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It's still bizarre the way history turned out. The British, for whatever reason—and I'm including the greater UK in this definition—have led the way in virtuall

It's still bizarre the way history turned out. The British, for whatever reason—and I'm including the greater UK in this definition—have led the way in virtually every field of technology. Why they didn't end up dominating the military, biological, computing, and space industry is quite a puzzle in itself.

flarg 5y ago
Hubris
- sammalloy 5y ago
  This is apocryphal, but I've heard it said that the reason Silicon Valley didn't start in the UK (where they obviously had a head start), was because they were biased against anoraks and boffins, and couldn't see the potential of future commercial computing opportunities.
  - osullivj 5y ago
    Possibly because the British ruling classes tend to have an humanities education [1]. Cf Boris quoting Sophocles, and Kermit the Frog, at the UN earlier this week. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
    - sammalloy 5y ago
      So with the Chinese ruling class coming from predominantly engineering backgrounds (and yes, I've read the previous hn threads on this topic, which are fascinating), should we expect the future of innovation to come from China, or is there another aspect or component at work? My personal take is that Silicon Valley took off in the US because of its timing with WWII defense spending.
      - osullivj 5y ago
        Francis Spufford's Red Plenty is fascinating on engineering culture in closed societies. The recent Chernobyl drama series addresses the same point too. Technical problem solving and innovation work best in open societies where there's minimal political interference in the flow of information. The US overtook the UK as economic #1 in 1870, and is still #1. Despite 100 years of decline the UK is still top 10. IMHO domestic market size, effective autarky, an open society and drawing the smartest immigrants globally has kept the US at #1, and will continue to do so despite challenges in the 80s from the Japanese and more recently the Chinese.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    There is one salient thing that held back British technology researchers - the Official Secrets Act. Computer pioneers who served in WW2 were not allowed to discuss their work or get funding after the war - in fact, banks would snitch on them to the govt. when a loan application crossed their desk. In addition, Britain did not "win" WW2 - they were bankrupted and had ration lines for 9 years afterwards. Meanwhile in the US, there was unlimited funding during the Cold War, and the US govt. had healthy partnerships with industry. For example, there were CDC and Cray supercomputers everywhere across the US.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
bodge5000 5y ago
Dominating an industry goes far beyond invention and academia, in fact, in many those aren't even necessary. Money, marketing, and various business skills dominate industries.
sgt101 5y ago
Market access; the USA has a sovereign market of ~25% world GDP. Within this market the rules are all the fiat of the USA, other players can have a bit - so long as their contribution is net positive for the citizens of the USA. Any innovation is used to create value in this market and the result is an industry that then can go on to be a world beater. China is doing the same sort of thing now. This is natural - it's just how states and markets work and use innovation. The UK has a market of ~2% of world gdp - it's industries are bound to be 1/10 of the size of the USA's, in practice less as it will always be at a structural disadvantage. The EU has a market approximately the same size as the USA and China. The puzzle is why the EU doesn't have dominant industries - this is especially stark in sectors that have evolved since the 1980's. Software and Computer Hardware (chips) are clearly one of these, green tech is another.
- ajuc 5y ago
  > The puzzle is why the EU doesn't have dominant industries It has - cars, industrial automation and finance.
- agent327 5y ago
  The EU is a collection of countries with completely different languages and cultures. Doing business in another EU country is far more complex than doing business in another US state. Writing on a piece of paper that there is a single common market doesn't make it so. Only a handful of really large companies (Airbus is the only one I can think of right away) can manage.
  - bserge 5y ago
    More like doing business in the EU is far more complex.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      EU is not a single country, these countrues wrestle for control, so it's complex in that sence. But it's not like the laws are particularly weired. I was amazed when i learned that in US it's a federal crime to posses a lobster that is too short.
cturner 5y ago
The US has easy economies of scale for many types of business due to its large population. If you come up with a successful business model in one state, there is a low barrier to expanding it. Trivial example, if you manufacture a successful toy. This might explain eventual domination of aeronautical engines (Rolls Royce) and home computing platforms (Acorn, Spectrum, etc). This does not always work in the favour of the US. I have worked in a field where have I repeatedly seen US businesses try to bring their model to Europe, buoyed by optimism from earlier expansion in the US. The European structure of this domain is simply different, leading to the new entrants being doomed before they have even opened their office.
- LeonidasXIV 5y ago
  > The US has easy economies of scale for many types of business due to its large population. If you come up with a successful business model in one state, there is a low barrier to expanding it. The UK had access to such a market and was quite a large force in certain sectors like finance but then decided to just burn all bridges. Of course the challenge in the EU is a big higher because of different languages and possibly different cultural attitudes but the UK is now learning how much harder things were back in the good old days.
  - bserge 5y ago
    UK businesses never bothered much with the EU, anyway. It's ridiculous. There's big demand for cheese, ales, biscuits, even pasties, all over Europe. Yet many farms and companies with an online store didn't even ship EU-wide. Why, just why? Then they blame Germany for dominating. Well, yeah, they actually come and advertise their shit in other countries.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      US has advantage of a single postal service, when I post something to Aberdeen it's £2, if i post it to Paris it's £20 and takes an extra week
hulitu 5y ago
Because of greed. The leaders were not interested in progress. They just wanted more money and power.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Totally unlike the US, right? Jeez...
matthewmorgan 5y ago
The UK is still doing pretty well in all those sectors, for a small rainy island in the Atlantic.
fmajid 5y ago
The British gave away a lot of their leading tech to the US in exchange for the US joining the war effort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission

flarg 5y ago

Hubris

sammalloy 5y ago
This is apocryphal, but I've heard it said that the reason Silicon Valley didn't start in the UK (where they obviously had a head start), was because they were biased against anoraks and boffins, and couldn't see the potential of future commercial computing opportunities.
- osullivj 5y ago
  Possibly because the British ruling classes tend to have an humanities education [1]. Cf Boris quoting Sophocles, and Kermit the Frog, at the UN earlier this week. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
  - sammalloy 5y ago
    So with the Chinese ruling class coming from predominantly engineering backgrounds (and yes, I've read the previous hn threads on this topic, which are fascinating), should we expect the future of innovation to come from China, or is there another aspect or component at work? My personal take is that Silicon Valley took off in the US because of its timing with WWII defense spending.
    - osullivj 5y ago
      Francis Spufford's Red Plenty is fascinating on engineering culture in closed societies. The recent Chernobyl drama series addresses the same point too. Technical problem solving and innovation work best in open societies where there's minimal political interference in the flow of information. The US overtook the UK as economic #1 in 1870, and is still #1. Despite 100 years of decline the UK is still top 10. IMHO domestic market size, effective autarky, an open society and drawing the smartest immigrants globally has kept the US at #1, and will continue to do so despite challenges in the 80s from the Japanese and more recently the Chinese.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  There is one salient thing that held back British technology researchers - the Official Secrets Act. Computer pioneers who served in WW2 were not allowed to discuss their work or get funding after the war - in fact, banks would snitch on them to the govt. when a loan application crossed their desk. In addition, Britain did not "win" WW2 - they were bankrupted and had ration lines for 9 years afterwards. Meanwhile in the US, there was unlimited funding during the Cold War, and the US govt. had healthy partnerships with industry. For example, there were CDC and Cray supercomputers everywhere across the US.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

bodge5000 5y ago

Dominating an industry goes far beyond invention and academia, in fact, in many those aren't even necessary. Money, marketing, and various business skills dominate industries.

sgt101 5y ago

Market access; the USA has a sovereign market of ~25% world GDP. Within this market the rules are all the fiat of the USA, other players can have a bit - so long as their contribution is net positive for the citizens of the USA. Any innovation is used to create value in this market and the result is an industry that then can go on to be a world beater. China is doing the same sort of thing now. This is natural - it's just how states and markets work and use innovation. The UK has a market of ~2% of world gdp - it's industries are bound to be 1/10 of the size of the USA's, in practice less as it will always be at a structural disadvantage. The EU has a market approximately the same size as the USA and China. The puzzle is why the EU doesn't have dominant industries - this is especially stark in sectors that have evolved since the 1980's. Software and Computer Hardware (chips) are clearly one of these, green tech is another.

ajuc 5y ago
> The puzzle is why the EU doesn't have dominant industries It has - cars, industrial automation and finance.
agent327 5y ago
The EU is a collection of countries with completely different languages and cultures. Doing business in another EU country is far more complex than doing business in another US state. Writing on a piece of paper that there is a single common market doesn't make it so. Only a handful of really large companies (Airbus is the only one I can think of right away) can manage.
- bserge 5y ago
  More like doing business in the EU is far more complex.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    EU is not a single country, these countrues wrestle for control, so it's complex in that sence. But it's not like the laws are particularly weired. I was amazed when i learned that in US it's a federal crime to posses a lobster that is too short.

cturner 5y ago

The US has easy economies of scale for many types of business due to its large population. If you come up with a successful business model in one state, there is a low barrier to expanding it. Trivial example, if you manufacture a successful toy. This might explain eventual domination of aeronautical engines (Rolls Royce) and home computing platforms (Acorn, Spectrum, etc). This does not always work in the favour of the US. I have worked in a field where have I repeatedly seen US businesses try to bring their model to Europe, buoyed by optimism from earlier expansion in the US. The European structure of this domain is simply different, leading to the new entrants being doomed before they have even opened their office.

LeonidasXIV 5y ago
> The US has easy economies of scale for many types of business due to its large population. If you come up with a successful business model in one state, there is a low barrier to expanding it. The UK had access to such a market and was quite a large force in certain sectors like finance but then decided to just burn all bridges. Of course the challenge in the EU is a big higher because of different languages and possibly different cultural attitudes but the UK is now learning how much harder things were back in the good old days.
- bserge 5y ago
  UK businesses never bothered much with the EU, anyway. It's ridiculous. There's big demand for cheese, ales, biscuits, even pasties, all over Europe. Yet many farms and companies with an online store didn't even ship EU-wide. Why, just why? Then they blame Germany for dominating. Well, yeah, they actually come and advertise their shit in other countries.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    US has advantage of a single postal service, when I post something to Aberdeen it's £2, if i post it to Paris it's £20 and takes an extra week

hulitu 5y ago

Because of greed. The leaders were not interested in progress. They just wanted more money and power.

breakfastduck 5y ago
Totally unlike the US, right? Jeez...

matthewmorgan 5y ago

The UK is still doing pretty well in all those sectors, for a small rainy island in the Atlantic.

fmajid 5y ago

The British gave away a lot of their leading tech to the US in exchange for the US joining the war effort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission