America is running on fumes(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
America is running on fumes
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/america-innovation-film-science-business/620858/
401 comments
I think the world has been seized by an apocalyptic mood. Everyone is acting like the party is going to stop soon so they better grab what they can now.
This mood excuses a lot of behavior that would otherwise seem off limits. If the end is near, why worry about consequences? Get yours before it’s too late!
Why is this happening? Well if you can explain it, then you’ve got a good shot for at least a Ph.D. in sociology. The global pandemic obviously doesn’t help, but I think it just exacerbated a mood that was already there.
My own theory is that the root cause is decades of wide-spread awareness of global warming. Either you understand the science and implications, or you think it’s a global hoax being perpetrated to excuse oppression. Either way it sits in the background every day like a tick tock clock of impending doom. It’s huge and so far totally unresolved.
A lot of the world, to me, is just not acting like tomorrow will come, metaphorically. It will, though, and to me the interesting implication is that it seems a fantastic time to build new long-term things. If you can get the resources and talent, you could build something to win the next decade while everyone else is scrambling to grab what is sitting right in front of them.
This mood excuses a lot of behavior that would otherwise seem off limits. If the end is near, why worry about consequences? Get yours before it’s too late!
Why is this happening? Well if you can explain it, then you’ve got a good shot for at least a Ph.D. in sociology. The global pandemic obviously doesn’t help, but I think it just exacerbated a mood that was already there.
My own theory is that the root cause is decades of wide-spread awareness of global warming. Either you understand the science and implications, or you think it’s a global hoax being perpetrated to excuse oppression. Either way it sits in the background every day like a tick tock clock of impending doom. It’s huge and so far totally unresolved.
A lot of the world, to me, is just not acting like tomorrow will come, metaphorically. It will, though, and to me the interesting implication is that it seems a fantastic time to build new long-term things. If you can get the resources and talent, you could build something to win the next decade while everyone else is scrambling to grab what is sitting right in front of them.
Maybe it's a result of wealth inequality and monopolization? If capital gets concentrated into less companies and less individuals, then it makes sense that investing and productivity will also be concentrated into less things. It will be focused on areas that those companies focus on and into areas that those individuals care about.
Take a look at the Nasdaq Composite. Of the 2700 companies in it, six tech companies make up 41% of its entire market cap [0].
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/22343/nasdaq-100-top-tech-com...
Take a look at the Nasdaq Composite. Of the 2700 companies in it, six tech companies make up 41% of its entire market cap [0].
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/22343/nasdaq-100-top-tech-com...
I feel the author sort of invalidates his own argument with this sentence (also he forgot to mention commercial space travel):
> "What about all the cool new stuff?" you might ask. What about the recent breakthroughs in mRNA technology? What about CRISPR, and AI, and solar energy, and battery technology, and electric vehicles, and (sure) crypto, and (yes!) smartphones?
His defense of his thesis after this sentence doesn't make that much sense to me. Sure some things have "stagnated". Skyscrapers aren't really getting any taller, but why do we need even taller skyscrapers? Haven't we maybe simply reached the physical limits of gravity?
As for institutions, if we already have CMU and Stanford and MIT, why do we need more top-tier private universities? It seems to me we're seeing pubic universities become more prestigious and influential, which IMO is largely a positive development (UW, Cal, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, etc).
> "What about all the cool new stuff?" you might ask. What about the recent breakthroughs in mRNA technology? What about CRISPR, and AI, and solar energy, and battery technology, and electric vehicles, and (sure) crypto, and (yes!) smartphones?
His defense of his thesis after this sentence doesn't make that much sense to me. Sure some things have "stagnated". Skyscrapers aren't really getting any taller, but why do we need even taller skyscrapers? Haven't we maybe simply reached the physical limits of gravity?
As for institutions, if we already have CMU and Stanford and MIT, why do we need more top-tier private universities? It seems to me we're seeing pubic universities become more prestigious and influential, which IMO is largely a positive development (UW, Cal, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, etc).
