Rating

★★★☆☆

Category

non-fiction

Read

2018-11-26

Pages

262

Pretty decent overview of basic income, shorter work weeks, open borders, that kind of thing.

Liked early chapters on why conception of utopia is important: “More understood that utopia is dangerous when taken too seriously. “One needs to be able to believe passionately and also be able to see the absurdity of one’s own beliefs and laugh at them,” observes philosopher and leading utopia expert Lyman Tower Sargent. Like humor and satire, utopias throw open the windows of the mind. And that’s vital.”

The bulk of the book I found unsatisfying, since I don’t feel like it really tackled any hard issues - but then it self-proclaimedly wasn’t trying to do this, instead just trying to be more of a rallying call. But still, feels like a decent entry point into relevant research - at least until I find a better one.

I also found a claim early on that was based on a study that, on following the footnote found wasn’t statistically significant, which just left a bad taste in my mouth for the whole thing.