Thomas L. Friedman: "Thank You for Being Late" |
Talks at Google
Thomas Loren Friedman
is a political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer
Prize winner and is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has
written on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and
environmental issues as well. Here he gives an introduction to his book,
"thank you for being late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age
of Accelerations". The title of the book is inspired by his own personal
life experience when he used to get late for his work and made excuses. The
book is a guide to twenty-first century.
When you press the
pause button on a computer it stops but when you press the pause button in
human being, it starts.
This book consists of
three main points:
- What are your
value set?
- How does the
machine work?
- What did you
learn about people and culture?
Thomas
shows that we have entered an age of dizzying acceleration. He begins by
taking us into his own way of looking at the world He explains how to
live in it. Due to an exponential increase in computing power, climbers atop Mount
Everest enjoy excellent cell-phone service and self-driving cars are taking to
the roads. A parallel explosion of economic interdependency has created new
riches as well as spiraling debt burdens. Mother Nature is also seeing dramatic
changes as carbon levels rise and species go extinct, with compounding
results. In order to understand 21st century we need to understand
planet's three largest forces; Moore's law (technology), the market
(globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss), are
all accelerating at once, and transforming the workplace, politics,
geopolitics, ethics and community. These accelerations are transforming
five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and
community. The year 2007 was a major inflection point: the release of the
iPhone, together with advances in silicon chips, software, storage, sensors,
and networking, created a new technology platform. Friedman calls this platform
“the supernova”. He believes the world is changing and getting advanced
and so we should adapt it as its changing. Thank You for Being
Late is Friedman’s most ambitious book―and an essential guide to the
present and the future.
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