This feels a lot like a headline that appeals to the prejudices of readers of The Atlantic. But, even setting aside whether I buy the statistics they gesture toward (without citation in most cases), they need to provide an argument that they are relevant. For example, might the lack of new colleges signal instead that colleges are less relevant in the age of the internet, or that existing colleges have expanded in size, or all the new college created in the last century were part of a post-war boom, rather than the baseline that the future should always be judged by? I'd also like to know why any of this is a uniquely American problem, and not a wider trend.
And, you can't get away with just saying "sure, CRISPR and mRNA and AI and solar energy and smartphones are cool, but if you ignore examples like that, there really hasn't been much innovation."
And, you can't get away with just saying "sure, CRISPR and mRNA and AI and solar energy and smartphones are cool, but if you ignore examples like that, there really hasn't been much innovation."
> Let’s start with a simple mystery: What happened to original blockbuster movies?
Cinema as the high form of popular theater art is done - for better or for worse - just like vaudeville et al. before it.
The new form is the epic, original, streaming TV mini-series - some of which are good enough to be considered very long movies.
As much as I also bemoan the disappearance of an endless stream of great popular cinema, something new and interesting and evolving has taken its place. And cinema will continue to exist in a niche, just like vaudeville and theatre still do today.
Cinema as the high form of popular theater art is done - for better or for worse - just like vaudeville et al. before it.
The new form is the epic, original, streaming TV mini-series - some of which are good enough to be considered very long movies.
As much as I also bemoan the disappearance of an endless stream of great popular cinema, something new and interesting and evolving has taken its place. And cinema will continue to exist in a niche, just like vaudeville and theatre still do today.
If the author of this believes what they wrote then I feel sorry for them, they're seeing the worst in a good situation and they're substantiating it with an opinion piece that's purported as scientific. Ironically the paper quoted in this article is a victim, or maybe a symptom of the citation issue it points out.
You don't need to be a genius to see the innovations of the last 5-20 years however they are so much more complex that they're harder to understand. It's a LOT harder to explain Amazon (the global teleportation of goods and services) then it is to explain electricity.
You don't need to be a genius to see the innovations of the last 5-20 years however they are so much more complex that they're harder to understand. It's a LOT harder to explain Amazon (the global teleportation of goods and services) then it is to explain electricity.
The same thing happened pre-enlightenment during the dark ages.
All of the capital was tied up in the hands of the royalty.
The black plague came along and killed 50% of the world and the whole system was shaken up and it's theorized that reduced the inequality enough to the elightenment to happen.
Its possible that World War two did the same thing for the mid 20th century post great Gatsby roaring 20s levels of inequality. But apparently according to the article there was a lot of innovation during the early 20th century though. So who knows?
Walter Sciedel, I think it is, posits the idea that only four things can upend inequality and that's war plague and revolution and governmental collapse.
Note that legislation is not included in that list.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/open-future/2...
All of the capital was tied up in the hands of the royalty.
The black plague came along and killed 50% of the world and the whole system was shaken up and it's theorized that reduced the inequality enough to the elightenment to happen.
Its possible that World War two did the same thing for the mid 20th century post great Gatsby roaring 20s levels of inequality. But apparently according to the article there was a lot of innovation during the early 20th century though. So who knows?
Walter Sciedel, I think it is, posits the idea that only four things can upend inequality and that's war plague and revolution and governmental collapse.
Note that legislation is not included in that list.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/open-future/2...
Trying to unify Art, Science and Politics into a grand theory about American stagnation seems dubious. Each one of these are complex and can be broken down into more meaningful interpretations.
Art: It seems we are in the golden era of Television. We have solidly left the world of sitcoms and into shows with arcs, beginnings and endings. In the past most shows didn't want to invest in characters only to have the show end, thats how you end up with 20 season sitcoms. There is more innovation in TV than there ever has been. Does this counteract the narrative of cultural stagnation?
