The Crash Course, Revised Edition

Introduction

We are at peak prosperity—a golden moment in human history when human creativity, industrial systems and know‐how, and abundant energy supplies have happily coincided to create the highest standards of living for the most people in all of history. It's all coming to an end. But that's not necessarily a bad thing and for those who are prepared, the future could be even more fulfilling and entertaining than the past.

This book will help you foresee the future, but not by invoking spooky divinations. It simply provides a framework for seeing the world as it actually is, not as we might wish it to be. It offers a view usually relegated to the dusty edges of inquiry, where a few wild‐haired professors and rebel intellectuals have gathered for years. One that dares to suggest that limits exist and that humans are not actually all that different from any other organism on the planet when it comes to exploiting resources. Over here on the fringe, it's a lot less lonely than it used to be as millions of people are waking up to the many troubles we face and are beginning to ask the right questions.

My perspective comes from being a devoted outsider after being a deep insider. My PhD in Pathology from Duke, my MBA from Cornell, and my successful stints working in a couple of Fortune 300 companies mean I understand the current game and how it's played. But over the past 15 years, I have been a deep outsider, too. I've spent years in relative isolation thinking and researching ...