Avery

I'm very glad that Piketty wrote this more accessible update to his material. His other books felt a little intimidating but this was readable while still containing so many important ideas. Even though some of the examples and vocabulary still went over my head, I found myself highlighting a paragraph every few pages.I read this after [b:The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism 1237300 The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Naomi Klein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442590618l/1237300.SY75.jpg 2826418], which had made me feel somewhat pessimistic about the future and at a loss for what a functional globalized society could look like. Klein's book did a lot to point out the flaws in Friedman's economic model but didn't provide as much of an answer about what might be better. At times, it paints a pretty grim picture of humanity.Piketty's ideas seemed to perfectly fill the gap - he is generally optimistic about our capacity to move towards equality over time, while still being completely realistic about how much work it requires to do so. He has many example of concrete policies that could be implemented to increase equality.If anything, I wish it had felt more actionable, but I'll admit this is probably hard to do. I did appreciate that he mentioned whenever a specific government was trying to implement something similar to what he was describing.To me, this feels like required reading for anyone who is losing hope in humanity's ability to “play nice”, making a compelling argument that in helping each other and working together, we can all benefit.

Several original ideas presented in a fun-to-read way. Never seen some of these concepts explored in the this direction.

A pretty standard “hard” sci-fi plot, though it was written in a style that made it more entertaining to read than many. The first contact aspect wasn't as interesting as the dynamics between characters which isn't necessarily what I expected given the genre.

Wasn't exactly what I expected. Had some interesting insights but not many that I would personally use frequently in day-to-day life. Not a bad book to have around so that you can flip through it for reference if you need to negotiate a big deal though.

It wasn't what I was expecting, more poetry than science-fiction. That said, it was an interesting read and had some twists I didn't see coming.

This did a great job of stirring up my nostalgia for the source books while adding many entertaining and interesting ideas. Some parts were better than others but I'm pretty sure the end of this book was better than the original, I was glued to it for the last hour or two.

I was initially excited about this book providing a new perspective on how to make the world a better place. I saw some negative reviews but assumed they were written by the same type of idealistic environmentalist types that Lomborg is trying to argue against, and so didn't pay much attention to them.

After reading the book, I tried to learn more about the claims made in the book, and it started to feel more and more like the facts had been misrepresented in order to make Lomborg's argument more compelling. For a summary of some of the issues, you can see http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/ or the complaints to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty.

This was very disappointing to me. I think it is possible there is still a kernel of truth to Lomborg's argument and it is unfortunate if it is lost due to making arguments in bad faith with hidden agendas. If there is some truth to this argument that we are attempting to solve the climate problem in the wrong way, then I hope that someone can do this work in a more intellectually honest way, adapting the argument to take into account criticism/suggestions by other experts. Hopefully Lomborg's style of argument hasn't done too much to destroy the credibility of any similar research.