experienced unemployment will remember how hard it was to summon up the confidence or the energy, let alone the withdrawal, to make an investment in something potentially risky.
The computer, followed by the Internet and all its offshoots, has given us freedom, but freedom with consequences.
If we cannot ever say to ourselves “enough is enough” we will never be free to explore other possibilities.
It is more dangerous to your health to be lonely than to be obese, being equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
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