Science: Theres been plenty of theories on this, but in general, most economists seems to view technological progress as random, spurious, and fundamentally unpredictable. However, there is no doubt there are more papers and researchers now than ever.
Politics: Gerrymandering seems to be a primary driver of this, which is Ezra Klein's theory (who is actually quoted in this article). Is this really a fundamental truth rather than just a quirk of the system?
Anytime someone tries to pull together multiple disparate threads into a unifying narrative, the analysis becomes watered down.
Art: It seems we are in the golden era of Television. We have solidly left the world of sitcoms and into shows with arcs, beginnings and endings. In the past most shows didn't want to invest in characters only to have the show end, thats how you end up with 20 season sitcoms. There is more innovation in TV than there ever has been. Does this counteract the narrative of cultural stagnation?
Science: Theres been plenty of theories on this, but in general, most economists seems to view technological progress as random, spurious, and fundamentally unpredictable. However, there is no doubt there are more papers and researchers now than ever.
Politics: Gerrymandering seems to be a primary driver of this, which is Ezra Klein's theory (who is actually quoted in this article). Is this really a fundamental truth rather than just a quirk of the system?
Anytime someone tries to pull together multiple disparate threads into a unifying narrative, the analysis becomes watered down.
If your anchoring point of innovation is 1875 to 1900 as it is in this article, you're going to be disappointed by the rate of innovation in just about every other historical period in the history of mankind.
If you take the long view on this, we had the Industrial Revolution, and just as that started to taper off we got computers, and then the Internet gave that revolution a boost. It's been an incredible run of advancement, and there's no inherent reason why we must believe that it continues forever.
If you take the long view on this, we had the Industrial Revolution, and just as that started to taper off we got computers, and then the Internet gave that revolution a boost. It's been an incredible run of advancement, and there's no inherent reason why we must believe that it continues forever.
I think a lot of the things that we take for granted today exist because people in the past were bored out of their minds and the only way to alleviate that boredom was to discover or create things.
When I turned on my Commodore 64 when I was 10 years old it did nothing. As a consequence I would spend all day manually typing in BASIC and Assembler source code from magazines. I quickly became an expert at BASIC and Assembler programming.
10 year-olds today flip a computer on and in a matter of minutes can play Minecraft, have access to unlimited videos on YouTube and an almost infinite array of boredom-busting games and other entertainment. Everyone in our society is impacted by this to varying degrees steering us from the role of creators to consumers.
When I turned on my Commodore 64 when I was 10 years old it did nothing. As a consequence I would spend all day manually typing in BASIC and Assembler source code from magazines. I quickly became an expert at BASIC and Assembler programming.
10 year-olds today flip a computer on and in a matter of minutes can play Minecraft, have access to unlimited videos on YouTube and an almost infinite array of boredom-busting games and other entertainment. Everyone in our society is impacted by this to varying degrees steering us from the role of creators to consumers.
Maybe science has just picked all of the low hanging fruit? Internal combustion is a lot easier than fusion.
Queens Gambit the show was amazing and original screenplay/book.
Maybe streaming has taking so much of the resources away from Hollywood movies so that the only movies that are relevant are the fast food of movies.
Maybe the author of the article isn't looking at the full picture.
Queens Gambit the show was amazing and original screenplay/book.
Maybe streaming has taking so much of the resources away from Hollywood movies so that the only movies that are relevant are the fast food of movies.
Maybe the author of the article isn't looking at the full picture.
>One of America’s most important sources of entrepreneurship is immigration—because immigrants are far more likely than native-born Americans to start billion-dollar companies—but the U.S. is in a deep immigration depression at the moment
What is with this obsession in journalism with turning to immigrants to solve all of our problems? Why can't we look to supporting our existing countrymen to innovate instead of brain draining the developing world and leaving large swaths of the US population to languish in uncertainty? Has nationalism really become such a dirty word?
