Modern economics Economics is stupid, remember? It is modeled on ridiculous assumptions like perfectly rational egotistical actors, or efficient and fully transparent markets. It exists in an intellectual bubble where even the most relevant developments made in other fields are dismissed as mere “externalities” unworthy of recognition within economic theory. And it simply does not work, because it provides economists with almost no capability to predict the future development of a market or society, to calculate the effect of a new policy, or to prevent the next crisis. Fortunately, economists start to see it the same way. Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth pictures a way towards a modern, sensible economic theory. I may be a bit unfair, and there certainly is more to economics than stupid ways to put a price on things. Nevertheless, one central question has always been how to measure or evaluate alternatives, be it on individual or governmental level. And regardless of the particular method of measurement, the “better” choice is defined as the one that yields “more”. More money, more GDP, more status. Economics expects, even demands, not only growth, but ever increasing growth rates. Growth of the growth, if you will. And that can…
Review – The Regenerative Business: What is a Regenerative Business? There are a dozen buzzwords describing the modern, desirable company. It is agile, lean, and nimble, disruptively innovative, robust, resilient, antifragile, sustainable and even kind. So what the hell is a regenerative business supposed to be? In the words of author Carol Sanford “Regeneration is a process by which people, institutions, and materials evolve the capacity to fulfill their inherent potential in a world that is constantly changing around them. This can only be accomplished by going back to their roots, their origins, or their foundings to discover what is truly singular or essential about them. Bringing this essential core forward in order to express it as new capacity and relevance is another way to describe the activity of regeneration. In other words, regeneration is the means by which enlightened, disruptive innovation happens.” That’s gibberish. Feel free to introduce fancy concepts like “regeneration”, but please have somewhere in the beginning of your book a chapter that starts with “My idea is about…”, followed by a clear and succinct definition. After reading the entire book, it seems like a regenerative business is one that develops its people and culture to bring…
The End of Strife: The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are Famine, Plague, War and Death – pop culture does not always get this right – and after defeating the first three we might now just continue and conquer Death, too, and see, where this leads us as a species. Homo Deus starts with a rather bold claim: throughout history, famine, plague and war were the central topics of human life, and recently, all three of them have been made all but irrelevant. For all of history, humans have lived a couple bad days away from starvation, a couple bad rats away from the pocks and a couple bad words away from an all-out war against their neighbours. There are still starving people in the world, but no longer because there is not enough food for them, but because letting them starve furthers someone’s agenda. We talked about his before. There are still infectious diseases in the world, but they remain local outbreaks, and we no longer perceive them as a force of nature, but rather as a consequence of our own lack of hygiene and prevention. And there are still combats fought in the world, but they are no…
Review Have you ever been to an evening event, and during polite conversation somebody suddenly steers the topic towards modern technology? And while everybody else is excitedly discussing the implications of the latest fad, you find yourself standing silently in a corner, because for you “Big Data” is your collection of adult movies on your harddrive? Do you need a shortcut to sounding like a technology “have”? This book got you covered. After steam engines, electricity and the computer revolution, Schwab sees the world in the middle of a new, fourth industrial revolution. While still based on computers, this new phase is characterised by the rapid saturation of society on all levels, and innovative use of technology. The author takes us on a tour through our modern world and highlights almost everything hot and new from the last couple of years, from 3D printing to gene sequencing, from drones to blockchain, from designer organisms to the internet of things. The nicest part is a brief overview of 23 disruptive technological trends with convenient good/bad/controversial bullet point lists, if you have too little time to read the full book. The author groups those trends into physical, digital and biological categories (because…