I just read my first book via phone, Tyler’s The Great Stagnation. Turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant way to read, especially while traveling. Tyler’s thesis is that the US has slower growth than decades ago because we’ve used up the low hanging fruits of easy industry-era innovations, mass education, and cutting discrimination. The mismatch between growth expectations and realities is behind our financial and deficit crises. As solutions he suggests we lower our expectations and raise the social status of scientists.
Robin - Poll folks on high-impact engineers/business innovators. Then poll them on scientists. Bet you dollars to doughnuts that while everyone can name Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs and Gordon Moore and Larry/Sergey and God-knows how many other "heroes" in the former category, they'll have trouble naming a single active scientist (Craig Venter, maybe?) And I'm thinking of your university campus here. Walk around main street and the disparity is likely to be much worse.
"It is engineers and business innovators more generally, whose status needs a boost. Scientists already claim too much credit for social innovation – they have little to do with most of it." [citation needed]
As an aside, flying cars are a bad example. Imagine a hundred million of these things in the sky at once with a pilot having training comparable to a regular car driver and the vehicle being inspected and maintained (or not as the case may be) like regular cars. There are still substantial hurdles to widespread adoption of such technology that springs from reasonable concerns.
I think it's more reasonable to consider the flying car a roadworthy plane in describing the problems of the vehicle and the demands on its driver-pilot.
But I do agree that aerospace is a prime victim of "alphabet soup" agencies. I worked for a aerospace non-profit, JP Aerospace, for several years. They used to do a lot of balloon-launched rockets (a thing they're starting to work on again). Each launch used to require a "pallet-load" (so I've been told) of paperwork distributed to various agencies. And you couldn't just reuse the old paperwork. There's also bizarre export-restriction laws, ITAR which have inhibited JP Aerospace's activities from time to time.
For a time, JP Aerospace switched to balloon-only projects since those required vastly less paperwork and manpower and there was some paying clients who were interested in balloon-related work.
A few years ago, the federal rules were changed so that balloon-launched rockets had almost no paperwork. I understand the prime requirement currently is that you need to notify the FAA a few days ahead of time and of course, you can only launch from a few places in the US. As a result, most of JPA's recent balloon missions have a rocket on them. The current breed of rockets aren't particularly impressive, they're mostly hobby rocket sized. But this will generate a precedent of dozens of successful launches, using their launch/flight hardware, should the FAA or another agency attempt to close the gates once more.
I don't know if engineers are held in such low regard compared to scientists. It's actually about the same.
Also, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs aren't necessarily discreet groups that never overlap. I know many academic scientists who've gone on to found their own companies, or engineers who end up doing what would probably be better considered scientific research. Consider this for example.
It seems that only a small percentage of the best scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs are responsible for life-changing innovation. The rest is just turning out more of the same repackaged garbage in different forms with different names.
Yes, that's the problem with society: the low status of business innovators.
As John McEnroe would say, you cannot be serious.
The problem is the inordinately high rewards given to people whose "innovations" are merely ways to push piles of money around, rather than actually creating anything of value.
Blame the current legal system; if people started driving these lightweight, unsafe plane cars, and you or I run into them, it is us that would pay for their medical bills. I welcome the regulation since, under the current legal system, they would be imposing a negative externality on me.
Hear, hear. For another clear-headed look at trend-peddling types, see Future Babble (http://www.amazon.com/Futur.... (He even mentions prediction markets...) I just finished reading this on an iPad, downloaded in a minute after seeing it favorably reviewed on a blog... Read TGS the same way. If anything, it's too easy!
Regarding TGS, the low-hanging-fruit argument is nuts. The productivity gains available from new technology are greater than ever -- think nanotech -- but there is a concerted swing of the culture to squelch it, with many, many aspects, including low status of engineers, high status of eco-movement lawyers, govt-corp cronyism and entry barriers, etc ad nauseum.