What is with this obsession in journalism with turning to immigrants to solve all of our problems? Why can't we look to supporting our existing countrymen to innovate instead of brain draining the developing world and leaving large swaths of the US population to languish in uncertainty? Has nationalism really become such a dirty word?
Maybe we just took all the low hanging fruit?
- Manufacturing can't get that much more efficient without a lot of automation, which is a very hard problem that requires expertise in computer vision, robotics, mechanical engineering, and domain knowledge. That's expensive and hard to organize.
- Per capita energy consumption in the developed world is already high and will be hard to increase while also decreasing CO2 emissions. Especially given entrenched interests and the inability of most governments to complete large projects on schedule.
- There's only so many ways to move and rearrange matter in ways that are fundamentally revolutionary. We found a lot of them in the 1800s and 1900s. Jet engines, motors of various types, lot of chemistry, power generation stuff. There are still interesting developments going on (especially in biology), but mostly they are incremental advances, not something that unlocks entirely new capabilities.
- Manufacturing can't get that much more efficient without a lot of automation, which is a very hard problem that requires expertise in computer vision, robotics, mechanical engineering, and domain knowledge. That's expensive and hard to organize.
- Per capita energy consumption in the developed world is already high and will be hard to increase while also decreasing CO2 emissions. Especially given entrenched interests and the inability of most governments to complete large projects on schedule.
- There's only so many ways to move and rearrange matter in ways that are fundamentally revolutionary. We found a lot of them in the 1800s and 1900s. Jet engines, motors of various types, lot of chemistry, power generation stuff. There are still interesting developments going on (especially in biology), but mostly they are incremental advances, not something that unlocks entirely new capabilities.
This is also one of the premises of Kurt Anderson's book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History". Although the scope of the book is large and argues that American's irrationality runs deep, he points out that since the 1970s or so American popular culture has become more and more inward looking, obsessed with reviving the past and remaking the old rather than creating new things (very much along the lines of what is described in the opening of this article).
On the technological and economic side, this also reminds me of the arguments in David Graber's article "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit".
It is hard to argue with the fact the scope of truly new things is smaller than it was in say, the 1960s, when space flight and supersonic travel started, and popular culture was barely recognizable from the beginning of the decade to the end. People growing up in that era truly believed that at that rate of change, they would be living on Mars and working 15 hours a week and have a totally new organization of society by the early 2000s.
[0] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209776/fantasyland-...
[1] https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...
On the technological and economic side, this also reminds me of the arguments in David Graber's article "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit".
It is hard to argue with the fact the scope of truly new things is smaller than it was in say, the 1960s, when space flight and supersonic travel started, and popular culture was barely recognizable from the beginning of the decade to the end. People growing up in that era truly believed that at that rate of change, they would be living on Mars and working 15 hours a week and have a totally new organization of society by the early 2000s.
[0] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209776/fantasyland-...
[1] https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...
This paper seems to be mourning people no longer willing to take risks. So why are we so risk-averse now? I think taking a risk involves some courage, but also some desperation, and we just aren't that desperate anymore. There are no existential threats like foreign enemies, we have pretty great means for coping with boredom, and our best minds have a university pipeline that will safely funnel them to an upper-class corporate life.
Immigration is an interesting topic.
I’d love to move from Europe to the US to work on new ideas and companies, however while countries like Australia try to attract people like me (https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/v...), there is not even an entrepreneur visa in the US.
The best thing I can hope for is to win the Greencard lottery, which is crazy if you consider that highly qualified immigrants are such a big contributor to economic growth (https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/I...).
I’d love to move from Europe to the US to work on new ideas and companies, however while countries like Australia try to attract people like me (https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/v...), there is not even an entrepreneur visa in the US.
The best thing I can hope for is to win the Greencard lottery, which is crazy if you consider that highly qualified immigrants are such a big contributor to economic growth (https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/I...).
