
Ask HN: What are some exciting non-STEM breakthroughs happening now? - rococode
We often hear about cool new things in STEM fields, but much less frequently about non-STEM fields. What are some of the most exciting things right now in other fields?
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chipmonkey75
"Breakthrough" is a tough word here...

How about the TurDuckEn?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken)
Or the Pake (PieCaken, Cherpumple, or whatever you call a pie baked into a
cake).

I'm at least half serious -- the arts, including culinary arts, is a place to
look. The color indigo comes to mind as an older example (even if science
discovered it, it was a breakthrough due to its adoption in art and
fashion)... lately Black 3.0 (or Vantablack) may have made enough ripples to
count.

Have there been Legal or Political breakthroughs? Was reopening the Cuban
border a "breakthrough"? Is electing female world leaders a "breakthrough"?
Legalizing gay marriage? Marijuana decriminalization? I could make an argument
for any of those.

I'd make a list of what you think "non-stem" areas are (by career, maybe) and
look into that. Finance, real-estate, mechanics, art, fashion -- they probably
have "breakthroughs" that people outside the fields are not familiar with, at
various scales.

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jhanschoo
OP is talking political theory, which is different from what you cite, which
are political outcomes.

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bjourne
One random breakthrough in political science I happen to know about is
Experimental(ist) governance.

The common way of thinking about a legislature is that it enacts laws that are
just. That which is in the eyes of the population "bad" is outlawed and what
is "good" is kept legal. That's a model that has been with us since antiquity.
Of course, in the old days the law came from the God(s) but the point was the
same -- differentiate between right and wrong.

Experimental governance brings in a completely new way of thinking (+). The
legislature is instead seen as an experimenter and laws are seen as tools to
use to regulate the behavior of the populace. Maybe the government identifies
X as a problem, so a _temporary law_ A to combat the problem is drafted. The
law is enacted but with a provision so that it expires after say an evaluation
period of 18 months. Then the government studies what effects the law had. If
the negatives outweighs the positives, maybe try law B instead and the process
repeats itself.

The advantages to experimental governance is that laws can be enacted quickly
and in response to changing circumstances. And that "beta testing" makes it
easier to write tighter laws free of loop-holes and other problems.
Disadvantages include: 1) Regimes can abuse the system by extending quickly
drafted temporary laws indefinitely (e.g Patriot Act). 2) If there are no
checks and balances built into the system, arbitrary or contradictory laws can
be enacted. 3) If the population isn't following the political debate, it
might not be aware of what the law is. Thus, EG works best in stable
democracies with educated populations, like the EU countries where it is used
extensively.

\+ Of course no idea is 100 % new, but I know of no similar historical
precedent. Temporary laws and decrees have been used in the past, but afaik
they have always been considered aberrations and not "natural parts of the
system."

~~~
jkmcf
This is a fantastic idea, but applying it anywhere would require a lot of buy-
in from opposing parties to get started — and we’re back to dealing with
people problems. I suppose it’s no different than any other law though.

While not a “law”, the Roman republic innovated by allowing the Senate to
elect a dictator to address a specific problem for 6 months or until
successful, and was expected to resign thereafter.

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plibither8
This is a very naive question, but can someone give an example of a
_breakthrough_ in non-STEM fields? Because now that I've been thinking about
possible examples, maybe psychology etc., all fields are inherently a form of
science, right?

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enjoyyourlife
New political and philosophical concepts. The idea of an "End of History"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_history))
in politics has been surmised quite recently

~~~
air7
Thank you!
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/925459420](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/925459420)

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SamReidHughes
A lot of people are getting jacked.

There are some breakout genres of self-published entertainment, using Amazon
self-publishing for novels, or using YouTube.

Golf course design the past few decades seems to have gotten out of a rut.

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omosubi
I don't know if this is a breakthrough in the sense you're looking for, but
one needs only to look at China to see how much better company management has
improved. Of course they have their problems and you could argue that they're
just copying the western model to a certain degree, but if that was so easy
why isn't everyone else achieving the kind of growth China is?

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tmaly
I think there is quite a bit going on now in cognitive psychology as it
pertains to education of children. I hear more and more references to mindset
and grit.

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taurath
Biggest political and governance breakthrough that will happen in my lifetime
most likely is the boomers dying off. There will be no continuity of their
policies which the rest of us have come of age with and generally abhor. 15
years to go, and the decline is already happening.

