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Meh. When you're in a country where most things "just work" (eg. France, Germany etc.), and you see so many broken systems around you, of course you want to foc

by nnq 9y ago

Meh. When you're in a country where most things "just work" (eg. France, Germany etc.), and you see so many broken systems around you, of course you want to focus on keeping your existing special advantages. When most of the solutions you have work quite well, randomly picking new stuff from the space of possible solutions results on average in worse things than what you already have. "Undirected innovation" doesn't make things better for you, and "directed innovation" is something nobody has figure out how to do yet (and I'd be that nobody ever will!). So most innovation will tend to come from somewhat-broken economies and somewhat-broken societies! For them sampling even randomly from the space of new solutions makes sense. The magic though is how to "stabilize" an economy or society in the "half-broken" state, how to prevent it from going downhill from here to actually-failed-state and actually-failed-economy and then even further to (civil-)war. Only the U.S.A. seems to have managed to nourish this "always half-broken society and economy" that truly accelerates innovation. Even the "Trump thing" seems like a good example of getting this right, fertilizing society with some fresh stinky yummy chaos, even if nobody puts it in words. Europe could imho get the same "magic sauce" by keeping afloat and integrated, and occasionally half-fixing, its "peripheral" zones (think Greece, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria etc.) and allowing free migration of money and people. From the half-broken places innovation will come. Or instability will propagate to the more mature/efficient societies and make these more innovative too. The trick is just to not let them get fully-broken or let them drag the rest downhill. (Or not do other exceedingly stupid shit like Brexit, bad deals with Russia etc.) Outside the tech-bubble Germany seems to have had a good idea with the "take in all refugees to stir some blood and agitate people a bit" move... I'm sure it will grow their economy long-term, though not sure if it would be relevant to innovation in tech.

adventured 9y ago
That's blatantly incorrect. Innovation historically overwhelmingly tends to come from the least broken societies/countries. If you were right, countries near the median on income and corruption, would be vast producers of innovation (they are not). Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Switzerland are routinely ranked as among the most innovative countries. If they're somewhat broken, who are the non-broken countries? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-korea-tops-global-innovation-ranking-again-as-u-s-falls https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-kor...
- nnq 9y ago
  Innovation doesn't "happen" where you actually measure it, where a company gets founded, or where a patent gets registered... It happens inside the head of a random Russian dude that studies in Germany and then moves to Zurich. Or in the head of a second generation Syrian immigrant to the U.S. People are like blood, they need to be pumped, squished, occasionally crushed etc. Sure, the company that eventually makes profit from an innovative idea ends up being registered in a developed country, the article describing an innovative technique ends up being published while someone works for a prestigious western university etc. Switzerland is like the "fake news" of every socio-economical statistic since it's a weird "magnet country" for money and ideas from anywhere else. > Sweden, Finland, Denmark Agree, they do something right, though not sure what. There's genuine innovation coming from there, but I'm really not familiar with these countries. And I'd bet they're also good at extracting valiue, registering, patenting etc. Or maybe they've managed to get the same benefits of a half-broken society (basically "tons of unemployed/unsatisfactory-employed smart people" kept "motivated enough" but not beyond their "breaking points") without the "broken" part by managing to simply not "overwork the innovativeness out of smart people"? It would be awesome to know this strategy works...

by nnq 9y ago

adventured 9y ago

That's blatantly incorrect. Innovation historically overwhelmingly tends to come from the least broken societies/countries. If you were right, countries near the median on income and corruption, would be vast producers of innovation (they are not). Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Switzerland are routinely ranked as among the most innovative countries. If they're somewhat broken, who are the non-broken countries? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-korea-tops-global-innovation-ranking-again-as-u-s-falls https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-kor...

nnq 9y ago
Innovation doesn't "happen" where you actually measure it, where a company gets founded, or where a patent gets registered... It happens inside the head of a random Russian dude that studies in Germany and then moves to Zurich. Or in the head of a second generation Syrian immigrant to the U.S. People are like blood, they need to be pumped, squished, occasionally crushed etc. Sure, the company that eventually makes profit from an innovative idea ends up being registered in a developed country, the article describing an innovative technique ends up being published while someone works for a prestigious western university etc. Switzerland is like the "fake news" of every socio-economical statistic since it's a weird "magnet country" for money and ideas from anywhere else. > Sweden, Finland, Denmark Agree, they do something right, though not sure what. There's genuine innovation coming from there, but I'm really not familiar with these countries. And I'd bet they're also good at extracting valiue, registering, patenting etc. Or maybe they've managed to get the same benefits of a half-broken society (basically "tons of unemployed/unsatisfactory-employed smart people" kept "motivated enough" but not beyond their "breaking points") without the "broken" part by managing to simply not "overwork the innovativeness out of smart people"? It would be awesome to know this strategy works...