Catching Up on some ‘Light Reading’
Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I’m in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek out random connections. I once ‘solved’ the nuclear fusion problem whilst reading books by Umberto Eco and John D Barrow. A physicist friend of mine suggested my idea was radical and yet theoretically possible. But I digress. Right now I have a wide combination – ‘From Poverty to Peace’ by Duncan Green looks at ways in which we can empower people to help themselves more effectively, whilst looking at the myriad of mistakes so commonly made in the area of ‘aid’. ‘New knowledge in Human Values’ is an older book edited by Ambraham Maslow with a wide contribution of thoughts from the likes of Pitirim Sorokin, Dorothy Lee and Paul Tillich (among others) and is a walk through some of the thinking about Human Values emerging in the late 1950’s. The chapters are appropriately dense undertakings and I’m finding it hard to stick with, especially as I’m more inclined to lean towards the model of Clare W Graves and his Value Systems Thoery; ‘Coercion as Cure’ by Thomas Szasz is a ripper of a book thus far, though I’m only a few chapters in, I can tell the quality of a book by how much ‘tagging’ I do within a text
Coercion as Cure already has a significant number of tags – sentences or paragraphs that I reckon are of significant value. It’s a book that looks at the idea of psychiatry and tackles head on the notion that psychiatry, when forced upon someone, can be anything other than a form of unjustifiable assault of the worst kind. ‘Muddling towards Frugality’ by Warren Johnson is, it turns out’ a must read for any person who thinks that the human species has the capability, through technology, of saving us from the potential precipice the species is standing at the edge of. The book doesn’t discuss much about the precipice – that’s my take on it; instead it considers the notion that for the species (the all knowing ‘humanity’) to survive, we must eventually accept the idea of living frugally or what might be called ‘living within our means’. There’s no sign of that happening from what I can see thus far, though there are significant pockets of resistance (to the idea of economic growth as the be all and end all) starting to form. I wish I could keep this book and alas, it is on loan from Jan Lee-Martin who I sincerely hope forgets I have it! 🙂 Finally I’m reading ‘War and Unreason’ by Marco Nilsson. A book which consider, with appropriate historical case studies, the idea that superior military technology guarantees a quick and decisive war – there’s nothing shocked or awe struck about this book and it also highly recommended, as are all the books I’ve mentioned.
A quick final thought. If you haven’t seen the film ‘Precious’ by Lee Daniels and based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, it is worthy of a quiet night at home. Not a light comedy though so be prepared. The performance of Mo’Nique as the mother is expectional as is that of the lead actress Gabourey Sidibe as ‘Precious’. A hard hitting look at a life few of us could comprehend
The Advanced one day Strategic Planning Workshop in Sydney on the 11th of December at Rydges World Square is now fully booked For inquiries about the next series of dates for the 2009 series, keep an eye out on The Australian Strategic Planning Institute website at www.taspi.com.au or contact us via email here
Read More >Every now and again what sounds like a really good idea turns out to be less beneficial than what was hoped for. There’s lots of talk right now about technology solutions and ways in which societies can change the way they use water – there’s conferences and ‘talkfests’ a plenty featuring many of the industry…
Read More >The second annual fund raiser was held in late October and attended by almost 300 people. Marcus Barber offers a brief update: The Blackwood 8 commitee put together a great fund raiser on behalf of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne. With a delightful crowd warm up by Greg Champion of the ‘Coodabeen…
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Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be kicking off proceedings at the 2008 Regional Produce Summit in Wangaratta on the 20th of October where he’ll detail some of the emerging issues likely to impact upon the tourism and food sector in the foreseeable future and suggest ways that businesses in the sector might be able to…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will both key note and act as Master of Ceremonies at the Lockhart Industrial symposium on the 9th of October, in Lockhart NSW. Marcus will discuss the clear business advantages that Eco Industrial parks provide to businesses, the way that symbiotic supply chains work to improve business resilience and the way…
Read More >Marcus Barber joined host Tim Cox and co-host, author and writer Andrew Peglar on the Conversation hour to muse about the types of futures one might expect to see in coming years. After Tim asked for clarification between a General, Theoretical and Strategic Futurist, Andrew kicked off with a question over the singularity. The…
Read More >Members of the Futures Foundation and the AFFA will be congregating in Pearl Beach in the coming weeks to consider the state of play in the Australian Futures community. Given the emerging challenges in Australia and around the world, the futures community requires just as much serious contemplation and forethought as does any one …
Read More >One of our many Nordic watchers, Are Thorsteinsson, has posted the Future Matters segment looking at the future of robotics, along with marking up full language captions in Danish. Although a couple of years old now, the early signs listed in this segment are only now coming into more mainstream focus Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber has contributed a chapter to Volume Five of the ‘Death and Anti-Death’ Anthology which has just been published by Ria University. With contributors including Aubrey de Grey and Kevin Kelly and edited by Dr. Charles Tandy, Volume Five in the series is dedicated to the memory of Loren Eiseley, the renowned…
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