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I agree if the sentiment is just: everything which is today popular was once more of a niche, experimental activity. But that is not so exciting a claim, is it?

I agree if the sentiment is just: everything which is today popular was once more of a niche, experimental activity. But that is not so exciting a claim, is it? The more difficult part is going in the other direction, and figuring out which of today's niche hobbies will be popular tomorrow. Taken at face value, the article is claiming that it will be all of them, at least if they were niche hobbies of the "smartest" people. I think that is clearly incorrect.

iamwil 14y ago
Well, like pg said above, I wish the OP dove into the forces at hand. However, that doesn't mean that we can't. I don't know why cdixon wrote the article. But I suspect that it's only not an exciting claim to you because you're already at a certain place in your understanding of innovation. I think there are plenty of people that believe innovation happens when an inventor hides away in a basement and tinkers with stuff, and one day, he has a big reveal and the world says how awesome it is. That story's reinforced when you tell the story of successes looking backwards. In reality, early innovation doesn't look like that. It looks like people doing weird things you don't understand, or seems like they're wasting their time, doing things that seem to have nothing to do with the real world. The only thing in common is that they seem to be doing it for shits and giggles, while having lots of fun.
- _delirium 14y ago
  If the idea is just that some things that now seem serious didn't seem serious in the past, sure, I buy that. But does anybody not buy that? I feel like that's the plotline of a dozen Discovery Channel shows. And it's also the justification behind many of the "why pure math/science should actually be funded" arguments, to take it in a different direction.
  - iamwil 14y ago
    People always buy that looking backwards, but almost never going forward. In fact, most people are outright dismissive of new ideas yet unproven. If you do a search on HN about the viability of the currently unproven techs, like google glasses, 3D printers, you'll see plenty of evidence of that. I'm not sure why this is, exactly. Perhaps it's just more fun to be cynical and shoot down the weird things that other people are doing. Or maybe people don't actually like change. Or maybe people don't like being wrong, and if you poo poo most everything, it's likely you'll be right, since most things aren't mainstream game changers. Or perhaps people don't like hyperbole. I know I have my bullshit flag raised when someone's raving about something.
    - forwardslash 14y ago
      I think there's mostly a lot of knee-jerk contrarianism, especially in the HN community. You can see the worst of that here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466925 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466925 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469453 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469453.

iamwil 14y ago

Well, like pg said above, I wish the OP dove into the forces at hand. However, that doesn't mean that we can't. I don't know why cdixon wrote the article. But I suspect that it's only not an exciting claim to you because you're already at a certain place in your understanding of innovation. I think there are plenty of people that believe innovation happens when an inventor hides away in a basement and tinkers with stuff, and one day, he has a big reveal and the world says how awesome it is. That story's reinforced when you tell the story of successes looking backwards. In reality, early innovation doesn't look like that. It looks like people doing weird things you don't understand, or seems like they're wasting their time, doing things that seem to have nothing to do with the real world. The only thing in common is that they seem to be doing it for shits and giggles, while having lots of fun.

_delirium 14y ago
If the idea is just that some things that now seem serious didn't seem serious in the past, sure, I buy that. But does anybody not buy that? I feel like that's the plotline of a dozen Discovery Channel shows. And it's also the justification behind many of the "why pure math/science should actually be funded" arguments, to take it in a different direction.
- iamwil 14y ago
  People always buy that looking backwards, but almost never going forward. In fact, most people are outright dismissive of new ideas yet unproven. If you do a search on HN about the viability of the currently unproven techs, like google glasses, 3D printers, you'll see plenty of evidence of that. I'm not sure why this is, exactly. Perhaps it's just more fun to be cynical and shoot down the weird things that other people are doing. Or maybe people don't actually like change. Or maybe people don't like being wrong, and if you poo poo most everything, it's likely you'll be right, since most things aren't mainstream game changers. Or perhaps people don't like hyperbole. I know I have my bullshit flag raised when someone's raving about something.
  - forwardslash 14y ago
    I think there's mostly a lot of knee-jerk contrarianism, especially in the HN community. You can see the worst of that here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466925 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466925 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469453 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469453.