HOME
*





The Ingenuity Gap
''The Ingenuity Gap'' is a non-fiction book by Canadian academic Thomas Homer-Dixon. It was written over the course of eight years from 1992 to 2000 when it was published by Knopf. The book argues that the nature of problems faced by our society are becoming more complex and that our ability to implement solutions is not keeping pace. Homer-Dixon focuses upon complexities, unexpected non-linear results, and emergent properties. He takes an inter-disciplinary approach connecting political science with sociology, economics, history, and ecology. After Robert D. Kaplan referenced Homer-Dixon's work in the 1994 ''The Atlantic Monthly'' article, "The Coming Anarchy", Homer-Dixon was offered a book deal. He spent the next half decade preparing until it was finally published in 2000 in North America and the United Kingdom. While it spent three weeks at #1 on a Canadian best-seller list, it did not sell many copies in the United States. Critics were pleased with Homer-Dixon's scholarship ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Thomas Homer-Dixon
Thomas Homer-Dixon (born 1956) is a Canadian political scientist and author who researches threats to global security. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. He is the author of seven books, the most recent being ''Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril''. Early life and education Homer-Dixon was born and raised in a rural area outside Victoria, British Columbia. In his late teens and early twenties, he worked on oil rigs and in forestry. In 1980, he received a B.A. in political science from Carleton University in Ottawa. He then established the Canadian Student Pugwash organization, a forum for discussion of the relationships between science, ethics, and public policy. He completed his Ph.D. in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989, specializing in international relations and conflict theory under the supervision of Hayward Alker. Academic ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the most prestigious and highly ranked academic institutions in the world. Founded in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT is one of three private land grant universities in the United States, the others being Cornell University and Tuskegee University. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River, and encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes. , 98 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Market Fundamentalism
Market fundamentalism, also known as free-market fundamentalism, is a term applied to a strong belief in the ability of unregulated ''laissez-faire'' or free-market capitalist policies to solve most economic and social problems. It is often used as pejorative by critics of said beliefs.''market fundemmentalism'', UNESCWA/ref> Origins and use Palagummi Sainath believes Jeremy Seabrook, a journalist and campaigner, first used the term. The term was used by Jonathan Benthall in an ''Anthropology Today'' editorial in 1991 and by John Langmore and John Quiggin in their 1994 book ''Work for All''. According to economist John Quiggin, the standard features of economic fundamentalist rhetoric are dogmatic assertions combined with the claim that anyone who holds contrary views is not a real economist. Quiggin, John. ''Rationalism and Rationality in Economics'', 1999, On Line Opinion,www.onlineopinion.com.au However, Kozul-Wright states in his book ''The Resistible Rise of Market Fun ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Neo-Malthusianism
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe (also known as a Malthusian trap, population trap, Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian spectre, or Malthusian crunch) occurs when population growth outpaces agricultural production, causing famine or war, resulting in poverty and depopulation. Such a catastrophe inevitably has the effect of forcing the population to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level (quite rapidly, due to the potential severity and unpredictable results of the mitigating factors involved, as compared to the relatively slow time scales and well-understood processes governing unchecked growth or growth affected by preventive checks). Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Endogenous Growth Theory
Endogenous growth theory holds that economic growth is primarily the result of endogenous and not external forces. Endogenous growth theory holds that investment in human capital, innovation, and knowledge are significant contributors to economic growth. The theory also focuses on positive externalities and spillover effects of a knowledge-based economy which will lead to economic development. The endogenous growth theory primarily holds that the long run growth rate of an economy depends on policy measures. For example, subsidies for research and development or education increase the growth rate in some endogenous growth models by increasing the incentive for innovation. Models In the mid-1980s, a group of growth theorists became increasingly dissatisfied with common accounts of exogenous factors determining long-run growth. They favored a model that replaced the exogenous growth variable (unexplained technical progress) with a model in which the key determinants of growth w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Path Dependence
Path dependence is a concept in economics and the social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. It can be used to refer to outcomes at a single point in time or to long-run equilibria of a process. Path dependence has been used to describe institutions, technical standards, patterns of economic or social development, organizational behavior, and more. In common usage, the phrase can imply two types of claims. The first is the broad concept that "history matters", often articulated to challenge explanations that pay insufficient attention to historical factors. This claim can be formulated simply as "the future development of an economic system is affected by the path it has traced out in the past" or "particular events in the past can have crucial effects in the future." The second is a more specific claim about how past events or decisions affect future events or decisions in significant or disproportionate ways, throu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Chaos Theory
Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have completely random states of disorder and irregularities. Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions). A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas. Small differences in initial conditions, such as those due to errors in measurements or due to rounding errors i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Information Theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. The field is at the intersection of probability theory, statistics, computer science, statistical mechanics, information engineering (field), information engineering, and electrical engineering. A key measure in information theory is information entropy, entropy. Entropy quantifies the amount of uncertainty involved in the value of a random variable or the outcome of a random process. For example, identifying the outcome of a fair coin flip (with two equally likely outcomes) provides less information (lower entropy) than specifying the outcome from a roll of a dice, die (with six equally likely outcomes). Some other important measures in information theory are mutual informat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation. Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour. Overview Groupthink is sometimes stated to occur (more broadly) within natural groups within the community, for example to explain the lifelong different mindsets of those with differing political views (such as "conservatism" and "liberalism" in the U.S. political context or the purported benefits ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1997 Asian Financial Crisis
The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid and worries of a meltdown subsided. The crisis started in Thailand (known in Thailand as the ''Tom Yam Kung crisis''; th, วิกฤตต้มยำกุ้ง) on 2 July, with the financial collapse of the Thai baht after the Thai government was forced to float the baht due to lack of foreign currency to support its currency peg to the U.S. dollar. Capital flight ensued almost immediately, beginning an international chain reaction. At the time, Thailand had acquired a burden of foreign debt. As the crisis spread, most of Southeast Asia and later South Korea and Japan saw slumping currencies, devalued stock markets and other asset prices, and a precipitous rise in private debt. South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand were ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial support of Charles Scribner, as a printing press to serve the Princeton community in 1905. Its distinctive building was constructed in 1911 on William Street in Princeton. Its first book was a new 1912 edition of John Witherspoon's ''Lectures on Moral Philosophy.'' History Princeton University Press was founded in 1905 by a recent Princeton graduate, Whitney Darrow, with financial support from another Princetonian, Charles Scribner II. Darrow and Scribner purchased the equipment and assumed the operations of two already existing local publishers, that of the ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'' and the Princeton Press. The new press printed both local newspapers, university documents, ''The Daily Princetonian'', and later added book publishing to it ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]