There have always been inflection points in history. It's unreasonable to assume that there won't be any. Everytime society comes out of an inflection point there is a field of critics bemoaning the fact that we are no longer in an inflection point. But that's because inflection points are by definition state changes.
In a way I think the assumption that growth is always a smooth curve up and to the right is inadequate. During every single inflection point people think this time is different this kind of growth is permanent. Every single time that turns out to not be the case. It's just society running it's normal course. The next inflection point is coming. In the meantime we'll have to content ourselves with the benefits of the last inflection point.
In a way I think the assumption that growth is always a smooth curve up and to the right is inadequate. During every single inflection point people think this time is different this kind of growth is permanent. Every single time that turns out to not be the case. It's just society running it's normal course. The next inflection point is coming. In the meantime we'll have to content ourselves with the benefits of the last inflection point.
The idea that today’s innovations are incremental and the innovations of the past were leaps is not quite right.
History of technology is a hobby of mine and I have been struck by how incremental all the big innovations of the past really were, once you take the trouble to look into what was going on at the time.
Also, it takes decades to assess how important an innovation. And in the early stages all new things are much less impressive than the things they mature into.
So recent history seems always less impressive, and also more incremental because we have all the context of how new things arose.
History of technology is a hobby of mine and I have been struck by how incremental all the big innovations of the past really were, once you take the trouble to look into what was going on at the time.
Also, it takes decades to assess how important an innovation. And in the early stages all new things are much less impressive than the things they mature into.
So recent history seems always less impressive, and also more incremental because we have all the context of how new things arose.
"The best objection to everything that I’ve written so far is that there exists a world where young people tend to be in control, where regulatory burdens aren’t blocking megaprojects, and where new ideas are generally cherished and even, perhaps, fetishized. It’s the internet—or, more specific, the software industry. If you are working on AI, or crypto, or virtual reality, you probably aren’t starved for new ideas. You very well may be drowning in them."
I'm glad our industry's PR is working.
I'm glad our industry's PR is working.
I can feel the sentiment. Movies have gotten repetitive. Storylines are recycled over and over. Characters likewise. Tech stacks copy the legacy which we've gotten bored with, change a few pieces and make a nice updated page, sell it as the amazing fancy new thing and of course hide the messed up parts. The silver bullet still hasn't been found.
It feels like everyone is trying to optimize for something. NBA teams optimize for points based on data which clearly affects where and how often they attempt to score. Companies optimize for profit as they always did. Academia optimizes for citations. Hackers optimize for productivity. Optimization has a clear path and there's no room there for innovation. Getting incrementally better is a priority.
The thing is there is a certain point where incremental steps no longer yield that much benefit. This is most obvious in the differences between athletes in some top sports where timings that used to be measured in seconds are now measured in milliseconds. Once you're perfectly optimized there's no more room for growth or progress. I feel like this is where everyone is congregating today. At the max peak of the growth function.
It feels like everyone is trying to optimize for something. NBA teams optimize for points based on data which clearly affects where and how often they attempt to score. Companies optimize for profit as they always did. Academia optimizes for citations. Hackers optimize for productivity. Optimization has a clear path and there's no room there for innovation. Getting incrementally better is a priority.
The thing is there is a certain point where incremental steps no longer yield that much benefit. This is most obvious in the differences between athletes in some top sports where timings that used to be measured in seconds are now measured in milliseconds. Once you're perfectly optimized there's no more room for growth or progress. I feel like this is where everyone is congregating today. At the max peak of the growth function.
I don't agree at all with the thesis
In terms of GDP, stock market gains, innovation, STEM research, the US is probably ahead of the rest of the world. Look at how US companies pioneer the Covid vaccine for example. The biggest and largest of tech companies are based in the US.
One explanation is that none of this is our fault. We picked all the low-hanging fruit, solved all the secrets, invented all the easy inventions, told all the good stories, and now it’s genuinely harder to keep up the pace of idea generation.
