

Ask News.YC: How difficult is it to break out of prevailing paradigms of the present? - fiaz

I'm hoping that some sort of interesting discussion will come of this.  I came across this picture in a recent issue of Motor Trend.  This was Detroit's vision of the future car way back in the 1950s.<p>http://www.motortrend.com/features/archive/112_0803_mercury_xm_turnpike_cruiser/photo_01.html<p>What was so striking about what I see here is that the car design is more or less the same as what you'd find in the 1950s on a typical automobile except that it simply has more of what we don't need.<p>I wanted to know what people's thoughts were about being trapped in the paradigm of our times in the sense that the engineers of this car were trapped in the paradigm of their times.<p>How different, in retrospect, are the designs/plans/ideas that fuel some of the startups that are popping up today any more groundbreaking or "futuristic" than the "XM Turnpike" of the past??
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mechanical_fish
_the car design is more or less the same as what you'd find in the 1950s on a
typical automobile except that it simply has more of what we don't need_

That is a very insightful observation, and it sheds light on the reason why
"visions of the future" are always so wrong: they aren't designed for the
future. They're designed for the present, _purposefully_.

That wacky car of the 1950s doesn't represent an automotive engineer's
thoughtful attempt to redesign the car. It's not even a real product! It's a
marketing gimmick designed to sell the typical car of the 1950s. The idea is
that Joe Consumer sees the "Car of the Future", notes that it's covered in
chrome, subliminally associates chrome with Progress and Style, and then
happily splurges on today's chrome-covered model down at the local Mercury
dealer.

Naturally, considering it's _raison d'etre_ , the Gimmick Car looks exactly
like the cars that were for sale at the time, only more so.

The lesson to draw here is that most of the "paradigm trap" is a marketing
barrier. It turns out to be generally more profitable to sell people a slight
variation on what they already like than to show them something totally
different and have to prove that it's better. It turns out that the real
"vehicle of the future" invented around 1950 was the Land Rover, but that took
a long time for people to get used to.

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hobbs
I think the hardest part of breaking out of a paradigm is to realize that
you're in one. For example, in physics, the only time physicists ever break
out of an existing paradigm en masse is when stuff starts breaking so badly
that you realize there must be an erroneous assumption somewhere. (e.g., the
Michelson-Morley experiment that proved that there is no aether.)

~~~
fiaz
"I think the hardest part of breaking out of a paradigm is to realize that
you're in one."

Perhaps the single most useful insight I've heard thus far. The best part of
this observation is that we have many examples that are readily available to
illustrate it for us, yet we somehow fall back into thinking that is governed
by preconceived notions.

Maybe the more interesting question is:

Why do we default to thinking that is driven by prevailing paradigms?

