I think a big part of the problem is the assumption that basic science research is a fundamental cause of material progress. In fact, I think the causality mainly goes the other way. Science would be nothing without the technological innovations of the telescope, microscope, computer, internet, etc. Plus economic growth enables more individuals to focus on scientific research as opposed to worrying about basic survival.
Technological innovation largely comes from combining existing technologies in new ways. Some scientific knowledge is helpful, but it is not essential to the process. The reason why new technological innovation is getting harder is because it requires a larger number and more complex assemblies of sub-components. It is like a jigsaw puzzle that keeps getting bigger. The bigger the jigsaw puzzle, the harder to solve it.
For those who are interesting, I have a few articles on the subject:
Not all regulation and risk aversion is bad, and some can counter intuitively drive innovation. Planes are far less likely to fall out of the sky nowadays, for example. Solar, electric vehicles and energy efficiency technologies have become cheaper in part because of environmental laws and policies helping to create demand.
There is definitely something in mining the past for ideas though. Alongside dusty science books, science fiction has often been an inspiration. What could be interesting is using AI to rediscover and help realise those ideas.
I recently discovered the GC Index, an assessment which finally shed some light for me. My AHA moment. The reason I don’t fit the corporate profile, feel misaligned and not able to squeeze myself into the proverbial "tickbox". Why am I telling you this? Because new ideas are only harder to find because the non tickbox individual is hidden in plain sight. The GC stands for Game Changer, individuals with a different DNA who "see around corners" to connect dots that few other people can see. On a scale of 1-10, my score was 10/10, a blessing and a curse and an absolute confirmation that creative people don't enjoy monotonous paperwork. A blessing because I no longer feel alien to earth and a curse because I generate a plethora of new ideas on a daily basis of which by the end of the day, I have managed to connect many ideas into one larger interconnected idea across a multitude of industries. My brain lost to the rabbit hole abyss!
What do you do with an idea, plural? An excellent question since it is impossible to implement them all myself, nor do I necessarily want to either. So where and to whom do I share the ideas?
Very often, industries cannot innovate effectively because they are hindered by their "industry" self limiting beliefs. As Einstein so aptly quoted "we cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used to create them", and yet when tasked to find innovation candidates, organisations management and/or HR will make it a requirement for specific industry knowledge. A counter productive conundrum of having to sell the "dumping" of old ideas first.
Other frustrations are the ideas I am passionately obsessed about implementing very often come with their own hurdles. From experience, these are; (a) government buy-in in relation to political agenda i.t.o., the "supply chain benefits queue"; (b) access to specialist guidance in niche areas, i.e. neuroscience, where I have no academic credibility and thus not taken seriously ... (it also doesn't help that I have blonde hair); (c) access to the appropriate legal agreements to protect IP from idea "hijackers" which are a dime a dozen these days, and last but not least, (d) Funding, Funding, Funding ...
What I haven't quite nailed down yet is an appropriate business model or formula which can be applied universally to determine the reasonable value of an idea by it's impact in the respective industry, in so far as impact can be measured; and future earning models in cases where co-creating / creative collaboration is ongoing. A GC common trait is to share for the love of ideas without payment ... also counter productive.
As I continue to live and learn, I am truly grateful for incredible innovations. Capturing ideas across various devices, in all flavours from voice notes, written notes, mind maps, to tag, search and retrieve when needed using Ai, has proved an invaluable tool and a game changer in itself!
That's not bad if that's all you got for today, Packs.
Here's an excerpt from my book Perennial Man, in which we discover asexual reproduction as a species, Waypoints as digital refuges, and a very old idea becoming very 'perennial'.
The real answer is that what qualifies as "good" is an asymptote that rises, often dramatically, as innovations get lame. We made 29 million of those transistors in 1957 to defend the US from the Commies. Last year, worldwide, more of them were made than there are stars in the Milky Way, on the order of 1 trillion a SECOND, which implies they're more-or-less lame. That inertial-guidance-with-some-inflight-control on the Nike doesn't seem so impressive today. Whatever's impressive takes, like, a couple days worth of 2024 transistor production, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff, and fitting it together and making it work. It's not about "progress," once and for all. It's about complexity.
It might be interesting to consider those "old papers from the 50s" startups as the equivalent of Buffetian "cigar butt" investing.
I think your second-to-last paragraph is the crux of the problem. Some commentors claim that the Green movement was a Soviet influence operation. We did get a cleaner environment in the USA, it’s arguable that we did it in the wrong way.
Small teams using CAD/CAM on small networked computers can now tackle projects which once required hundreds of engineers and draftsmen. Scaled Composites built an X15 equivalent _and_ a B52 equivalent carrier aircraft for the X-Prize. The software tools especially have crossed a price and quality threshold.
Glad to read I was not crazy to find great ideas in old biotech papers! Let's get those Edisons and Fords of our century 😼 💡
https://www.sofias.bio/p/please-build-robots-to-automate-plant
Interesting article.
