The Ingenuity Gap: How Can We Solve the Problems of the Future? Book

In Speed and Politics the French thinker Paul Virilio famously developed the theory that speed defines today's world. The communications revolution makes the world smaller, faster and infinitely more complex. In his fascinating new book The Ingenuity Gap, White House advisor Thomas Homer-Dixon, takes this argument a stage further, claiming that "if our societies are to manage their affairs and improve their well-being, they will need more ingenuity, that is, more ideas for solving their technical and social problems. But societies, whether rich or poor, can't always supply the ingenuity they need at the right times and places. As a result, some face an ingenuity gap: a shortfall between their rapidly rising need for ingenuity and their adequate supply" Homer-Dixon's updated version of Darwin's theory of evolution rests on brain power, and the need for "copious ingenuity to address the commonplace challenges around us". What follows is an absorbing but rather fruitless attempt to measure and quantify ingenuity, and Homer-Dixon's accounts of how ingenuity has responded to a series of contemporary problems, stretching from pollution, global warming and the crisis of the global economy, to the dark side of artificial intelligence and information technology. However, this is a very long book for such a bold and snappy thesis, that veers between rather dubious forms of social engineering and utopian liberalism, as Homer-Dixon concludes rather hopefully that "as ingenuity gaps widen the gulfs of wealth and power among us, we need imagination, metaphor and empathy more than ever, to help us remember each other's essential humanity". Not a particularly novel or ingenious solution. --Jerry BrottonRead More