I think Tyler actually did a decent job on part of that, hiding it to some extent under the other. But I came through the semibook with the clear impression that he felt that those entrusted with our economic health had failed us.
Robin - Poll folks on high-impact engineers/business innovators. Then poll them on scientists. Bet you dollars to doughnuts that while everyone can name Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs and Gordon Moore and Larry/Sergey and God-knows how many other "heroes" in the former category, they'll have trouble naming a single active scientist (Craig Venter, maybe?) And I'm thinking of your university campus here. Walk around main street and the disparity is likely to be much worse.
"It is engineers and business innovators more generally, whose status needs a boost. Scientists already claim too much credit for social innovation – they have little to do with most of it." [citation needed]
John Galt is a fictional character. The billion tweaks are real.
As an aside, flying cars are a bad example. Imagine a hundred million of these things in the sky at once with a pilot having training comparable to a regular car driver and the vehicle being inspected and maintained (or not as the case may be) like regular cars. There are still substantial hurdles to widespread adoption of such technology that springs from reasonable concerns.
I think it's more reasonable to consider the flying car a roadworthy plane in describing the problems of the vehicle and the demands on its driver-pilot.
But I do agree that aerospace is a prime victim of "alphabet soup" agencies. I worked for a aerospace non-profit, JP Aerospace, for several years. They used to do a lot of balloon-launched rockets (a thing they're starting to work on again). Each launch used to require a "pallet-load" (so I've been told) of paperwork distributed to various agencies. And you couldn't just reuse the old paperwork. There's also bizarre export-restriction laws, ITAR which have inhibited JP Aerospace's activities from time to time.
For a time, JP Aerospace switched to balloon-only projects since those required vastly less paperwork and manpower and there was some paying clients who were interested in balloon-related work.
A few years ago, the federal rules were changed so that balloon-launched rockets had almost no paperwork. I understand the prime requirement currently is that you need to notify the FAA a few days ahead of time and of course, you can only launch from a few places in the US. As a result, most of JPA's recent balloon missions have a rocket on them. The current breed of rockets aren't particularly impressive, they're mostly hobby rocket sized. But this will generate a precedent of dozens of successful launches, using their launch/flight hardware, should the FAA or another agency attempt to close the gates once more.
Bingo!!
I don't know if engineers are held in such low regard compared to scientists. It's actually about the same.
Also, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs aren't necessarily discreet groups that never overlap. I know many academic scientists who've gone on to found their own companies, or engineers who end up doing what would probably be better considered scientific research. Consider this for example.
I would like to see more elaboration on this.
It seems that only a small percentage of the best scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs are responsible for life-changing innovation. The rest is just turning out more of the same repackaged garbage in different forms with different names.
Or no?
Yes, that's the problem with society: the low status of business innovators.
As John McEnroe would say, you cannot be serious.
The problem is the inordinately high rewards given to people whose "innovations" are merely ways to push piles of money around, rather than actually creating anything of value.
An article related to the blog, but not to this post:
Charity is HIGH:
http://healthland.time.com/...
Blame the current legal system; if people started driving these lightweight, unsafe plane cars, and you or I run into them, it is us that would pay for their medical bills. I welcome the regulation since, under the current legal system, they would be imposing a negative externality on me.
Hear, hear. For another clear-headed look at trend-peddling types, see Future Babble (http://www.amazon.com/Futur.... (He even mentions prediction markets...) I just finished reading this on an iPad, downloaded in a minute after seeing it favorably reviewed on a blog... Read TGS the same way. If anything, it's too easy!
Regarding TGS, the low-hanging-fruit argument is nuts. The productivity gains available from new technology are greater than ever -- think nanotech -- but there is a concerted swing of the culture to squelch it, with many, many aspects, including low status of engineers, high status of eco-movement lawyers, govt-corp cronyism and entry barriers, etc ad nauseum.
I think Tyler actually did a decent job on part of that, hiding it to some extent under the other. But I came through the semibook with the clear impression that he felt that those entrusted with our economic health had failed us.