~~~
pg
_Why do we default to thinking that is driven by prevailing paradigms?_

They're what you think _in_.

~~~
fiaz
The shortness of your answer is making my head spin...I think perhaps my
second question is rather poorly stated...

I agree that we necessarily must be thinking in one of many paradigms, but
there is a tendency to default to the larger overarching "trending" paradigm.
If you look at the car from the 1950s, it doesn't have the curviness of cars
and this could be attributed to the manufacturing process as opposed to the
design process.

The functional features on the car that have changed most notably are the
doors...

Maybe I'm applying the word "paradigm" inappropriately...perhaps mindset or
something else is what I'm aiming at and not "paradigm".

\------------------

OK, I've had some time to think about that which I am attempting to grasp...

I think there is a common thread with "advances" in technology such as the
1950s car in the link above (really, the only apparently visible "innovations"
are with the many directions in which the doors open outwards) and with other
"advances" that we might see around us today. The common thread being that we
tend to reinforce what works in hindsight and project that into the future.
Perhaps we can call this the "hindsight paradigm" but I would like some input
on whether or not this is an appropriate usage of the word "paradigm".

Advertising markets will also stick to "what works". It had to be a company
founded by two Stanford kids that created a revolution in the advertising
industry because they were not bound by the traditional thinking of not having
to reinvent the wheel such that they could actually deliver the marketer's
dream of highly targeted adverts...

Engineers will (hopefully) build something that is solid and then tweak as
necessary. There is no need to reinvent the wheel over and over again and this
is something that is similar to what I'm groping for: we are sometimes trapped
by the convenience of what works at the moment. There seems to be no end to
the length at which we may improve anything, but at the same time if people
are comfortable with what works, then they can revel in that comfort and
simply pass by innovation after innovation because the additional uncertainty
of new ideas require somewhat of an adjustment phase, which can be
uncomfortable for some and possibly unfeasible for large collective groups.

(This leads me to dream that there should be some sort of way to perhaps time
levels of comfort such that when people are sufficiently comfortable they
might be more susceptible to shifting to something new...)

Now when I look at the picture of the car (after blocking out the loveliness
of the ladies who oddly look quite fashionable by even today's standards) I
see a number of innovations that at the time "worked" because it was merely
projecting the past upon the future. It is perhaps the very natural tendency
to seek that which is familiar because it is safe and project that into the
future thus becoming trapped by our past. Contrast this with the notion that I
was suggesting in my questions earlier that there is a paradigm of some sort
that shifts from generation to generation and that advances are somehow
governed by such paradigms.

Now the reason why I think this is worthwhile for a segment of the News.YC
community to reflect upon is because those of us who like to think of
ourselves as innovators need to constantly question the merits of creativity
invested in any given direction. The 1950s car just seemed to me exemplary of
how the leading thinkers in the automotive industry were so trapped by the
prevailing notion of what seemed to be working (because of past experience,
aka "we know best") at the time and just seemed to me to be adding more of
that into future projections.

~~~
hobbs
Right now, almost every car looks like an ergonomic blobject. The trendy thing
to do to cars right now is to add chrome, neon, and spinny wheels. If I were
to extrapolate a future car from current trends, I'd imagine a chrome egg that
glows like Las Vegas.

Sure, I could just as easily imagine a car that looked like a matte black
monolith. Problem is, that's just a random shot in the dark. There is no
current trending to lead me in that direction.

I think the genius in creating a new paradigm lies not in extrapolating from
superficial trends, but in isolating a fundamental problem that no one else
has fully appreciated yet. It would be like predicting a future car that
doesn't need to be replaced as soon as it's paid for.

------
robg
Here's the problem, I think: There's no escaping what you know (or what you
think you know). So adding more is much simpler than changing how or why. To
do so you must fundamentally break from your most basic assumptions.

My suggestion is read more broadly on a daily basis and let the ideas
percolate into consciousness rather than as an strained product of it. Once
there gradually shape them on their own path. I also find that talking to a
broader sample of friends and family and even strangers on the bus forces you
to re-evaluate those basic assumptions. Groupthink affects us all but it's
really a symptom of who we associate with (and why) than it is of how we
think.

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xirium
People want familiarity. Therefore, a drop-in replacement has more chance of
succeeding, even if it has ornate details which are completely irrelevent. As
an example, some early cars had a horse reins type mechanism. This allowed a
horse owner to accelerate, brake and steer a car with no training.
Unfortunately, it is a fiddly mechanism which requires the use of both hands
at all times. It is obvious to us nowadays that peddles and a ship style wheel
is more appropriate. However, even the peddles have a varied history because
double clutching was quite common on early cars and remains in use in some
large vehicles.

~~~
fiaz
You raise an interesting point. When I saw this in Motor Trend, I was bothered
with how far off the designers of the car were...Of course, nobody can predict
the future accurately and it's best to be "safe" in order avoid the criticism
of others. What bothered me was the thought of myself being trapped in such
thinking.

Sure, it's easy to laugh at how many superfluous ornaments that are visible. I
get the impression that the futurism that is present in this car is
representative of the auto manufacturer's perspective of producing cars in
that the manufacturing process of the future will afford automakers to pack
more "features" than is necessary for the customer to take practical advantage
of - that is the message I see being communicated (I can hear the
manufacturing engineers patting themselves on the back saying, "gee whiz! look
at what we'll be able to make in the future; no matter that anybody needs a
needlessly complicated door, by golly we'll have the process streamlined so
that we can increase the complexity of what we put together!!"). By this I
mean that the car reflects the car maker's vision and not the customer's
vision.

Let's take a wildly different example of breaking the mold: The Matrix. I
would argue that what made that movie (aside from the loyal geek following of
Neo wannabes, myself near the top of the list) was the unusually original
photography method of "bullet time". It was something so wildly different and
brought a new experience onto the silver screen unlike anything else, and to
experience that on such a large scale (the movie theater) was the big selling
point.

I am very guilty of the type of mindset of the automakers in the 1950s and at
the moment cannot claim to be as ground breaking as John Gaeta (the visual
effects genius behind The Matrix). I just feel somewhat relieved that I'm
aware of it!!

------
brlewis
This is one of my favorite topics. I like the movie "The Nightmare Before
Christmas" because it's all about being trapped in a paradigm.

I think photo sharing is trapped in the paradigm of the early adopters
(photography enthusiasts), and I write about that here:

<http://ourdoings.com/2007-12-19>

In general, the only way to break a paradigm is to throw it very hard against
the wall of reality.

For product design that means immersing yourself in what people want. Evolve
as you come into contact with different needs, wants and behaviors.

