big-idea generator
This comes from Wired magazine and is totally funny! Check it out here.
good grief
I came across a copy of The Secret (2006) by Rhonda Byrne yesterday. It was apparently all the new-age rage in Hollywood and there was even a movie released on the book. A rather revealing quote from one of the first few pages of the book…
Why do you think that 1% of the population earns 96% of all the money that’s being earned? Do you think that’s an accident? It’s designed that way. They understand something. They understand The Secret, and now you are being introduced to The Secret.
Please excuse me while I go barf.
the origin of wealth
I am excited about this book. I read excerpts from it at a bookstore today and did something I don’t usually - bought it without reading any reviews. The title brought to mind two classic books: The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin) and The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith). Intuition served me well; the book by Eric Beinhocker (2006) combines evolution with economics. I’m not sure if it will hold up to expectations (reviews are mixed - I have since looked!) but here are some of the reasons I picked it up.
- The writing is compelling and nuanced
- An entire chapter is devoted to how stark right-left politics will soon have to blur (phew!)
- He seems to argue for the importance of corporate policies that favor many small risks over a few big ones and challenges the omnipotence of the “bottomline” in business (and I think I agree)
- I want to know more about this term called “punctuated equilibrium” that evolutionists throw about freely
- His approach seems holistic (it combines sociology, evolution, psychology, math, anthropology, economics…)
- He digs deep and gets at the historical and philosophical core of his subject matter of “complexity economics”
- Beinhocker’s a nice name. (It also brings beer to mind somehow.)
So I’ll be off now and will try and update this after I finish reading (or give up on) the book. Good night! In a jetlagged kinda way.
