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    The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It
    Unavailable
    The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It
    Unavailable
    The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It

    Written by Joshua Cooper Ramo

    Narrated by Joshua Cooper Ramo

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    For decades, American foreign policy has been based on the seductive belief that there exists a logical relationship between power of states and the physics of change. And yet today policies designed to make us safer instead make the world more perilous. History's grandest war against terrorism creates more terrorists. Global capitalism, intended to boost the quality of life of people around the world, increases the gap between rich and poor. Decisions taken to stem a financial crisis guarantee its arrival. Environmental techniques engineered to protect species lead to their extinction. Middle East peace plans produce less peace. Our world is not becoming more stable or flatter or easier to comprehend. And what we face isn't one single shift, like the end of World War Two or the collapse of the Soviet Union, so much as a revolutionary avalanche of ceaseless change.

    Now, drawing upon history, economics, complexity theory, human immunology, psychology and his own extraordinary experiences, Joshua Ramo puts forth a radical new model for looking at the world, one that embraces its inherent unpredictability--and offers our best hope for dealing with problems and disasters as they emerge.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMar 23, 2009
    ISBN9781600247217
    Unavailable
    The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It

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    Reviews for The Age of the Unthinkable

    3.5/5

    46 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Picked this up after seeing Reid Hoffman's recommendation. A thoughtful look at how distributed ("cloud-based") organization and thinking can be applied to public/foreign policy.
    • 4/5
      Really thought provoking and and a must read. Ramo argues that the rapid changes in the world call for new theories and strategies to deal with them. Specifically, he applies complexity theory from the physical sciences to the social milieu and challenges us to figure out how to deal with the implications. According to complexity theory, some systems evolve into a critical state in which minor disturbances create huge changes. Think of a sandpile, and how the addition of one more grain of sand can set off an avalanche. You can’t predict which grain of sand will do it, no matter how much you control your experiment, because too many factors, internal to the accumulation in the sandpile, would affect the outcome.
    • 3/5
      took a long time to make points. am not as knowledgeable as the other reviewer so can't comment on the history. i found interesting the idea that what will happen in the future is totally unpredictable, often seems sudden because we are not expecting it and that very ordinary people can find solutions and make change.
    • 2/5
      Very DisappointingI picked up this book after watching Joseph Cooper Ramo on Fareed Zakaria's GPS. He seemed very astute and a keen observer and commentator on current geopolitical events so I took a chance on his book thinking that it would be just as enlightening. I couldn't have been more wrong.My first major criticism of the book is the reckless use and abuse of history for the purposes of furthering his unoriginal arguments. He completely misrepresents the historical causality of the events leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union by claiming that Gorbachev was oblivious to the impending collapse and Ramo falsely claims that the CPSU establishement simply flipped sides -- if Ramo had bothered to spend 2 seconds to look up the failed putsch on wikipedia he would've seen how wrong he was. He fundamentally misreads the multiple wars between Israel and Lebanon and his hagiography of Hezbollah is almost criminal. I could go on, but I think you get the point.My second major criticism is his dismissal of some of the major western philosophies without a whisper of any empirical or reasonable arguments. Instead, Ramo endorses eastern philosophy without so much as a single critical eye whatsoever. Finally, his analysis and exploration of the "revolutionary" movements and the individuals who inspired them amounts to little more than sensationalist journalism. It is one thing to say that the world is complex, that we need new ways at looking at the world, thinking outside of the box, etc..., and quite another to explain how these exceptional ideas came about. In other words, don't tell us some fluff story about the guy who saved the Internet by geeking it up on a Saturday night with his LAN buddies, or a David and Goliath story of how Nintendo's Wii beat Sony. Tell us about what makes them special, is it biological, is it socio-economic, is it cultural? I rarely give anything less than 3 stars and this may very well be one of the most disappointing books I have read in over 2 years. I had high expectations going in and have nothing but negative things to say about this book. Save yourself the two hours and skip "The Age of the Unthinkable."
    • 3/5
      Book discusses how the world is chaotic and how we use old paradigms to respond. Recommends resiliency and not just Reponses.
    • 3/5
      Ramo argues that the rapid changes in the world call for new theories and strategies to deal with them. Specifically, he applies complexity theory from the physical sciences to the social milieu and challenges us to figure out how to deal with the implications. According to complexity theory, some systems evolve into a critical state in which minor disturbances create huge changes. Think of a sandpile, and how the addition of one more grain of sand can set off an avalanche. You can’t predict which grain of sand will do it, no matter how much you control your experiment, because too many factors, internal to the accumulation in the sandpile, would affect the outcome. Now think of the situation with terrorists. We build missiles and they use box cutters. We screen for box cutters and they use shoe bombs. We can no longer predict when, where, or how the threats will come. So how can we protect ourselves?First, we must make some conceptual adjustments. Building the biggest missiles or highest fences is not the guarantee of safety it used to be, in an age in which technology and creative thinking can compensate for size. Also, Ramo warns us not to fall for the "soft revolution" fallacy, according to which the fact that other cultures like blue jeans, American music, and fast food means that they want to be like Americans in every other way as well, or even that this will cause them to feel affection towards America. Such ethnocentric blindness only serves to increase American vulnerability to terrorism. Americans need to understand that not everyone in the world is as besotted with us as we ourselves are. To the extent that we bother to learn about other perceptual frameworks instead of just our own, we will not only increase our empathy but our preparedness as well. Secondly, Ramo suggests that we think of the body politic as a human body; one that needs a healthy immune system to survive. That is, instead of just reacting to events, he advocates the preventive medicine of strength, flexibility, and the capability for quick response and gear-changing. He argues that putting good infrastructure (education, health care, and communication systems) in place is far more efficacious than waiting until a crisis erupts and then trying to catch up. By the time you get solutions in place, he says, the old crisis is over and a new and different one has taken its place. He implores us to learn the habits of connection and a global ethic instead of alienation and isolation. He wants us to open up our ossified bureaucracies and empower people to create and think and act on the local level. (“The last time the National Security Council was seriously reengineered was forty years ago. The fundamental structure of the State Department has not been revamped since World War II…") Highly decentralized groups, Ramo points out, can “bend, adjust, and attack based on a far better sense of local conditions than any central commander could ever have.” Evaluation: This is a really smart guy. But his writing is very simplistic. I feel like he’s trying to make sure he reaches the widest possible audience, but I'm not sure he won't lose an important segment of that potential audience instead. Nevertheless, I like what he has to say, once he gets it out. He has a nice philosophy, with ideals evocative of Saul Alinksy, Michael Lerner (of Tikkun), Cass Sunstein, and other possibly quixotic but nevertheless admirable intellects.