In some ways this is probably true. Science and technology are much more complicated than they were in the 1890s, or in the 1790s. But the fear that nothing is left to discover has always been misguided. In the mid-1890s, the U.S. physicist Albert Michelson famously claimed that “most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established” in the physical sciences. It wasn’t even 10 years later that Albert Einstein first revolutionized our understanding of space, time, mass, and energy.
This is probably the answer to why it seems like things have stagnated, but it doesn't not means there is stagnation or that America is running on fumes.
Throughout the 20th century, Hollywood produced a healthy number of entirely new stories. The top movies of 1998—including Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, and There’s Something About Mary—were almost all based on original screenplays.
But many movies were still based off of real life events or books. Truly original screenplays that are not based off a historical event or a book are rare, afik.
What sort of innovation do people expect to see for things to not be stagnating? I think expectations are too high.
In terms of GDP, stock market gains, innovation, STEM research, the US is probably ahead of the rest of the world. Look at how US companies pioneer the Covid vaccine for example. The biggest and largest of tech companies are based in the US.
One explanation is that none of this is our fault. We picked all the low-hanging fruit, solved all the secrets, invented all the easy inventions, told all the good stories, and now it’s genuinely harder to keep up the pace of idea generation.
In some ways this is probably true. Science and technology are much more complicated than they were in the 1890s, or in the 1790s. But the fear that nothing is left to discover has always been misguided. In the mid-1890s, the U.S. physicist Albert Michelson famously claimed that “most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established” in the physical sciences. It wasn’t even 10 years later that Albert Einstein first revolutionized our understanding of space, time, mass, and energy.
This is probably the answer to why it seems like things have stagnated, but it doesn't not means there is stagnation or that America is running on fumes.
Throughout the 20th century, Hollywood produced a healthy number of entirely new stories. The top movies of 1998—including Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, and There’s Something About Mary—were almost all based on original screenplays.
But many movies were still based off of real life events or books. Truly original screenplays that are not based off a historical event or a book are rare, afik.
What sort of innovation do people expect to see for things to not be stagnating? I think expectations are too high.
I’d say this is what it looks like to be in one of the longest running economic expansions and eras of peace and security in modern history. Necessity is the mother of invention and destruction is its father. It’s perhaps not a bad trade and we can still go to the old art to learn about the depths of humans sorrow and heights of joy. Still, this too shall pass.
Written in 1891: (Sound familiar?)
“ That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising.
The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses;
the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with it - actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the public mind.”
-Rerum Novarum
“ That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising.
The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses;
the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with it - actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the public mind.”
-Rerum Novarum
Here's another take that I don't know if I believe, but is interesting. What if we aren't running out of new ideas, and it's just hard to classify all the new stuff so we bucket it together too much? If 'fantasy' is a respectable genre to innovate within, then complaining that there's no innovation because we aren't seeing new genres misses the mark. But once upon a time, fantasy would all be categorized as Tolkien rip offs. Same with 'phone app' or 'super hero movie' as things that innovation can happen within.
Maybe over time, old branches become commonly accepted enough that we can finally recognize innovation within them, but until then that innovation just looks derivative. And those branches have their own branches, repeating the process where most everything always looks incremental without hindsight.
Maybe over time, old branches become commonly accepted enough that we can finally recognize innovation within them, but until then that innovation just looks derivative. And those branches have their own branches, repeating the process where most everything always looks incremental without hindsight.
This article echoes a major theme of Peter Thiel these days. The Atlantic is owned by Steve Jobs widow Laurene. I wonder if they are in each other's circle? I don't buy it. For example, we don't make blockbuster films because the focus has shifted to making great and bingeable series on streaming services.
I'm not qualified to have an expert opinion on this, but I have wondered how much good it has done to have the modern measurements.
I can write a new application or website and get real time data from my users on how 'good' it is. So I start to steer my creation to make that goodness a bigger number. Instead of what my vision was.
