NY Times columnist and current day Nostradamus, Thomas “the pen” Friedman announced that he is already hard at work on a sequel to his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, tentantively titled Hotter, Flatter, and Crowdeder – More Shit About Humans You Already Know.
To be published this Fall, Friedman's book will be irrelevant three weeks into December.
In the new book, author Friedman promises to explore how we’re all connected and how this little planet is just really friggin’ hot, and flat, and crowded, still! Friedman takes a look at the planet’s beaches, and notes that many beaches are flat, hot, and sometimes crowded, and that this serves as an important reminder:
“Don’t live at the beach. It’s a total hassle, there’s no parking, and you can’t get the sand out of your car no matter what.”
He notes that deserts are hot, flat, but not often crowded, a phenomenon he has no explanation for, except to say that it has something to do with the production of the personal computer.
“When you purchase a computer on your computer, which is hot because it’s been on all day, viewing it on your monitor, which may be a flat-screen, your order goes into a long but fast waiting list – a crowded list. There’s your hot, flat and crowded. Only, these orders do not go to the desert. They go to where people live, so that their children can manufacture them.”
As for the common belief that a planet this is crowded and more reliant on one another for mass production, therefore less likely to war with one another, Friedman admits he hasn’t completely figured it out.
“You know, when I wrote some of my earlier books, like Cujonoid, and Clan of the Cave Deer, I thought the more crowded we got, the less war we’d be.
“I forgot that more people on the planet means more expendable people. Simply put: the governments of the world have more people to use for combat. They’re overflowing in people – why not do the war thing? In fact, if it were up to me, we should invade Britain right now. Stir it up. Stir it the “eff up”, as the kids say.”
Published in Summer 2008, Friedman's most recent book is already behind the times. His new book promises to be a little more current.
