
The per capita rate of innovation (2004) - derwiki
http://brucegary.net/book_GE/Chapter_20.html
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ignostic
I do hope everyone realizes this is silly.

Everything in this comparison relies on the quality of data. The "number of
innovations" data comes exclusively from a book by Isaac Asimov with under
1500 entries. To make some sort of grand pronouncement about a date range for
the end of humanity based on Asimov's very subjective and unscientific
qualification of what makes an innovation is absurd.

It's interesting that we think incremental improvement matters less than a
brand new idea. Even steel tools built upon prior knowledge, and took decades
to get right. Machines were incremental improvements from manually powered
systems, which gradually evolved into the complex machiens we have now.

Some of these changed may feel like evolutionary innovations rather than
revolutionary ideas, but that's how technology develops. It's easy to look at
past innovations from the Greeks, because we see how the technology went from
0 to amazing. But we do it in retrospect, and speaking in terms of centuries,
which makes innovations appear to spring out of nowhere more than they
actually did.

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gwern
It is a bit silly, but if you use a variety of encyclopedias and source texts
with various temporal cutoffs (not just this one, but Simonton's work or
Murray's _Human Accomplishment_ where he ignores any item after 1950 while
drawing on published books), you do pretty consistently get the late 1800s as
the apex for per capita.

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Nevermark
The estimated 50% chance of human population collapse between 2140 and 2600,
seems reasonable.

Our power to destroy ourselves with weapons or accidents, or use biological
and information technology to productively enhance or replace ourselves is
growing at an exponential rate.

Any scenario where humanity reaches the year 3000 without either having
destroyed ourselves, or enhanced ourselves beyond recognition, seems unlikely
to the extreme. The only scenario I can imagine where radical technological
change does not result in a radical change to the human condition is if a
totalitarian government managed to enforce a no-progress civilization for
hundreds of years.

I am marking the years 2140-2600 on my calendar so I can remember to look back
and review the results of this prediction using my post-human thinking
apparatus. Hopefully I didn't extinct myself.

~~~
selimthegrim
For a second there I read, "enhanced ourselves beyond _redemption_..."

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api
I've had an intuitive sense for a long time that the innovation rate has
fallen dramatically since the 1950s. What we're doing now really feels like
small incremental improvements to technology that was all invented prior to
1970.

Has anything actually been invented since 1970?

Relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-
zdhzMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY)

~~~
protonfish
The Internet and everything in it?

~~~
zenogais
It's important not to confuse the rapid production and reproduction of novelty
with innovation.

~~~
pantalaimon
Where do you draw the line?

~~~
zenogais
I feel like this @hipsterhacker tweet sums it up nicely:
[https://twitter.com/hipsterhacker/status/466077431061696512](https://twitter.com/hipsterhacker/status/466077431061696512)

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nazgulnarsil
The full book is somewhat interesting:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=RNhLAW615QgC&pg=PP1&dq=inau...](http://books.google.com/books?id=RNhLAW615QgC&pg=PP1&dq=inauthor:%22Bruce+L+Gary%22&ei=6On7S6ajDYXclQT1qpWnDw&cd=2#v=onepage&q&f=false)

He paints an excessively pessimistic picture IMO.

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danelectro
A lot of innovation is individual as opposed to institutional.

Motivated, technically qualified individuals have always been "out there", but
now they are lost in the wash with so many highly degreed average people
dominating both institutional and venture efforts.

The traditional "great man" innovators are more out-of-place than ever in this
landscape, where quantity of technical people is the limiting factor for
shareholders requiring rapid growth.

If structures allow a return to having the quality of the innovators prevail
over the quantity, more of the outstanding unrecognized individuals may be
able to contribute again like what was seen 50 to 100years ago.

Some shareholders would not be able to accept the longer incubation periods
and slower exponential growth necessary, but not all shareholders are the
same. It could happen.

Ask yourself, if DaVinci, Newton, Edison, Einstein or somebody like that were
unknowns but wanted to innovate for you, or wanted you to support their
efforts (which might already be in progress), which of your exclusionary
tactics would eliminate them in the first or second round?

I've said it before, technology has progressed but it's clear that PEOPLE used
to be more advanced than they are now.

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tdaltonc
Where is this data coming from? And why are there no confidence intervals on
his measures?

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7777777
The attempt to give a formal treatment to data as subjective as "innovations"
is probably not much more than a fun exercise. And, from that perspective, I
did have fun reading it. :)

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dang
We changed the submitted title ("Global literacy rate over time (and more)")
to what seems to be the author's phrase for the key idea of this piece. Better
title suggestions welcome.

~~~
derwiki
Sure. I posted mainly because I thought literacy rate over time was
interesting, but wanted to post more context than just the graph. Looks like
others found the rest of the page interesting.

