3 out of 4 stars
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How can we make the world a better place? This is a question that has crossed my mind on several occasions. While there are little things we can do individually to make the world a better place, there are some issues with respect to work, political power, technology, and education that affect the world, and we can't solve these issues individually. In The Future of Everything, Tim Dunlop addresses some of these issues and goes further to propose theories that will solve these problems. The book is divided into two parts: "Premise" and "Practice". In "Premise", the author discusses issues surrounding political power and the privatization of resources that should be shared by the public. While "Practice" covers the issues surrounding work, the media, the government, education, and wealth distribution.
Before reading this book, I felt that whether or not I agreed with the author's theories was secondary to the execution of the book. So, the first thing I looked out for was how the author presented his theories. Tim used a simple and clear language, which made it easy for me to follow what he was saying throughout the book. The book was heavily backed by research from a lot of experts mostly supporting the author's theories, and he also included references at the end of the book for further study. I liked that the author used personal stories at times to help drive home some of his points, like when he used the story of his son's passion for dancing when discussing the issues with the quote; "find something you love to do, you’ll never have to work a day in your life." This made the book more relatable for me.
The way the author presented the opinions of the political left and the political right concerning the issues he discussed was another feature of the book I liked. He presented their opinions in a way that showed his understanding of both sides' views, and he gave reasonable explanations for why he felt some of their views may or may not solve the issues. It is safe to say that Tim presented his theories expertly. The only thing I didn't like, in this regard, was that some acronyms weren't explained, like MOOC in the "Education" chapter. There were also a few terms, like "Keynesianism" and "Totalitarianism", that I didn't understand. However, Google helped me navigate through those areas.
Furthermore, Tim's statements were really thought-provoking, especially when he talked about how some tech companies, like Facebook and Google, use our data for free without paying us; considering that giving our data is a service we provide to them. I also found his views on sortition as a means of choosing leaders and renationalization interesting. He cites examples using policies adopted by Australia that are similar to what he proposes. The fact that some of these theories have been successful in Australia influenced me to agree with him on some issues. The author also talked about implementing a universal basic income model, and even though he made some interesting points about it, this is one of his opinions I'm not sure I agree with.
While I found about 10 errors in the book, I still think The Future of Everything is fairly well edited, as most of the errors I found were minor errors, and they didn't affect my reading. I found The Future of Everything very educational. It even exposed problems that I didn't know existed, and I appreciate the solutions the author offered. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. I had to remove one star because of the grammatical errors in the book. I would recommend this book to people that are interested in making the world a better place. People that are politically engaged will also find this book very interesting.
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The Future of Everything
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