Goodhart's Law and its ilk. I can drive a car by watching the road or watching the GPS. I can edit my facebook posts to get more likes if I just change my point. People go to my movies when I keep telling the same story. I caused ten years of tech debt for a 4 figure bonus. I forgot what my face looks like because of real time filters.
People who make things shouldn't ever hear how people received it. But now a muse whispers in their left ear, and a real time analysis of their failure in their right. It's already my hell.
I can write a new application or website and get real time data from my users on how 'good' it is. So I start to steer my creation to make that goodness a bigger number. Instead of what my vision was.
Goodhart's Law and its ilk. I can drive a car by watching the road or watching the GPS. I can edit my facebook posts to get more likes if I just change my point. People go to my movies when I keep telling the same story. I caused ten years of tech debt for a 4 figure bonus. I forgot what my face looks like because of real time filters.
People who make things shouldn't ever hear how people received it. But now a muse whispers in their left ear, and a real time analysis of their failure in their right. It's already my hell.
This article does not mention education as the cause, which I personally has to be the most important cause of declining creativity across the American society. My older daughter is in 2nd grade. I think from my eyes that the STEM education is about fun, not the hard-and-cold reasoning. For example, algebra is taught with tricks, not simply what they are, and the ugly rules that underpins those human invention (math is a human invention of describing the physical world).
And as Ray Dalio mentioned, education is not a federal responsibility, nor is the federal government allowed to exercise influence. Then we are left with declining education across the board.
It's just not possible to revert the trend, if the root of everything was allowed to be ignored. One cannot fix a sinking building by fixing anything other than the foundation!
And as Ray Dalio mentioned, education is not a federal responsibility, nor is the federal government allowed to exercise influence. Then we are left with declining education across the board.
It's just not possible to revert the trend, if the root of everything was allowed to be ignored. One cannot fix a sinking building by fixing anything other than the foundation!
JFC this is basic math everyone:
When you increase the money supply, anyone/anything leveraged into assets with debt will have an outsized return compared to those who are not leveraged.
Corporate debt is quite a lot more than consumer debt, and the upper middle class and rich own the majority of corporate shares.
US Monetary policy for the last 50 years have been to transfer wealth from the poor and working class to the upper class. Everyone, democrats, socialists, republicans push for policies that do this. This is not a secret mystery.
When you increase the money supply, anyone/anything leveraged into assets with debt will have an outsized return compared to those who are not leveraged.
Corporate debt is quite a lot more than consumer debt, and the upper middle class and rich own the majority of corporate shares.
US Monetary policy for the last 50 years have been to transfer wealth from the poor and working class to the upper class. Everyone, democrats, socialists, republicans push for policies that do this. This is not a secret mystery.
It's an elaborate piece, but largely an unsubstantiated opinion piece.
Sure, some things are obvious: largest amount of cash goes on trivial, incremental improvements. Sure, popular movies are largely lacking substance.
But none of that makes the larger premise true: we don't need to be investing the most money in risky, experimental research and development. Throughout the history, that's also been the case (eg investment in military has always been huge, and only a fraction was for RnD).
It can similarly be used as a counter argument: we are getting more deeply invested during our daily work, and we need more frivolous entertainment to relax us. I don't think this is true either, but noted circumstances are not in a contradiction with this either.
Sure, some things are obvious: largest amount of cash goes on trivial, incremental improvements. Sure, popular movies are largely lacking substance.
But none of that makes the larger premise true: we don't need to be investing the most money in risky, experimental research and development. Throughout the history, that's also been the case (eg investment in military has always been huge, and only a fraction was for RnD).
It can similarly be used as a counter argument: we are getting more deeply invested during our daily work, and we need more frivolous entertainment to relax us. I don't think this is true either, but noted circumstances are not in a contradiction with this either.
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Hardin continued: "It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject—written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weight the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that?"
Again the note of near-pleading in his voice.
Again no answer. He went on: "And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad.. We sit here, considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power."
And for the third time: "Don't you see? It's galaxy-wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration—a stagnation!”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation