Tom Oakley

I found it fascinating how Bartlett spoke about the dark side of technology and how it will affect politics in the future. He had a section on how the Donald Trump presidential campaign used Cambridge Analytica to devastating effects. He also has two theories on how the future will pan out - one utopian vision, where machines will take jobs but goods will get much cheaper and quality of life will improve, with universal income becoming the method of income for most people. The other is the dystopian vision; governments will loose the ability to function properly, and as government gets increasingly in-effective and cryptocurrencies continue their rise, tax evasion will get far harder to track, and this will create a viscious cycle of governments who need funds to operate but the poor quality of the government will mean people are far less willing to pay taxes.

Overall I really enjoyed this book; Bartlett included lots of attributes to other authors and books, so many of them, including Atlas Shrugged, Life 3.0 and Present Shock have been added to my Amazon Wishlist for future reading.