Reader Response #5

I have finished the first few chapters of A Whole New Mind. I find it to be very interesting and easy to read. I strongly agree with the chapter on Abundance, Asia, and automation.
He explains abundance by explaining about a shopping mall that has everything you could every want. All the big department stores like target, Walmart, and Best Buy. He brings up three good points about this "abundant era". These are how everyone just in the last 30 years now owns a car and a home, self storage (for all of our extras), and all the throw away products or objects we own. There is no doubt that we are people who have everything in abundance; clothes, shoes, cups, etc. We have way to much of so many things we could never use them all, but we continue to buy them. He makes the point that the abundance lessens the L-directed Thinking. Products are more about the color, the designer, beauty, etc. All of which are appealing to the eye. If it doesn't catch your eye you don't buy it. In this sense it make R-directed Thinking more significant. I agree with him completely. Rarely does anyone buy something based of a rational or logical choice it is more based off what catches your eye and you find to be appealing to you.
When he speaks of Asia he is talking about how white collar jobs will become almost non-existent in the U.S. This is because a person in India, Lalit, and other foreign countries have people that will do it for way less money than an American. This leaves these white collared L-directed Thinkers migrating to other countries. This leaves R-directs Thinkers to forge relationships and synthesize the big picture. Being able to have people in a different country replace higher end jobs in the U.S. is becoming a reality and Pink points it out well. There are a lot of people in foreign countries willing to do work for way less than an American, so American jobs are slowly perishing.
The last "A" Pink speaks about is Automation. This brings up the man vs. machine problem. Who can do it better....the man or the machine? He brings up some jobs that may soon be replaced by a computer that are often time L-directed Thinkers. Two are lawyers and physicians. When talking about the lawyers he says there is now an online site that does divorce paper and settles a divorce for only $249. There are also websites that make up forms for clients for way cheaper than the thousands a lawyer charges. This is going to force down the demand of lawyers and they will have to charge less for their work. As for physicians he points out how many people go online to find symptoms and problems instead of going to the doctor. I know I do that all the time, rather than paying for an outrageous trip to the doctor, you type in you symptoms and try to self medicate.
This chapter points out a lot of good indicators showing how R-directed Thinkers will succeed and benefit in the future. It makes me think and keeps me intrigued into the book.