The BIG IDEAS Book Club

Is it possible to be too rich? We often celebrate the super-rich as great innovators and heroes of industry — but what if their very existence is making the world less fair and less free? This March, the Big Ideas Book Club takes on a deliberately provocative claim: that billionaires shouldn't exist. It's a radical idea, but one worth examining carefully. The book we'll be discussing argues that this claim isn't driven by envy, but by evidence that extreme wealth undermines democracy, accelerates climate breakdown, rests far more on luck than merit, and diverts resources desperately needed to meet urgent collective challenges. Even if you instinctively disagree, the case is serious, evidence-based, and challenges common assumptions. Join us for a thoughtful, open discussion about wealth, power, and where we might draw the line — and if any billionaires come along, please feel free to buy a round of drinks for the group!

Book: Limitarianism – The Case Against Extreme Wealth (2024) by Ingrid Robeyns

In this month's book, Ingrid Robeyns, a professor of political philosophy and ethics at Utrecht University, builds a case that's both philosophically rigorous and grounded in real-world evidence. She examines how massive fortunes are accumulated—often through inheritance, luck, and public infrastructure rather than individual merit alone—and traces the consequences of that concentration through democratic institutions, climate policy, and social cohesion. Robeyns doesn't just critique; she proposes concrete alternatives, including what a "riches line" (the upper limit on personal wealth) might look like and how such a system could work in practice. Whether you're curious about the ethics of billionaire philanthropy, sceptical about wealth taxes, or wondering how extreme inequality affects everyone (including the super-rich themselves), this book offers a framework for thinking through questions that usually go unexamined. It's written for general readers, not academics, making complex ideas accessible without dumbing them down.

As always, we strongly encourage you to read the book before attending. Having read it will enrich both your experience and our collective discussion. We’ve also put links below to further resources on the topic.

So join us for a drink (and optional meal) at 6:30pm on Monday, 2nd March, on the 2nd floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel in Surrey Hills (i.e. up two flights of stairs). The venue is conveniently located near Central Station and the Light Rail.

We look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. Please adjust your RSVP if you have indicated that you will come but are no longer able to do so. This is courteous to others, especially if there is a waitlist.

P.P.S. Please adjust your email notification settings (particularly the 'Event updates from organizers' in the Big Ideas Book Club settings). This is useful for receiving any final details or late changes to the event.

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These are just optional links to consider. Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section.

Audio-Visual

• Presentations and interviews with Robeyns:

We’ve all heard the narrative: start early, specialize intensely, practice relentlessly. The 10,000-hour rule. The Tiger Woods model. Pick your path early and never look back. But what if the most successful people in complex fields—the Nobel laureates, the innovative entrepreneurs, the breakthrough artists—didn't follow this script at all? What if the winding career paths, the late bloomers, the curious generalists who dabbled across disciplines weren't wasting time, but actually building an advantage that deep specialists can't match? In an age where AI is rapidly mastering narrow, specialized skills and automating predictable patterns, the question becomes more urgent than ever: are we training ourselves for the problems that machines already solve better than we do, or are we cultivating the creative, integrative thinking that only broad human experience can provide? So join us as we explore these provocative ideas and discover why breadth might just be the secret weapon in a world being transformed by AI.

Book: Range - Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (2019) by David Epstein

In our book this month, David Epstein, an investigative journalist and writer, challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions about achieving excellence. Drawing on research from cognitive science, sports, music, education, and business, Epstein demonstrates that those who sample widely across disciplines, start specializing later, and frequently change directions consistently outperform those who commit early and narrowly.

Through vivid stories—from Roger Federer's multi-sport childhood to NASA's most innovative problem-solvers to Nobel Prize-winning scientists who cultivated eclectic interests—he reveals that the most successful people in "wicked" learning environments (where rules are unclear, patterns don't repeat, and feedback is delayed) aren't the 10,000-hour specialists but the integrative thinkers who can draw unexpected analogies across fields. Written in 2019 before the current AI boom, Epstein's thesis has proven remarkably prescient: as AI masters narrow expertise and automates specialized tasks, breadth of experience, creativity, and adaptability—the very strengths of generalists—have become even more critical. A number of writers and thinkers have since made this connection explicit, and we've included articles below exploring why (or if) range matters more than ever in our AI-transformed working environment.

As always, we strongly encourage you to read the book before attending—it will enrich both your experience and our collective discussion. We’ve also included links to presentations by Epstein and other resources that explore the importance of range in the age of AI.

So join us for a drink (and optional meal) at 6:30pm on Monday, 13th April, on the 2nd floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel in Surrey Hills (i.e. up two flights of stairs). The venue is conveniently located near Central Station and the Light Rail.

We look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. Please adjust your RSVP if you have indicated that you will come but are no longer able to do so. This is courteous to other people if there is a waitlist.

P.P.S. Please adjust your email notification settings (particularly the 'Event updates from organizers' in the Big Ideas Book Club settings). This is useful for receiving any final details or late changes to the event.
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These are just optional links to consider. Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section.
Video

• Presentations by David Epstein: