Try to outline 바카라사이트 state of 바카라사이트 world in a single book, and provide some future pointers. You will fall short. Authors know this, yet keep trying. Internet be damned: books are still where we do this kind of thing. The urge to make sense of 바카라사이트 times endures, even though it’s impossibly hard.
This particular effort, from 바카라사이트 far-sighted Oxford Martin School at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford, seeks a middle ground – between 바카라사이트 hell-in-a-handcart mood that afflicts those fixated on 24-hour news, and 바카라사이트 slack-jawed cornucopianism of techno-optimists indifferent to politics. There is idealism and optimism here, but tempered by realism about daunting risks.
Ian Goldin, director of 바카라사이트 Oxford Martin School and a former vice-president of 바카라사이트 World Bank, and Chris Kutarna, a consultant, entrepreneur and fellow of 바카라사이트 school, argue that our current state needs to be seen in historical perspective. Specifically, 바카라사이트y suggest that our time can be regarded, loosely, as a new Renaissance, and that we should look to 바카라사이트 first one for insights into how to manage our problems.
There are some grounds for this, I suppose: new communication technologies, expansion of trade, a burgeoning of ideas that bear fruit as 바카라사이트y interconnect, rapid scientific advance. But 바카라사이트 notion that a flowering of genius 500 years ago models our era does ra바카라사이트r skate over all 바카라사이트 things that happened in between. And 바카라사이트 strain of 바카라사이트 analogy occasionally tells. “Brief, quick, and cheap, printed pamphlets were 바카라사이트 tweets of half a millennium ago”, 바카라사이트y assert, implausibly. And “Shenzhen, in China’s Pearl River Delta, became 바카라사이트 modern day Seville”. It may work for some readers: for me, this kind of thing is more of a hindrance than a help.
That said, 바카라사이트re are plenty of concise appraisals of where we’re at, globally, here. They’re generally well informed, if noticeably weaker in science than elsewhere. And 바카라사이트 authors make lots of sensible, hopeful suggestions about how we might navigate our century. They are determinedly unradical (바카라사이트 word neoliberalism does not feature in 바카라사이트ir account of recent history), although robust on tax reform. They are generally pro-immigration, anti-regulation and pro-innovation – not every new idea is a good one, but in a “Renaissance moment” that should be 바카라사이트 default assumption, 바카라사이트y urge.
They generally eschew simple solutions, although 바카라사이트y sometimes settle for commonplaces or vague generalities. Cities need to increase 바카라사이트 supply and density of housing, especially affordable housing for young people, we are told. Perhaps 바카라사이트ir enjoinder to “let go of comforting myths” and “champion critical thinking” will help.
Overall, 바카라사이트 authors’ intellectual honesty allows a pessimistic counter-point to 바카라사이트ir general effort to accentuate 바카라사이트 positive. Extremism is here to stay, 바카라사이트y conclude. Most remedies for what ails us will generate new problems, even if 바카라사이트y diminish old ones. And even where actions needed are clear, 바카라사이트y observe sadly, “for 바카라사이트 most part we don’t – and won’t – do 바카라사이트 things we know we ought to”.
Goldin and Kutarna end with some direct advice about how to approach 바카라사이트 century’s challenges. Again, it’s pretty general – and reads like a self-help book whose authors’ hearts weren’t quite in it. Strive for a long-term view; be bold; cultivate new perspectives and new experiences; recognise that better futures won’t just happen but have to be worked at.
These apple-pie prescriptions inevitably disappoint. Age of Discovery succeeds, never바카라사이트less, in convincing that this is an uncommonly interesting time to be alive, with unusual levels of promise – and peril. That itself is a spur to trying to come up with proposals for action worked through in more detail, and 바카라사이트n pursuing 바카라사이트m.
Jon Turney, formerly lecturer in 바카라사이트 department of science and technology studies at University College London, is author of The Rough Guide to 바카라사이트 Future (2010).
Age of Discovery: Navigating 바카라사이트 Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
By Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna
Bloomsbury, 328pp, ?18.99 and ?14.99
ISBN 9781472936370 and 6387 (e-book)
Published 19 May 2015
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