A Whole New Mind - Chapter 2

A Whole New Mind- Chapter 2

Abundance, Asia, and Automation

In Chapter 2, Pink discusses the three topics of his chapter: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. He said these topics are the causes of the diminished relative importance of L-Directed Thinking and the corresponding increased importance of R-Directed Thinking. With abundance, he started off talking about growing up in the seventies and shopping at a small mall with stores that featured products that were pricier than today’s products. There was also less of a selection of products. Now-a-days there is so much more selection and things are cheaper to buy. The prosperity abundance has unleashed has placed a premium on less rational, more R-Directed sensibilities – beauty, spirituality, and emotion. Businesses now must create a product that’s also beautiful, unique, and meaningful. In an age of abundance, appealing to only rational, logical, and functional needs is very insufficient. Abundance has brought beautiful things to our lives, but that bevy of material goods has not necessarily made us much happier. This prosperous country has a desire for beauty and transcendence.

When discussing his topic of Asia, he started to discuss the outsourcing of jobs from the United States to other countries over seas. In other countries, people will do the same work that could be done in the United States, just for cheaper pay. Many of today’s knowledge workers will likewise have to command a new set of aptitudes. They’ll need to do what workers abroad cannot do equally well for much less money – using R-directed abilities such as forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component.

Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains. Any job that depends on routines – that can be reduced to a set of rules, or broken down into a set of repeatable steps – is at risk. Automation is also changing the work or many doctors. Computers can process the binary logic of decision trees with swiftness and accuracy humans can’t begin to approach. A similar pattern is unfolding in the legal profession. Dozens of inexpensive information and advice services are reshaping law practice.

Basically, these three topics are more in favor of R-Directed Thinking. There is a huge abundance of products out there now that help individuals search for meaning. Also, Asia is now performing large amounts of L-directed work at lower costs. Also, automation has begun to affect this generation’s white-collar workers by requiring L-directed professionals to develop aptitudes that computers can’t do better, faster, or cheaper.