Dette er tittelen på boka til Azeem Azhar som kom i fjor, og her er det en del godbiter. Legger ut noen av dem her, og boka kan absolutt anbefales!
Den første smakebiten tar utgangspunt i Wembley stadion, og står på s. 72:
… Wembley Stadion is Englands´s national soccer venue. … Its steel arch, spanning 315 metres and reaching 133 metres at its peak, soars above the silver-grey roof. The venue is an enormous edifice, seating som 90.000 people at capacity.
Azeem Azhar
Imagine sitting in the highest row of level three, the furthest above the pitch you can be – some 40 metres or so above the ground. Rain starts to fall, but you are sheltered by the part of the roof above you. Yet this is no ordinary rain. This is exponential rain. The raindrops are going to gradually increase in frequency, doubling with each passing minute. One drop, then a minute later two drops, then a minute later four drops. By the fourth minute, eight drops. If it take 30 minutes to get out of your seat and out of the stadium, how soon should you get moving to avoid being drenched?
To be safe, you should start moving no later than minute 17 – to give yourself 30 minutes to be clear of the stadium. By the 47th minute, the exponential rain will be falling at a rate of 141 trillion drops per minute. Assuming a raindrop is about 4 cubic millimeters, by the 47th minute the deluge would be 600 million litres of water. Of cours, the rain in the 48th minute will be twice as large, so you are likely to get soaked in the car park. And if you make it to the car, the deluge in the 50th minute will comprise 5 billion litres of water. It would weigh 5 million tons. Frankly, if exponential rain is forecast, you´re best off staying at home.
De neste avsnittene handler om automatisering, og står på side 137:
Where workers do lose their jobs due to automation, it´s not because they themselves are replaced by some piece of software. It´s often because the firms they work for fail. And the firms they work for fail because their management or shareholders are unwilling or unable to keep up with the new possibilities of technology. That failure often extends to failing to invest in the training that their employees need to implement the latest technologies.
Azeem Azhar
In other words, automation may be more like the story of two friends – call them Fred and Indrek – hiking in western Canada. They stop for a break, taking off their shoes to let their feet breathe. As they relax, they spot a grizzly bear approaching them. Fred silently starts to slip on his shoes. “You´ll never outrun that bear. Why bother putting on your shoes?” asks Indrek. “Well”, says Fred, “I don´t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you”. And then off he sprints.
Det neste avsnittet er fra 171, og nå er temaet fremtidens matproduksjon:
High-tech entrepeneurs have startet to bring farming closer to where the food will be eaten. Urban vertical farms, popular in Japan and spreading elsewhere, are unusually efficient. In this set-up, the traditional fields is chopped up and assembled in stacks. A modern vertical farm may run to 12 og 13 storeys high, each with a floor area of a few dozen square metres. This method increases the productivity of each square metre of “farmland”: when built vertically, 40 metres of growing area can concertina to nearly 10 times that. Using AI systems to control lighting, water and heat drives even more efficiencies. Computer-controlled intensive farms do not require pesticides, or other chemicals. Some require 80 times less water than traditional farms. Soil is eliminated in favour of hydroponics (where the roots dangle in water) or aeroponics (where a nutrient-dense solution is misted onto the roots). Rather than using ordinary greenhouse lights, with their wide spectrum of colours, som vertical farms shine only the precise wavelengths to which the vegetables respond. Not even a photon of light is wasted. By using renewable energy (often supplied via solar panels on the roof of the building), their energy costs decline and their carbon footprint drops even further. Provided that you have the resources to invest in the technology, these farms can be built more or less anywhere – Spain, Britain or beyond.
Azeem Azhar
Det siste avsnittet er rett etterpå, s. 173, og handler om forskjellen på fordeling av sol og fossile ressurser i verden:
The shift away from fossil fuel and towards renewables reduces global dependence on fossil-rich nations. Solar energy, thankfully, is much more equitably distributed. While not every nation is rich on fossil fuels, solar energy in possible everywhere. The most solar rich nation, Azerbaijan, only gets four times more sunlight per square mile than the moste impoverished, Norway. That may sound significant, but it is a relatively minor variance. The equivalent density between the haves and have-nots for oil is more than a million to one.
Azeem Azhar
Det er jo til ettertanke. Ble litt overrasket over hvilket land som har mest sol, men at Norge kommer dårlig ut er jo ikke så rart.
Boka inneholder utrolig mange gode illustrerende eksempler på “the great acceleration” som ofte blir brukt som betegnelse på eksponentsiell vekst. Siste kapittelet handler om eksponentsielle borgere, så her er det mye kreativitet og matematikk på nye områder. Anbefales!
