Why Abundance?
I’m often troubled by the fact that our species is ripping the world to shreds as fast as humanly possible. To me, Earth is our home and we should be treating the atmosphere and biosphere as the most precious thing around.
After reading books like The Burning Season and endless information about Climate Change (of course Al Gore’s documentary is the most well known argument about this subject) I had a deep seeded fear that we are on a path of self destruction.
This is really, really depressing to me.
I’ve had break downs over it before and I constantly tried extra hard to not consume anything other than what I needed. Perhaps this is a subconscious reason that the sports I do require little fossil fuels and I’m constantly carrying around a handful of groceries in lew of a plastic trash bag (don’t believe the ocean is full of plastic? Check out this documentary.)
Anyways, I was in a slump and somehow I came across this book by Peter Diamandis
It’s fantastic for getting me out of the slump. Truth is the world is amazing and there are millions of fantastic things going on.
I’m of the opinion that we can innovate our way out of this ecological crisis that we find ourselves in. This book helped to get me there.
Below are my notes that I took while reading the book. Thanks for your interest and I hope this helps.
Reading Notes for Abundance:
Analogy – orange tree has fruit but if you pick all low hanging fruit, it is scarce. Not until you invent a ladder does the fruit become less scarce
The same is true with aluminum
The same could be true with solar power.
OPL – sustainable planning with
Think on the scarcity model of food production developed in the 1800s by British economists… They said pop growth was exponential while food production was linear. Therefore starvation would occur. They lacked the foresight of technological advancements…
Imagine a world of 9 billion people, with clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, top tier medical care and non-polluting ubiquitous energy. – this is the stir of how we can rise to meet it.
“Abundance is a radical vision”
Abundance is about proposing people with freedom and opportunity and possibility.
Maslows heirarchy of needs.
Abundance provides his own heirarchy of needs pyramid.
Lvl 1 – nutrion, shelter & water
Better health = lower population boom
Lower infant mortality = lower population growth.
The rational optimist by Matt Riddley
Abundance is good for all – Nigerian cell phone abundance was not only good for farmers, but for Nokia too. The 1 billionth phone sold was to a Nigerian.
Dunbar’s number – 150 people close ties…. 150 is a healthy tribal number where gossip helps promote the values of the group as a whole… In the modern world we interact with less live people. We make up for it by watching tv and gossiping about that. The TV actresses gossip is largely useless to society as a whole and is probably a ancestral reaction that leads to a tremendous waste of human potential
Loss aversion bias
Acid rain an example of an overblown environmentalist breakdown.
The real value of anything is the time you exchange in order to acquire it.
Eg the price on a light now is .05 hours the price of a light in Babylon (1000bc) is 6 days
Cultured beef and verticle farms are 10-15 years away from widespread acceptance.
agro ecology – designing food systems that add to the environment rather than subtract from it
Primary productivity – the amoun of plant matter created each year. As every animal consumes plants (or consumes animals that consume plants) this number is a good metric for the impact of human consumption.
The DIY innovator – ch 10
Ken Kesy spoke about Brand in electric kool-aid acid test. Brand experienced DIY capabilities.
Whole Earth Catalogue – created by Brand – tool for creating the personal transformation and self reliance. A catalogue for hippies who won the national book award.
DIY drone potential for guarding rainforest from illegal destruction
The more we are willing to risk failure an act on our dreams, the more fearless we become.
Do not seek to change the world unless you seek it as a man who’s hair is on ire seeks a pond.
Line if Credibility – personally, how much can you declare something and people expect that it will happen.
Super Credibility – Elon Musk and someone like that who has expectations for massive success.
Funding arrived after he made the declaration of the x-prize. How important it is to make big declarations.
The awesome power of the right mindset.
You need to be a little crazy to want to change the world.
“None of our men are experts, we have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert, because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job; thinking always ahead, thinking always, “how to do more?”
Young people are the ones that change things.
3 traits to a fear of failure
1. Loss of reputation
2. Loss of money
3. Loss of time
“Failure is a gold mine” Ratan Tata
Adjacent possibles – a you expand the box, the box grows and you have new space to grows
For te first time ever we don’t need to divide our pie into smaller portions, we just make more pies.
I Hope These Notes Helped
You can get a free copy of this book by getting an Audible account through this link.
You can purchase the book on amazon here.