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While it is hard to somehow "prove" what is the best strategy for an institution, I would say there is indeed hard science that has been done that gives us a fu
by forensic 16y ago
While it is hard to somehow "prove" what is the best strategy for an institution, I would say there is indeed hard science that has been done that gives us a fuzzy picture.
It's not a perfect science, but then again even quantum physics is incomplete and suffers from anomalies.
The entire purpose of social science is to move these questions away from just personal judgement and get SOME level, no matter how small, of objective fact.
Organizational psychologists have studied this issue and I think there are some good guidelines. My definition is, admittedly, biased by my own personal judgement.
But still, there is real genuine scientific evidence that indicates institutions which empower individuals and allow for a lot of freedom are objectively better than ones that are more authoritarian and brutal.
You can operationally define "better" as "the group of choice of a 4/5th majority of randomly selected humans" if you want.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoWhoa horsey. Slow down a bit. I'm not saying nothing is provable. I'm not even saying that nothing is useful. What I'm saying is that if I had a zillion dollars, a magic wand, a dumptruck of pixie dust, and a flying unicorn? I still wouldn't be able to create an institution that I would feel comfortable with as being a steady generator of innovation. In addition, I can observe that, as you point out, these things are sociological in nature, not mathematical. I can further observe that lots of people make lots of money selling books and giving speeches and such claiming to be able to make the perfect institution. Since these people continue to generate new ideas and continue to write books and charge for speeches and seminars and such, I believe it is reasonable to assume they have no fully satisfactory answers. I can further observe that many institutions have spent tremendous amounts of money and effort into creating environments that spawn invention and innovation -- to very mixed results. All of these observations lead me to a great deal of skepticism in regards to your statement. That doesn't mean that what you say has no value. I'm sure we could all agree on general attributes that most of the time provide more return than others. But that's a long way from the certainty I was hearing. People talk about fostering innovation and entrepreneurship like it was turning on a light, and that kind of certainty is ludicrous. It's nothing at all like that. All I was trying to do was provide context. I'm done here. No desire to get into an infinite argument stream. Good thoughts. Thank you for sharing them.
- yters 16y agoI think it is an insight just in your statement that there is no such thing as an institution for innovation. That means I should foster innovation where I find it, no matter how unlikely, instead of looking to build utopia.
- yters 16y agoAlso, instead of using institutions to foster innovation, I believe innovators should use institutions for their innovation.