Book Review : The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks
This book The Seventh Sense does an amazing job on explaining how networks are the drivng force behind how humanity thrives going forward. I believe we are at another turning point in history. An amazing time to become wealthly as this transfer from one age to the next age of civilization begins.
Author Joshua Copper Ramo writes an insightfull book about how networks shape and guide our future. By reading this book you will gain an edge in uinderstanding how the future unfolds in the uncoming years.
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 17 2016)
OVERVIEW
Endless terror. Refugee waves. An unfixable global economy. Surprising election results. New billion-dollar fortunes. Miracle medical advances. What if they were all connected? What if you could understand why? The Seventh Sense examines the historic force now shaking our world--and explains how our leaders, our businesses, and each of us can master it.
All around us now we are surrounded by events that are difficult to understand. But every day, new figures and forces emerge that seem to have mastered this tumultuous age. Sometimes these are the leaders of the most earthshaking companies of our time, accumulating billion-dollar fortunes. Or they are successful investors or our best generals. Other times, however, quick success is going to terrorists, rebels, and figures intent on chaos. What if we could know the secret of those who can make sense of this age? What if we could apply it to the questions that worry us most?
In this groundbreaking new book, Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of the international bestseller The Age of the Unthinkable, introduces a powerful way of seeing the world. The Seventh Sense is the story of what all of today's successful figures see and feel--forces that are invisible to most of us but explain everything from explosive technological change to uneasy political ripples. The secret to power now is understanding our new age of networks--not merely the Internet but also networks of trade and DNA and finance. Based on his years of advising generals, CEOs, and politicians, Ramo takes us into the opaque heart of our world's rapidly connected systems and teaches us what the victors of this age know--and what the losers are not yet seeing.
But The Seventh Sense won't merely change the way you see the world. It will also give you the power to change it.
CRITIC REVIEWS
"The next president needs to read The Seventh Sense, starting on the morning of November 9th. Joshua Ramo's latest book is a fascinating guide to the way the world is changing."―Malcolm Gladwell, author of David and Goliath^
"Joshua Cooper Ramo has written a book that combines historic sweep and incisive detail. A great book, and a useful one. The Seventh Sense is a concept every businessman, diplomat, or student should aspire to master -- a powerful idea, backed by stories and figures that will be impossible to forget."―Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators^
"If this book were read and understood by our next president, America would be a stronger country and the president would have an agenda for global leadership. Ramo's fascinating work serves a critical public purpose."―Bill Bradley^
"Joshua Cooper Ramo has a unique intelligence and a unique voice, which illuminate this fascinating book. The central new reality of the world we live in today is connectivity. People, computers, other machines, almost everything is getting linked and these new networks are spewing oceans of information. How should we navigate this brave new world? Ramo writes with ease and authority about the technology, history , and foreign policy of this power shift, giving us an essential guide for the future."―Fareed Zakaria, author of In Defense of a Liberal Education^
"In this hyper networked world remade fresh every day, with new perils and new opportunities, there is one book to be sure to read: Joshua Ramo's new book, a masterpiece, The Seventh Sense. To understand the tsunami of the networked age, you need history, biography, tech, philosophy, politics--and you want a book that has a depth beyond whatever else you could be streaming, podcasting, or wiki-ing. This is that book."―Reid Hoffman, Chairman/Founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock^
"The Seventh Sense ultimately isn't just about witnessing the power of human connections, but also harnessing that power to change the world. Highly recommended."―Midwest Book Review^
"Provocative reading... [Ramo] offers plenty of interesting scenarios for such things as global power shifts, AI-enabled weapons systems, and the like.... For policy wonks with an eye toward the middle term, Ramo provides a good effort to make sense of it all."―Kirkus Reviews^
"This book is the best yet on reviewing the ever more tightly woven, connected, pervasive networks - accelerating due to their interactivity - that now dominate our globalized human societies.... Ramo surveys this new world of interconnected networks in penetrating detail with deep knowledge of current global geopolitics and human history."―Hazel Henderson, Seeking Alpha
READER REVIEWS
"The thesis is we live in the age of Networks. His key insight is that the Seventh Sense is the ability to look at any object and see the way in which it is changed by connection. It is hard for me to articulate how paradigm-shifting this notion is. As one reviewer put it on Amazon: "Once the book teaches you to look at objects as the sum of their connections and not as isolated objects, you see the planet anew. Newspapers may not be doomed; they are just misunderstood by their custodians. Government is not, as Silicon Valley bros might tell us, irrelevant. It is of great importance, but only if it understands what its role must be in an age of dense connection. ISIS can be defeated, but only if you understand that its power consists of what cannot be bombed."
I don't know where to start in describing the ramifications of his thesis. With more and more objects every day becoming part of networks, the world becomes new and full of possibilities. As translator programs develop...what will the need be to learn to speak a 2nd or 3rd language? We will someday have a platform (like FB or Google or Bing) that translates words instantly into the language of the person you are speaking to. We will essentially be able to speak dozens of languages! Our houses when thought of as part of a network become Airbnb vacation destinations. And so on.
Not every page is an "aha" moment and it gets a little ponderous in places. But there is a lot to be learned from reading this insightful book."
"This book was written for someone near the levers of power and that is not me. The people close to the power are a problem a few thousand people who have the IT skill to form an internet company and set up platforms that will shape the geopolitical landscape. This book is titled the seventh sense which a play on Nietzsche's six sense which is that of history. The seventh sense is the sense for navigating the networked world we live in now. Understanding the vulnerabilities and opportunities provided by a networked world. According to the author, this is as big a change as the enlightenment from the medieval period. It will create and destroy empires. The author gives a great picture but as you may guess it is a grand strategy for elites, not us.
The emerging networked world gives individuals extraordinary power but it gives Gatekeepers of networks IT specialists, Social media companies, Hackers much more power. The networks we glide through so seamlessly is opaque in the algorithms which service providers use to guide us along. They must keep much of it secret to prevent hacks but by owning the platform for the networks gives them and hackers who wish to disrupt a knowledge and a power that not only greatly affects our lives but one that we are often unaware of when it is wielded. This world will make a new elite Caste is in the making that will shake old empires and old hierarchies and comfortable sureties will come tumbling down and there is great foreboding on where this is all heading"
"Wow... this was an interesting perceptual shift for me. I follow technology trends but to perceive power as moving from hierarchies to networks is a very big shift. This book made me grow paths in my brain."
"A great story about the shift of power, from central feudal systems to the enlightenment; a revolution that made us citizens and not objects. However in the age of networks/connection and AI we are moving into the age of "enmeshment" and risking to become objects again. This threatening evolution is very well elaborated in the book. Also the author indicates how to make the best of this revolution i.e. by becoming better citizens (not depend too much on by definition incompetent leaders for this new age, by capabilities or by objectives) and let humanity (not technology) drive. This is compelling, but the author remains very vague on how to achieve this, apart from the observation that we have to develop a "seventh sense" for the new reality. Notwithstanding for me a clear well documented wake-up call worth reading and applying"
"Masterful summary that incorporates system thinking and a historical sweep of the development and implications of connectivity--from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment to the age of information of today. Ramo draws two main conclusions: 1) Connection changes the nature of an object and 2) leaders/citizens need to quickly develop the ability to see the powerful forces behind the connection, not just the object (and that this currently isn't happening quick enough).
I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in the political implications of the hyper-connected age ahead. As technological progress accelerates, the next wave of AI, IoT and access to data will require their users to know how to confront unprecedented dangers that come along with them.
The book can be a bit abstract and state more than obvious points, but its application to business, policy, foreign affairs, economic concepts, and philosophical thought is both relevant and valuable."
"This book gives me a refreshing perspective in looking at this world and all the new development that is happening. Some of the events that are unfolding in today's world are unnerving and very frequently surprising. The author, Joshua Cooper Ramo, whom I found intelligent and knowledgeable, thinks that a lot of these surprising developments are because of networks. He says that we are entering the Age of the Great Connection, having profound impact to society and causing the shift of power in the same order of magnitude as the previous major shifts and revolutions in human history, like the Agrarian Revolution, The Enlightenment, The Scientific Discovery and Industrial Revolution.
There are many big ideas and concepts from this book. One of the key ideas is that because of network and fast connection that has been put in place, time is getting more and more compressed, in the same effect as space was compressed during the Industrial Revolution. With all objects connected, things become more complex (as opposed to complicated) in that they are much harder to predict. There will be dramatic shifts of power and many rules from the previous age will not apply. As we can see in recent developments, in politics, in global affairs, in business and technology, with network, small forces can make a big impact and often catch people by surprise.
The title of the book, "The Seventh Sense", refers to the ability of a certain group of people, a new caste as referred by the author (joining the merchants, soldiers and sages in the previous age), to look at things, situations and problems with the network and instant connection sensibility. These are the people who will win in this new era.
While this book mainly focuses mostly about global political issues, we can also apply these learnings and insights at an individual level. "
"This is a deeply thought provoking book. I am grateful we were reading it slowly with a group to discuss the ideas presented. 6 weeks of mentally digesting, contemplating, and pondering as I've read have just begun to open my mind to a new way of seeing things. New, yet, strangely familiar."
"This book is a must read for anyone wanting to have an idea of what is going on in today's world and how to understand it and deal with it. Thanks to modern technology - the internet, social media, the looming of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, etc., we are all connected to each other around the world. Distances have shrunk. We are becoming defined by our connections, our networks, in ways that are historically new and revolutionary, that make much of our social, economic and political structures obsolete, but their replacements are not yet on the scene. So many of our political and other leaders are clueless. We can look forward to all kinds of upheavals - for instance, look at the upheavals in today's Middle East. Today's Islamic Terrorists make much use of social media for connecting to potential recruits. The future will be shaped by those who are perceptive enough to realise our world's true state of affairs - who have what the author calls the "Seventh Sense". They are the people who will be shaping our future, hopefully for the better."