I think a big part of the problem is the assumption that basic science research is a fundamental cause of material progress. In fact, I think the causality mainly goes the other way. Science would be nothing without the technological innovations of the telescope, microscope, computer, internet, etc. Plus economic growth enables more individuals to focus on scientific research as opposed to worrying about basic survival.
Technological innovation largely comes from combining existing technologies in new ways. Some scientific knowledge is helpful, but it is not essential to the process. The reason why new technological innovation is getting harder is because it requires a larger number and more complex assemblies of sub-components. It is like a jigsaw puzzle that keeps getting bigger. The bigger the jigsaw puzzle, the harder to solve it.
For those who are interesting, I have a few articles on the subject:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/understanding-technological-innovation
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/technological-innovation-is-like
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/technology-is-useless-without-the
This was amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Not all regulation and risk aversion is bad, and some can counter intuitively drive innovation. Planes are far less likely to fall out of the sky nowadays, for example. Solar, electric vehicles and energy efficiency technologies have become cheaper in part because of environmental laws and policies helping to create demand.
There is definitely something in mining the past for ideas though. Alongside dusty science books, science fiction has often been an inspiration. What could be interesting is using AI to rediscover and help realise those ideas.
I recently discovered the GC Index, an assessment which finally shed some light for me. My AHA moment. The reason I don’t fit the corporate profile, feel misaligned and not able to squeeze myself into the proverbial "tickbox". Why am I telling you this? Because new ideas are only harder to find because the non tickbox individual is hidden in plain sight. The GC stands for Game Changer, individuals with a different DNA who "see around corners" to connect dots that few other people can see. On a scale of 1-10, my score was 10/10, a blessing and a curse and an absolute confirmation that creative people don't enjoy monotonous paperwork. A blessing because I no longer feel alien to earth and a curse because I generate a plethora of new ideas on a daily basis of which by the end of the day, I have managed to connect many ideas into one larger interconnected idea across a multitude of industries. My brain lost to the rabbit hole abyss!
What do you do with an idea, plural? An excellent question since it is impossible to implement them all myself, nor do I necessarily want to either. So where and to whom do I share the ideas?
Very often, industries cannot innovate effectively because they are hindered by their "industry" self limiting beliefs. As Einstein so aptly quoted "we cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used to create them", and yet when tasked to find innovation candidates, organisations management and/or HR will make it a requirement for specific industry knowledge. A counter productive conundrum of having to sell the "dumping" of old ideas first.
Other frustrations are the ideas I am passionately obsessed about implementing very often come with their own hurdles. From experience, these are; (a) government buy-in in relation to political agenda i.t.o., the "supply chain benefits queue"; (b) access to specialist guidance in niche areas, i.e. neuroscience, where I have no academic credibility and thus not taken seriously ... (it also doesn't help that I have blonde hair); (c) access to the appropriate legal agreements to protect IP from idea "hijackers" which are a dime a dozen these days, and last but not least, (d) Funding, Funding, Funding ...
What I haven't quite nailed down yet is an appropriate business model or formula which can be applied universally to determine the reasonable value of an idea by it's impact in the respective industry, in so far as impact can be measured; and future earning models in cases where co-creating / creative collaboration is ongoing. A GC common trait is to share for the love of ideas without payment ... also counter productive.
As I continue to live and learn, I am truly grateful for incredible innovations. Capturing ideas across various devices, in all flavours from voice notes, written notes, mind maps, to tag, search and retrieve when needed using Ai, has proved an invaluable tool and a game changer in itself!
That's not bad if that's all you got for today, Packs.
Here's an excerpt from my book Perennial Man, in which we discover asexual reproduction as a species, Waypoints as digital refuges, and a very old idea becoming very 'perennial'.
https://humanism.substack.com/p/tfn-ep-4-watson-come-here
The real answer is that what qualifies as "good" is an asymptote that rises, often dramatically, as innovations get lame. We made 29 million of those transistors in 1957 to defend the US from the Commies. Last year, worldwide, more of them were made than there are stars in the Milky Way, on the order of 1 trillion a SECOND, which implies they're more-or-less lame. That inertial-guidance-with-some-inflight-control on the Nike doesn't seem so impressive today. Whatever's impressive takes, like, a couple days worth of 2024 transistor production, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff, and fitting it together and making it work. It's not about "progress," once and for all. It's about complexity.
It might be interesting to consider those "old papers from the 50s" startups as the equivalent of Buffetian "cigar butt" investing.
right on, just because implementing some ideas are hard, doesn't mean they are not worthwhile and can't change the world or shift a whole industry.
I think your second-to-last paragraph is the crux of the problem. Some commentors claim that the Green movement was a Soviet influence operation. We did get a cleaner environment in the USA, it’s arguable that we did it in the wrong way.
Small teams using CAD/CAM on small networked computers can now tackle projects which once required hundreds of engineers and draftsmen. Scaled Composites built an X15 equivalent _and_ a B52 equivalent carrier aircraft for the X-Prize. The software tools especially have crossed a price and quality threshold.