[.ca] The Ingenuity Gap: How Can We Solve The Problems of the ... (ISBN 0676971482)

From Amazon.com:
As the world becomes more complex, so do its problems--and the solutions to these problems become tougher to grasp, writes University of Toronto professor Thomas Homer-Dixon in The Ingenuity Gap. "As we strive to maintain or increase our prosperity and improve the quality of our lives, we must make far more sophisticated decisions, and in less time, than ever before," he writes. Is the day coming in which our ingenuity can't keep up? Homer-Dixon fears that it is: "the hour is late," and we're blindly "careening into the future." What we face, he says, is a "very real chasm that sometimes looms between our ever more difficult problems and our lagging ability to solve them." There are moments when Homer-Dixon comes close to sounding like a modern-day Malthus, with his never-ending worries about population growth, the environment, the strength of international financial institutions, civil wars, and so on. Yet parts of this book are downright fascinating; at its best, The Ingenuity Gap reads like one of Malcolm Gladwell's stories for The New Yorker (or his book The Tipping Point). Homer-Dixon is very good when he tackles particular problems, and his interests are wide-ranging, moving from the psychology of an airplane cockpit during a crisis to the depletion of the world's fisheries to differences between the minds of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. He also dredges up fine details. Did you know that "the largest human-made structure on the planet is not an Egyptian pyramid or a hydroelectric dam but the Staten Island Fresh Kills landfill near New York City, which has a depth of one hundred meters and an area of nine square kilometers"? There's plenty to argue with on these pages, and some readers will find Homer-Dixon's tendency to write in the first person a bit self-indulgent. Yet fans of big-think books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, David Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and Robert Wright's The Moral Animal will find The Ingenuity Gap riveting. --John J. Miller

Chicken Little writes a book....:
Not a bad book by any means, eloquently writting, well researched, and Dixon often adds a well fit personal perspective and experience to his points. Still there just does not seem to be anything new here, large parts read like a pessimistic first year course in Earth Sciences or Economics, mosty of the "clear cutting is bad" variety. Beyond that, and the admitted "well duh!" premise of the book itself, little else stands out as anything more then speculative musings of the author that do not follow from the evidence he presents to any conclusive degree.

The Ingenuity Gap or A Collection of Platitudes:
I read Homer Dixon's Book and I was very disapointed. His book lacks structure, and is very very repetitive(Its 400 pages, it could be easily written in 50 pages without simplifying its message). Further his book is not really an academic essay, nor a travel log, nor a newspaper article, it is a bag mix of all three. There is no clearly defined thesis in the "Ingenuity Gap", instead the whole book is a collection of basic facts, from which the author extrapolates and concludes that the increasing complexity of our world outweighs our capacity to address this rising complexity, which casts uncertainty on our collective future. There is nothing new about thist argument, take the classic Malthusian theory, but instead of saying that population growth surpasses our ability to meet that growing population's food requirement, say: our demands for "ingenuity" (whathever that is) exceeds our ability to supply it. I read the whole book, and I was unable to find a clear definition of what HD means by Ingenuity.HD lacks a clearly defined thesis, and defendes the notion of an ingenuity gap by using oversimplifications of scientific theories, and by relying on anecdotal evidences rather than theoritical or quantitative analysis. There is nothing new about his theory of "The Ingenuity Gap", in all ages people have always been uncertain about the future, and their inherent ability to cope with the transformation that techinical progress entails. More fundamentaly, there is no evidence that complexity is rising beyond mangeable levels. Today most bureaucracies function more efficiently than they used to 30 years ago. Transactions require less paperwork than they used. While Homer Dixon guards himself from making any projections about the consequences of the Ingenuity Gap, (he leaves that to the reader's imagination), one gets the fake notion that we live in a world that is uncessarily complex, and becoming increasingly so. Yet HD fails to acknowledge that there is a trade off between scientific and technological inovations and our quality of life. I.e. We may be using complex technologies that were not available in the past, but these technologies are not futile as they have increased our standards of living. In short: HD exploits the age-old uncertainty about the future to suggests that the future looks bleak. Like all the other Cassandras, he does not offer any solutions to his ingenuity Gap. In short this is a bad book.