~~~
fiaz
"In general, the only way to break a paradigm is to throw it very hard against
the wall of reality."

That's a great quote! I'm curious to know how your photo-sharing site is
exemplary of this statement. I'm not trying to be a jerk here (I think I do a
great job of that with little effort!), instead I'm just trying to understand
from the perspective of a potential user (or for that matter an investor) of
your site who is interested in innovative thinking that is distinctly
different from the superfluous ornamentation that you see in the "car of the
future" picture given.

[just to be clear: I'm just asking for the sake of knowledge exchange, I am
not at all a picture taker and I am not in the business of funding startups!]

~~~
brlewis
I was talking about finding the cracks in a paradigm that needs to break, so I
hope ourdoings.com is not exemplary of it. Traditional photo sharing breaks
when it hits someone who has amassed a pile of digital photos but has no time
to organize them into albums. It also breaks when your peers have litle time
and you email them a link to your new photos instead of having thumbnails and
explanatory text right in the message.

Up until late last year the ourdoings.com paradigm broke if people had a lot
of photos but no time to choose the good ones. Finding what else is broken is
tough, in that people may go months without using the site (putting up more
photos) without that being a problem. They know they can come back and catch
up easily when they have a little time.

~~~
fiaz
If only "futurists" had this type of honesty about their own visions of the
future then perhaps we wouldn't have so many "visions" that are obscured by
more of the same.

