Posted by
Owen Densmore on
Feb 13, 2010; 5:12pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Sources-of-Innovation-tp4566136p4566970.html
There's an economic gorilla in the room no one takes seriously: War.
We're now paying for two wars that are each a greater strain on our
economy than the recession and the stimulus bills. Innovation has
costs that war denies.
We actually need to get back to capitalism, too. What! Yup. To big
to fail is not capitalism, otherwise the natural course of bankruptcy
would have worked. Consider Eric's comment: "First, start-ups and
smaller businesses must be able to compete on equal terms with their
larger rivals. They don't need favors, just a level playing field."
I think we have reached ungovernability. Neither party is mine and
neither is effective. We're in gridlock and its not just the
republicans being obstructive.
On the positive note, I think we've seen the immense hierarchies
discredited. The intelligence services add hierarchy for greater
coordination, and they fail. Less hierarchy, more interaction would
be far better, as we know by diversity and complexity studies.
Another quote: "Second, encouraging risk-taking means tolerating
failure -- provided we learn from it." If our government was agile
enough, we could explore then pull back from failures.
Getting to Eric's comments (he's a past boss of mine, BTW), as usual
he's right on:
"More than ever, innovation is disruptive and messy. It can't be
controlled or predicted. The only way to ensure it can flourish is to
create the best possible environment -- and then get out of the way.
It's a question of learning to live with a mess."
How odd that puts us into the Tea Party!
Eric is right on as usual, and will be ignored.
-- Owen
On Feb 13, 2010, at 6:21 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> In a recent washingtonpost.com article named
> "Erasing our innovation deficit" (
http://bit.ly/cG6vGW )
> Eric Schmidt said
>
> "We have been world leaders in [technological] innovation for
> generations. It has driven our economy, employment growth and our
> rising prosperity.
> [..] We can no longer rely on the top-down approach of the 20th
> century, when big investments in the military and NASA spun off to
> the wider economy."
>
> Do you agree? What kind of approach does the
> USA need to return to old strength?
>
> -J.
>
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