The Seventh Sense Book Summary - The Seventh Sense Book explained in key points

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The Seventh Sense summary

Name: The Seventh Sense
Rating: 3.9 (23 reviews)
Author: Joshua Cooper Ramo

Joshua Cooper Ramo

Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks

3.9 (23 ratings)

15 mins

Topics

Digital Transformation The Internet

Table of Contents

The Seventh Sense
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Learn how society can survive the network age.

You might not realize it, but every time you surf the internet, you are entering one of the world’s most complicated and intricate systems. After all, your smartphone or laptop is interacting with millions of others across the globe, and it has access to well over a billion interconnected web pages.

Complex systems such as the internet have undoubtedly made our lives easier, and, as technology improves, they’ll increasingly improve our existence. But we need to be careful.

If we want to make the most of complex networks, society must keep up with technological change. At the moment, it’s far too easy for people to use networks against us: terrorists can use the internet to spread their message, criminals can hack into our data and speculators can use the increasingly complex financial system to crash the economy. Only by constantly keeping our institutions and infrastructure up-to-date can we hope to prevent this disruption.

These blinks explain how we as individuals and as a society can survive and thrive in this complex age.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why we need a seventh sense;
why you shouldn’t consult Doctor ELIZA; and
why gatekeepers can make your life hell.

Technological changes mean that old systems are being replaced by more advanced versions.

Back in the nineteenth century when the industrial revolution was in full swing, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche shrewdly said that people needed a “sixth sense.” In other words, he meant that, as a society, humans would need to develop another instinct in order to keep up with the pace of technological change.

Today, it’s necessary for people to develop a Seventh Sense to comprehend the complex connections of networks which have formed between people, mobile devices, computers and financial markets as a result of technological advancement.

To develop a Seventh Sense, you first have to understand that everything is interconnected. Take the unveiling of the first iPod in 2001. The device not only fundamentally changed the way people listen to music; it altered the music industry itself. After the product was launched, people stopped using Discmans, and CD shops began to close while MP3 sales flourished. Eventually, this led to the rise of streaming services such as Spotify. In essence, the old analog network was replaced by a new digital network.

As technology moves rapidly, old network systems are frequently replaced by new ones – the author refers to this process as network power.

To understand network power, look at the way that English is presently used as a global lingua franca. The language enables information to be shared in a simple manner among people from different countries across the world, making it a powerful network of exchange.

Currently, switching languages seems inconceivable. However, eventually, lingua francas like English will be replaced with real-time machine translation between many languages because that is the nature of network power.

Advanced connectivity has allowed this technology to develop. One day, you’ll be able to jump into a taxi in Madrid and say “good morning,” and your taxi driver will instantly hear “buenos días.” There will come a time when a translation algorithm will be more vital than having the ability to speak and comprehend English.

Institutions haven’t moved forward and still heavily rely on outdated systems.

Rewind to the dawn of the internet age. If you were told back then that the development of the web would eventually lead to Syrian terrorists finding an easy means to indoctrinate children, would you have supported such innovations? The influence that networks currently have on society is more far-reaching than anyone could have anticipated.

Institutions are struggling to keep up with the progression of these networks, as is evidenced by the way terror attacks are handled. After 9/11, the war against terrorism was launched. A Pentagon analysis team surveyed records of terrorists’ deleted phone calls and SMS and discovered that terrorist networks were developing at a much faster rate than the government or military were able to monitor.

Complex network systems are categorized according to how influential they are.

Historically, emperors, presidents, kings, queens and authority figures like doctors or lawyers have presided over power and influence in predetermined hierarchical structures. However, in current times, world leaders and other experts are in a constant battle to maintain their power thanks to challenges from modern networks.

Networks are characterized by two different forms of power: high concentration and large distribution. Doctors are one group under threat from powerful networks. Doctors were once considered to be the main source of medical knowledge, but that no longer seems to be the case.

Being constantly connected means that people are always vulnerable to manipulation.

The networking age has offered up a range of possibilities, but it’s important to remember that each innovation comes with a unique set of flaws and unforeseeable consequences. As the French philosopher Paul Virilio once said: “When you invent the plane, you invent the plane crash.”

Take cyber attacks, a major issue today. Back in 2015, Jung Hoon Lee, a South Korean hacker, was awarded $225,000 at an annual hacking competition for accessing the most vital networking programs at the time by infiltrating web browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome.

Being excluded from a network system can prove problematic.

A closed network such as a Wi-Fi network is referred to as a gateland. Gatekeepers have to grant access. Gatekeepers are people or protocols with the power to decide who’s allowed to gain access to a particular closed network. In the case of your work Wi-Fi, the encrypted Wi-Fi password is the gatekeeper – only those who know it are permitted to have a speedy connection to the internet on a secure network.

The higher the number of people who use a certain gateland, the harder it becomes to utilize an alternative. The economist Brian Arthur discussed this concept in the Harvard Business Review, referring to the impact of a phenomenon known as “network effects.”

Gatekeeping was developed to protect users from cyber threats.

One day, the process of withdrawing bank notes from an ATM and giving it to another person who ends up depositing that same cash into their own account will be an outdated system replaced with fully digitized payments. This may sound promising, but there are several risks involved in a new, interconnected world of digital currencies. Those who seek to maintain anonymity and be untraceable could pose serious problems, but fortunately, there are solutions in place.

Hard gatekeeping serves to protect those inside a network’s community. Hard gatekeeping is the development of a protected, trusted and well-designed community that safeguards its users from both the perils of online trade and cyber threats.

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What is The Seventh Sense about?

The Seventh Sense (2016) unpacks the positive and negative aspects of today’s interconnected world. Terrorism is on the rise and the global economy is in a questionable state. The Seventh Sense explains how these issues are interrelated, and how society can still prosper in this network-dominated age.

Best quote from The Seventh Sense

Those people and ideas that prospered in the past may not do so well in the future.

—Joshua Cooper Ramo

Who should read The Seventh Sense?

Anyone addicted to social media
Managers of a business or corporation
Anyone curious about the impacts of technology on today’s society

About the Author

Joshua Cooper Ramo is the author of international bestseller The Age of the Unthinkable (2009). He is fluent in Mandarin, and the World Economic Forum named him one of China’s pioneering scholars born overseas. He has written for many renowned publications including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Categories with The Seventh Sense

Economics Technology & the Future

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