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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:54 am
by Avatar
Good point WF. People (and companies) can, and do, patent things you wouldn't believe.
So what would you consider a good indicator of innovation?
--A
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:56 pm
by Vraith
wayfriend wrote:I have a basic disagreement about using patents as a measure of innovation, however. The amount of innovation going into most patents is on the order of miniscule. Since the 90's there's been a corporate movement to maximize the number of patents, because its lucritive, and so there are a lot of patents that are (for the purposes of this discussion) trivial. So you can't really use them as a measure of innovation until you normalize this other factor out of the data.
I have a patent. (Which I share with four others.) Think "earth shaking". Now go as far as you can in the other direction. That's where mine is.
I kinda sorta normalized [not really by any rigorous standard] for some things. I tried to think of a better idea for checking it out and failed...cuz of things like your point on the trivial getting patents.
Barring another idea, your point actually supports me [and normalizes in a way itself]: The numbers are even LESS spectacular during war vs. peace if there is a big push to maximize patenting [which there is] and the numbers/rates are still falling...which they are.
And yea: what is your patent [even if it is "the exact opposite of earthshaking]?
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:40 pm
by Linna Heartbooger
vraith... yeah, I was thinking roughly what wf was saying about needing to discern between valid examples of innovation and "trivial" new ideas that qualify for patents... except without me actually being as informed.
I suppose (with typical American arrogance), I didn't think of those years as "war years" because we
weren't directly threatened, at least not by entire nations.
Also, temporal data alone is not enough to support your claim. What if booms that happen AFTER war years wouldn't exist if a people or nation hadn't been tried by a war?
It's always tougher to prove something than it is to shed doubt on it.
I doubt that you are going to convince me of this specific thing. You'd have a whole lot of the mythos of "America came together during the War" (WWII) taken from countless documentaries watched in my childhood to compete against.
otoh, the need for the existence of consistent stable, wealthy nations to support people whose job is to innovate... I can totally buy that. I think something that WOULD support your claim would be the Renaissance... Medici family and others like them... (of course, YOU won't know which historical examples will work in a discussion with me.. my history knowledge is.. pretty spotty, sadly.)
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:48 pm
by Zarathustra
War doesn't have to be actively fought to be a motivator for invention/innovation. We still develop weapons in peacetime ... for the next war. An invention created for a potential or imagined war is just as much a "war-motivated invention" as one created during an active war.
And then there are things like the Cold War, which could be said to have been the drive behind our space program.
For this reason and more, I tend to agree with WF that the number of patents plotted against years at war is a poor indicator of whether or not war drives innovation.
Satellites, GPS, Internet, rockets, computers, microwave ovens, radar guns, everything with a laser ... man, so much of our technology can be directly linked to war efforts, either preventative or offensive.
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:10 pm
by Vraith
But [I swear, I'm not just being stubborn here] don't any of y'all see the extent to which ALL of those things require a huge number of people that are not actually involved in struggling/threat...who are free from those demands? War and the prep for it focuses resources, certainly. The gov't is spending 11billion a year for a single fighter plane [385billion so far, way over costs/behind schedule and it's nowhere near done, and this was supposed to be the economical and efficient option]...5 billion on cancer research. Yet the plane research isn't fundamentally discovering much, while the entire field of cancer treatment/cure has been transformed several times.
Sure a soldier today compared to 50 years ago enters combat with lots of cool gear, but nothing remotely comparable to revolutions in other fields.
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:06 am
by Avatar
Thing is that technological advances/improvements are more "real" to us than innovative new treatments for cancer.
We can see and use that microwave oven, y'know?
--A
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:17 pm
by wayfriend
I have no idea how to measure innovation over time. You can't really measure it at the source (inventions) because there's no way of telling at that early time what has an impact and what is useless. You can look at what affects our culture the most, but that happens long after the invention. (The internet transformed everything, but the basic idea goes back more than half a century.)
Also, we have no idea what cool stuff the CIA is inventing right now.
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:56 am
by Avatar
Ok, Vraith, how about this? It appears that, after times of conflict, a number of new, peaceful, technological innovations spring up.
--A
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:23 pm
by Vraith
Avatar wrote:Ok, Vraith, how about this? It appears that, after times of conflict, a number of new, peaceful, technological innovations spring up.
--A
That seems to be so from what I know...and I submit the reason is that during [sometimes in the run-up, too] resources/cash/development are taken away from other fields, and after is released back to those fields. The one thing that war is quite good at, though, is revealing what fails and systematizing. For instance the one area of medicine that war helped change is triage...but that's mostly a matter of prioritizing and procedures.
Honestly if it weren't for war and war-like things [slavery/serfdom for instance, which are both just a variation on war] I suspect we'd have landed on the moon in 1568 instead of 1968...hell maybe in 1068. [was there some SF thing that had a world like that?]
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:43 am
by Avatar
I think you're being a little optimistic there.
And I'm still not convinced that threats don't significantly drive innovation.
--A
Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 2:45 pm
by deer of the dawn
...
Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 2:50 pm
by deer of the dawn
Adding to this very late, obviously.
Avatar wrote:And I'm still not convinced that threats don't significantly drive innovation.
Not threats, necessarily; but competition. Let me give you an example I learned back in my dogsledding days.
For centuries the Inuits used dogs for traction. They slung a leather loop around the dog's neck and away they went; it worked pretty well. Then came the Gold Rush. During significant portions of the year there were lots of people sitting around waiting for weather to change, rivers to freeze, etc and the sport of dogsled racing was born of boredom and high spirits.
Someone figured out that looping a collar around the dogs' necks was hindering their breathing, and modified the collar into a harness that puts the traction drag on the dog's shoulders and chest, rather than their windpipe. Bam!! Suddenly dogs could run lots faster and with more endurance, plus it was probably lots more kind and comfortable for the dogs.
War is an extreme form of competition, that's all. I love it that there are now competitions for the best green inventions, stuff like that. Because that's what works for people, that's why Capitalism (apparently) works.
Holsety's words reminded me of the book of Ecclesiastes, which I drew a few quotes from here.
the Preacher wrote:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-- this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed-- and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors-- and they have no comforter.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 5:18 pm
by Ananda
deer of the dawn wrote:back in my dogsledding days.
that must come in handy in nigeria.
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 2:55 pm
by aliantha
If Jamaica can have a bobsledding team...