Nothing is easyý:
The short answer to Homer-Dixon's question in the subtitle of his book "Can we solve the problems of the future?" is: it depends. INGENUITY GAP is an exploration of a large number of major and increasingly complex problems facing human society. We will require all the ingenuity and political will that we can muster to deal with these successfully. An ingenuity gap is the difference between "the set of instructions" needed to find solutions for specific problems and the capacity of the people, community or state to take the right actions in solving them. As the problems become increasingly multifaceted the development of the matching sets of instructions require more talent and competence. Ingenuity comes in two forms - technical and social. One without the other will not provide us with lasting solutions. Technical solutions might even lead us down a garden path without complementary social ingenuity. It is the latter that guarantees results taking economic, ecological and cultural needs into account. To make his point, Homer-Dixon explores a wide range of examples demonstrating tremendous levels of ingenuity at work all over the world - both technical and social. His contention is that they are available to us if we look properly. H-D, or Tad as he is usually called, takes us on a tour around the planet, using concrete examples to amplify his argument. Obviously, the result is not your usual travelogue and we are not visiting popular vacation spots or tourist attractions. Visiting Vegas, London's Canary Wharf or Patna, India, he believes that a personalized approach facilitates the following of his arguments. While some reviewers have criticized that H-D places himself too much into the story, it nonetheless contributes to the readability of the often exceedingly complicated issues he is addressing. He also conveys his own learning through interviews with some of the foremost scientists in the various fields he covers: from soil scientists to climatologists, from computer science to economy and architecture. His in depth deductions from the wide range of interviews with scientists represent one of the highlights of the book. For example, while exploring the latest research into the human brain as the central point for ingenuity development, Tad takes his questions to one of the world's leading experts on frontal lobes, Donald Stuss. His conversations with Stuss provide fascinating insights in the importance of frontal lobe abilities to process change and integrate experiences and learning. This part of the brain handles our creative and intellectual capabilities. With aging, the ability of the brain to absorb new information lessens while the ability to digest and process complex interrelationships increases. His conclusions are far reaching - changing the way we assess leadership and identify those who are best qualified to meet the challenges of our corporate and administrative hierarchies. After each of these in-depth conversations, H-D reflects on the substance of the dialogue and returns to his overall theme - how can we minimize the ingenuity gap that is widening all the time. Tad groups his book into sections, each addressing different aspects and disciplines from which to review the ingenuity requirements of the modern world. He depicts environmental problems and those related to continuing rapid population growth, which to him is a major challenge for the planet's future. He does not have a lot of patience with the 'economic optimists' or the 'techno-hubris'. He expands on incidences which demonstrate that a single-minded and, in some way, naïve belief that technological advance alone is capable of solving the world's problems will fail. It's impossibleto do justice here to the many strands of global analysis that Homer-Dixon presents the reader with. His many years of research, in particular into environmental scarcity and civil violence allow him to assess ingenuity gaps from many different angles. The criticism that he does not supply adequate answers and does not show a way forward, is oversimplifying what H-D is attempting to achieve. The modern world is at a level of complexity that no one person can comprehend. As a consequence, it will take the ingenuity and political will of many to address the wide range of issues confronting us. In the pursuit of answers, he urges intellectual humility and thinking outside the box. He encourages his readers to take up the challenges, explore them further, and question any simple or easy solutions being offered by political leaders. This is an important reference book to be read more than once.

CAN WE SAVE MAN FROM EXTINCTION?:
I first became acquainted with the extraordinary book "The Ingenuity Gap" by Thomas Homer-Dixon on Pacifica Radio, KPFK Los Angeles, on the "Free Forum" show during a one hour interview with the author. Although I am a voracious reader, I never heard such a cogent argument that the complexity and interactivity of the ecosystem, technological systems, and social and political institutions may prevent us from solving incredibly difficult problems such as global warming, declining potable water sources, declining oil supplies, depletion of our top soil, and of recent concern to us, but not new to many others, home terrorism. Ironically the incredible advance in communication technology according to Homer-Dixon has made it much more difficult for us to combat terrorists as seen for many years with the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka and more recent years Osama Bin Laden. They can be supplied with money from any part of the world and easily find individuals and countries willing to supply highly sophisticated and deadly arms for the right price. It also allows small special interest groups to thwart government policies for the public good such as environmental policies and helps to keep inappropriate politicians in power. Although "The Ingenuity Gap" has been well written, it must be read slowly to fully absorb the incredible amount of information and concepts contained in Homer-Dixon's enormously important book.

A must read:
An excellent resource for understanding the challenges we are facing in the 21st century. Homer-Dixon's book is accessible, precise and provides strong recommendations for preparing for the future.