Abundance

304 pages

Langue : English

Publié 2025 par Simon & Schuster.

ISBN :
978-1-6680-2348-8
ISBN copié !

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(2 critiques)

4 éditions

a publié une critique de Abundance par Derek Thompson

Abun-Dunce

I borrowed this as an eBook through my local library. That way, I wouldn't have to pay for it, and no one on public transit would see me reading it. I was convinced to read this because of two reasons: 1. If you really want to criticize something, you should read it. Especially so that if someone accuses you of misrepresenting any aspect of it, you can assure them that you did, in fact, read the book. 2. It is short.

The biggest problem of the book is that it doesn't address the core issue beneath all of their lamentations about the decline in American manufacturing and 'progress'. That is: moneyed interest. Instead they claim that while there may be a common thread throughout all the deficits in American gumption they cite as examples, each case is really unique in as much as they cannot be addressed by a lack …

a publié une critique de Abundance par Derek Thompson

Surprisingly superficial for something so researched

Downgrading this to 2 stars. A few weeks have gone by and I'm finding myself more and more annoyed at some (many?) of the choices the authors made in the framing of this book.

Giving this 3 stars instead of 2 because reading it seems useful to keep abreast of The Discourse, and it was a reasonably quick read (I reserve 1 star for "didn't want to waste time to finish this").

Despite all the footnotes and references, this book has the superficial vibe of the early Internet "Let's make more Progress with Technology and then we will have Luxury for Everyone!" manifestos, but applied more broadly to also housing, energy production and some nebulous "innovation". It's hard to take seriously as a stance in 2025.

I hope it spurs more conversation and deeper thinking about these themes, but I fear its lack of thoughtfulness about trade-offs might take us …