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Book review of: "Thank You for Being Late"
- 1. Thank You for Being Late -Thomas L.Friedman PREPERED BY .: KHATRI MUSTUFARAZA (17BCH063D)
- 2. Thomas Loren Friedman is born in July 20, 1953. he is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times He has been criticized for his staunch advocacy of the Iraq War and unregulated trade and his early support of Saudi Royal Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
- 3. In Thank You for Being Late, a work unlike anything he has attempted before, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts. You will never look at the world the same way again after you read this book: how you understand the news, the work you do, the education your kids need, the investments your employer has to make, and the moral and geopolitical choices our country has to navigate will all be refashioned by Friedman’s original analysis.
- 4. Friedman begins by taking us into his own way of looking at the world– how he writes a column. After a quick tutorial, he proceeds to write what could only be called a giant column about the twenty-first century. His thesis: to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces– Moore’s law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)–are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community.
- 5. Why is this happening? As Friedman shows, the exponential increase in computing power defined by Moore’s law has a lot to do with it. 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”–for it is an extraordinary release of energy that is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships.
- 6. Friedman, taking some time to reflect on the state of the world, argues that we are living through “one of the greatest inflection points in history”. That critical point is dominated by “the three largest forces on the planet – technology, globalization, and climate change – all accelerating at once.” The first part looks at those three accelerations, beginning with technology. It explores Moore’s law and the boom in computer processing power, leading to new opportunities in big data, the internet of things, and cloud computing. We can all do more, as individuals, than any generation before us – and that’s true for both makers and ‘breakers’ – those who want to do good in the world, and those who want to wreck stuff. It weighs up the benefits and dangers of hyper-globalization, and sets the whole thing in the context of climate change
- 7. If we think we can slow the world down and catch up, we’re deluding ourselves, Friedman suggests. Technological advance won’t be curbed, and neither will globalization. Climate effects are only beginning. We urgently need to find ways to adapt faster. Friedman argues that we need to be able to innovate politically and socially, pay more attention to ethics. He sees the potential of simple interventions as well as high tech ones, and the need to be open to new ideas wherever they come from. “We need an entrepreneurial mind-set, a willingness to approach politics and problem-solving with an utterly hybrid, heterodox, and nondogmatic mixing and matching of ideas, without regard to traditional left-right catechisms – letting all kinds of ideas coevolve, just as plants and animals coevolve in nature.”
- 8. The key message in this book: The world is changing more quickly than ever. Rapidly evolving technology, global markets and climate change all imply significant accelerations to the pace of life - and exerting these factors is a major impact on our lives. In this wild new world, working together for the common good may be the last hope of humanity.
- 9. The chapters on climate change and the market are stuffed with similar nuggets. But Friedman also shows how all three forces interact, complicating and speeding up one another. In Niger, climate change is wrecking crops even as technology is helping more children survive, so a population of 19 million will reach 72 million hungry people by 2050. On trading floors, technology and markets create “spoofing,” so a 36-year-old geek, operating out of his parents’ flat by Heathrow, can make the Dow Jones index fall 9 percent in a “flash crash.” And everything, Friedman warns, will keep getting faster. There are already at least 10 billion things connected to the internet — but that is still less than 1 percent of the possible total as ever more cars, gadgets and bodies join “the internet of things.”
- 10. For the most part, “Thank You for Being Late” is a master class in explaining. It canters along at a pace that is quick enough to permit learning without getting bogged down. Inevitably he sometimes gets the balance wrong, either allowing his informants to ramble on, or skating over a thorny detail: For instance, having admitted that productivity numbers have not leapt forward in the same way that technology has, he asks us, in effect, to trust him, they will. And, yes, the folksiness will still irk some critics: The starting point for the book is a chat with a Bethesda parking attendant, with another attendant from Minnesota waiting near the end.
- 11. With the increasing time, the world is developing at a very rapid pace. Like the two sides of the coin and there are many advantages as well as many losses on the other side Human beings are becoming victims of diseases in a way that creates their own conveniences (such as the use of mobiles, machines, etc.) by following the path of science.