Ervin Laszlo and Kingsley L. Dennis et al.
4.0 out of 5 stars Superb Appetizer Book — a Potpourri of Genius — Not the Main Plate, December 26, 2013
Buy and read this book for a marvelous panoramic view of the latest thinking circling around the end of the top-down scarcity model that concentrates wealth, and the emergence — sooner than most might expect — of the distributed bottom-up local to global harmonization.
This is a hybrid book — the first two thirds are written by the co-authors (Laszlo and Dennis), while the last third is a collection of eleven very short essays, each generally provocative and each providing me with at least one insight, web site, or book that I was not aware of. The book ends with recommended readings in the following categories that are a also a summary of what the book strives to cover at a very high level:
Global Transformation
New Consciousness
New Economics
State of the World
Sustainability
World Futures
Among many other thoughts that this book inspired as I went through it, it helped me better appreciate the life's work of Dr. Laszlo, and to take a closer look at his GIorano Bruno GlobalShift University.
I give the book four stars instead of five because it is not completely coherent and it is an appetizer sort of book, not the main plate. It talks around the core challenges, lacks a holistic analytic model, and includes some dated ideas. For example, too much is made of massive open online courses (MOOC), which only have a 4% completion rate, and there is no awareness of the idea put forward by Earth Intelligence Network to Sir Richard Branson, of a global network that can educate the five billion poor one cell call at a time. The book also lacks a grasp of where information technology is going at a technical level (open source everything) but it does reflect an appreciation for how central the new free Internet is to the revolution in human affairs. As a final note, I am disappointed that not a single one of these authors saw fit to mention Medard Gabel and his long-standing graphic (posted above) showing how one third of what we spend on the military could resolve all ten high level threats to humanity starting with poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation. In short, the book is strong on consciousness and too remote from practical public intelligence in the public interest.
I strongly recommend the book to all readers, and honor the book's originality by listing below ten books that I have *not* read, that have been brought to my attention by this book and that represent the very important convergence of the six literatures above.
01 Building a Win-Win World
02 Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy
03 Thrival!: How to Have an Above Average Day Every Day
04 Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility
05 An Introduction to 3-Dimensional Leadership
06 Indigenous Peoples in International Law
07 Transforming History
08 The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest
09 Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainablilty Through New Money Systems
10 The Akasha Paradigm: Revolution in Science, Evolution in Consciousness
For the actualization of what this book talks about, public intelligence in the public interest, see Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, and particularly the Special Interest items. Above I am loading several graphics that represent the best thinking from the Earth Intelligence Network, as relevant to this book's aspirations. The time has come to actually “do” all this stuff, creating resilient local communities that turn their banks on the top down scarcity economy that concentrates wealth for the 1% and destroys life for all others.
Best wishes to all,
Robert David Steele
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, & Trust
