Review | This could be our future by Yancey Strickler

" This could be our future  review "

Title : This could be our future : A manifesto for a more generous world

Author : Yancey Strickler

Genre  : self- development

Rating : 4 ⭐/5 ⭐

This Could Be Our Future is about how we got here, and how we change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it also established an implicit belief that the right choice in every decision is whichever option makes the most money. This belief in financial maximization has produced dire consequences: environmental collapse, corruption, inequality, and a growing dissatisfaction around the world. The answer isn't to get rid of money; it's to expand our concept of value. By assigning rational value to other values besides money--things like community, purpose, and sustainability--we can refocus our energies to build a society that's generous, fair, and ready for the future. By recalibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can become a world of abundance.

Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete solutions and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Futurebrilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

Blurb

Break free from a wealth-obsessed world

Western society is trapped by three assumptions: 1) the point of life is to maximize your self-interest and wealth, 2) we're individuals trapped in an adversarial world, and 3) that this path is inevitable.

These ideas separate us, keep us powerless, and limit our imagination for the future. We see them as the truth, but they are just a point of view that previous generations accepted as inevitable. It's time we replace them with something new.

In this bold, powerful book, Yancey Strickler – co-founder of Kickstarter – lays out an inspiring vision for a new world we have the power to create and how we can change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it's also produced dire consequences: environmental collapse, corruption, exploitation, and unhappiness around the world. We don't have to get rid of money entirely, though: we can co-opt the tools we have used toward better measurement of what matters, technology, and specificity of goals--and refocus them to build a more generous, fair, and future-prepared society. By re-calibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can blossom into a world of abundance.

Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete examples and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Future brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

Review

"This Could Be Our Future" by Yancy Strickler is an excellent treatise on how to incorporate the creative component into business transactions.

Yancy cites Kickstarter as an example of an organization which gave money to creative people with a good idea and the willingness to bring that idea to fruition through hard work.

it helps to understand the core principles of Bentoism (BEyond Near-Term Ogranization), a strategy that could help people decide which of four different choices they should pick in any given scenario. The choices include self-focus, (Now Me), the people around us (Now Us), the person you want to be in the future (Future Me), and the world in which your children will live (Future Us). The methodology, Yancey Strickler believes, can move people away from a money-focused scenario toward a system based on security, pleasure, autonomy, knowledge, and purpose. Strickler: "Bentoism is a framework that helps us better see our values and rational self-interest. While the world today is focused on the needs of Now Me, Bentoism says there are other perspectives that must be balanced: Now Us, Future Me, and Future Us." One of my own concerns is widespread Zero Sum thinking.  According to this mindset, to extend the metaphors, Now Me and Now Us as well as Future Me and Future Us are competitors. There can be no consensus or balance. All or nothing. Period. That's it. End of discussion. As African proverb wisely suggests, Now Me may have short-term advantages but forfeits the longer-term advantages that Future Us offers. If I understand Strickler's point-of-view (and I may not), the best decisions are based on an analysis of various options and contingencies. 

The book is Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete solutions and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Futurebrilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

About Author

Yancey Strickler is a writer, speaker and co-founder of Kickstarter. He has appeared widely across the media around the world and been profiled in Wired, the Financial Times, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Forbes, and Vox. He was one of Fortune's 40 Under 40, on Vanity Fair's New Establishment List, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. The Spectator called him "one of the least obnoxious tech evangelists ever.