------
whacked_new
Regarding this, there is an excellent book: "Structure of Scientific
Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn

~~~
robg
I also like the book, but more as a diagnosis of the disease than as a path to
curing it. Still, seeing why dinosaurs develop (and hew to their turf) is a
fundamental exercise in creative thinking.

------
andr
Both in science and in the industry things tend to progress in stages. It's
very easy to sell an idea that advances one step ahead, but it's quite hard to
make people buy your idea if you try to take a few steps with a single leap.
That's why people with very radical ideas in science are often dismissed as
crazies a priori.

On the other hand, I have seen some quite advanced car ideas in literature
from as far as the late 1800s.

------
crzivn
One favourite resource of mine regarding creativity is Originality in Design
by Nick Pugh (<http://thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/npu01.html>), where he
describes his process of coming up with original design, as applied to
drawing. One interesting thing he brings up is that sometimes, if you know
less about something you become more free in your thinking about that subject.
So experts face a real danger of becoming stuck in their way of thinking.
There is a lot more in there and it is worth checking out for the discussions
alone, even if you aren't into drawing.

------
thaumaturgy
Eh. I guess I'm gonna go against the flow here and not get all gushy about the
picture and what it's supposed to represent.

It's just one data point, and I think it's being drawn out way farther than it
deserves. Some really inventive things have come out of the automotive
industry throughout the years. The hybrids that people are getting into now?
They've existed in one form or another since the 1920's (or earlier).

For a modern example of "wow-hey-neat" in automotive design, I like to use the
Jeep Hurricane. I'm not wowed by its incredible suspension, the sweet, sweet
blend of the new and the familiar in its overall design, or by the really cool
transaxle drive train they came up with. What I like about it is that they
built this thing with two frickin' engines, and then figured out how to run
the engines in banks of four cylinders at a time depending on load. So,
driving down the highway? You're on a four cylinder engine. Pulling a gentle
hill? Have four more. Pulling a trailer up a steep mud slope? Here, have all
16.

Product design isn't all-revolution-all-the-time. Simply churning is really
important; keep on improving your existing design incrementally, as often as
you can. Then, when you do get that holy-wow revolutionary design in your
head, you do something with it.

But you can't force that.

------
yters
Not sleeping for awhile does it for me. Suddenly I understand the universe.

------
jkush
I think I have a pseudo explanation for why we can't predict what the future
looks like (and I also mean that literally).

Change happens from the bottom up, not from the top down. When a new radical
idea takes hold and is adopted, it gradually becomes part of the system and is
no longer a paradigm. You can only iterate so far on a current design before
something else comes along to replace it.

If you took the standard car design in the 1950s and tried to use it as a
basis for what the future brings, well...you'd get roughly the same thing that
you'd get if you took a Toyota and used it as the basis for what cars look
like in the future.

Have you ever noticed in the music in futuristic sci-fi movies? It's the same
thing. You can't imagine what music sounds like in 50 years any more than you
could have imagined rap or hip hop in the 1940's.

------
Spyckie
You bring up a good point. I don't think anyone had the vision that we would
be socializing the way we do now on social sites like Facebook. Even Mark. Z
probably didn't see it until it started taking off.

The question as I see it is, can we predict the trends of the future? This
divides itself into 2 questions: 1) Do we have enough knowledge/creativity to
see the next waves of the future, and 2) If we saw a thousand possibilities of
what would happen in the future, would we be able to pick the right one?

A different way to see it is that you are the force affecting the future - can
you push your design/plan/idea far enough to make it groundbreaking?

What is interesting to me is not answering these questions, but rather, asking
-

What can I do to strengthen my ability to answer 'yes' to these questions?

------
mixmax
Hoping not to sound too smart-ass, Im pretty good at seeing the big trends,
and breaking out of paradigms. My first startup would probably be a success if
it was started now, but ten years ago nobody understood what the hell I was
talking about.

What I do (having thought a bit about it) is this:

1 - having a pretty good grasp of a broad spectrum of technologies and where
they are heading. This includes things as diverse as FPGA's, software and
diesel engines. I don't know much about the details of any of it, but I have
an idea of how stuff works and where it's heading.

2 - A good sense of human nature. Basically knowing what people want...

3 - Having lots of "what if" thoughts.

4 - being able to extrapolate the "what if" thoughts using my knowledge of
technology and people.

------
MrGunn
It's entirely not possible. The opinion leaders have to die or retire and new
people thinking new thoughts have to come along.

Think "natural selection" rather than Lamarckian evolution.

~~~
yters
I don't think those two ideas are mutually exclusive.

------
alaskamiller
Steve Jobs, maybe not now, extolled the creativity and clarity gained from LSD
usage.

~~~
apathy
Francis Crick and Richard Feynman didn't mind it either, and I dare say their
chosen careers might have required an even clearer perspective. I've never
really understood why LSD gets a bad rap -- you have to try really, really
hard to fuck yourself up while tripping, or have terrible judgment.

Then again, as Ken Kesey put it -- "we thought we were writing the history and
future of the universe, but what we really said was 'if you pick your nose
long enough, the world will unravel'." Drugs, strange experiences, etc. may
unlock insights but they don't seem to help the unprepared mind very much.

------
skmurphy
"We notice the ripple and take the lake for granted" from "The Social Life of
Information" by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

“We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.” Marshal
Mcluhan

------
webwright
You can't know what you don't know. Read some golden age science fiction. Or
watch Star Trek TOS. It's pretty ridiculous the things that they assumed.

------
hernan7
For some reason I misread "XML Turnpike"...

