A few years ago Barbara Lamar recommended the book Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. The book presents an optimistic view of the future and, as Ms. Lamar noted, the authors are very achievement focused. Throughout the book the idea of economics as a zero-sum gain (and akin to a fixed pie) is debunked. Path-breaking innovations in various industries such as education, healthcare, and energy are detailed. The authors explicitly argue that the source of innovation and, consequently, the solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems is the mind.
The book is very optimistic but does suffer from an explicit acceptance of Malthusian premises about overpopulation and fossil fuels as well some other popularly accepted ideas regarding carbon dioxide. However, the book’s reverence for the mind makes it worth reading.
http://www.abundancethebook.com/
