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Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

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Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#71

Had a similar discussion yesterday and I am aching for that conceptual freshness. What are all the non-Elon, non-besos plebs going to do for a day job? Our industries are too mature for easy growth. Cars, computers, space are done for the plebs, we need another industry of easy growth to pull this ship along. If history repeats, manufacturing will become king again. In the arts with near infinite creative control lat…

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Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#72
post #57
post #38

The article says... "that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply". No surprise there. Nowadays, Universities have to become paper mills in order to get funding. Also... Risky research and cross disciplinary research is a sure fire way not to get tenure. As to the question, where new ideas come from... I teach creativity... the literature is in near agreement on this t…

"New ideas come mostly from recombining old ideas." Does this suggest that new ideas would become easier to find over time because there are more combinations of old ideas?

Or they would become harder to find when there are too many of them. For example, it's probably easier to find one thing among 3 than among 1 million.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#73
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means that patents restrict the flow of new ideas by locking up the source material for invention. The idea that invention is a isolated creative force that pops up without dependency on anything else has always been a myth without foundation.

I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occur…

> I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation...

As long as we're looking at deeply held assumptions, it's probably also a good idea to figure out what the ideal pace of innovation is. None is certainly bad, but too fast also causes problems for people: technological products are expensive and will be shorter-lived as innovation speeds up. At some point, the cost to society of all that churn probably balances against the benefits.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#74
post #38

The article says... "that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply". No surprise there. Nowadays, Universities have to become paper mills in order to get funding. Also... Risky research and cross disciplinary research is a sure fire way not to get tenure. As to the question, where new ideas come from... I teach creativity... the literature is in near agreement on this t…

How do you teach creativity? What does such a class look like?

I'm curious what a syllabus for your class looks like.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#75
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occur…

> I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation... As long as we're looking at deeply held assumptions, it's probably also a good idea to figure out what the ideal pace of innovation is. None is certainly bad, but too fast also causes problems for people: technological products are expensive and will be shorter-lived as innovation speeds up. At some point, the cost to society of all that churn p…

It’s a good point. I would argue however that reducing or eliminating intellectual property restrictions also significantly eases the difficulty in repairing and upgrading old hardware. So obsolete technology is more easily upgraded or repurposed.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#76
post #60

Perhaps. In my mind, it seems there's no such thing as an "original" idea, given that all ideas are made from or composed of other ideas (as that's how you describe them). Therefore originality, seems to be just a new combination of old ideas you've already been exposed to. As an example, can you ever imagine a color that's not composed of a combination of colors you've already seen before? A truly original color? Ot…

I see where you are coming from and I get that your argument is that new ideas are (?often) extension of existing ones but I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. It seems like everything can be described as an abstraction of something else on a larger/smaller scale. Which philosophically would mean that the universe as a whole has the same value as any atom or quarks within it.

But even if we ignore the philosophical aspect of it, it seems a bit like Duell's "Everything that can be invented has been invented" statement from late 19-th/early 20-th century. A statement which hasn't aged too well for better or worse.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#77

Had a similar discussion yesterday and I am aching for that conceptual freshness. What are all the non-Elon, non-besos plebs going to do for a day job? Our industries are too mature for easy growth. Cars, computers, space are done for the plebs, we need another industry of easy growth to pull this ship along. If history repeats, manufacturing will become king again. In the arts with near infinite creative control lat…

Few ideas:

Many personal robots and services - we'll do almost nothing. So we'll have more time for hobbies, which will need more tools etc .

Building a green economy.

Higher quality food more often.

More healthcare, with aging etc. And maybe more emphasis on selling care.

The real problem is this: why hire humans do all those jobs, when machines could do(or create substitutes) for most of those new jobs ?

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#78
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means that patents restrict the flow of new ideas by locking up the source material for invention. The idea that invention is a isolated creative force that pops up without dependency on anything else has always been a myth without foundation.

I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occur…

How do you solve for 'work for 5 years on open source project, get it to some degree of popularity, watch AWS making a service out of your code without paying you a dime'?

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#79
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occur…

How do you solve for 'work for 5 years on open source project, get it to some degree of popularity, watch AWS making a service out of your code without paying you a dime'?

A new licensing model where it's prohibitive to make a profit off of this work.

Re: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

#80
post #38

The article says... "that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply". No surprise there. Nowadays, Universities have to become paper mills in order to get funding. Also... Risky research and cross disciplinary research is a sure fire way not to get tenure. As to the question, where new ideas come from... I teach creativity... the literature is in near agreement on this t…

Cross disciplinary conceptual mining is a great way to realize the "low hanging fruit" waiting for disruption in any industry. The silos of knowledge are high and thick, just like the skulls of the industry thought leaders who say things can't be done in some different manner.

I've worked as a developer a number of industries, and as an MBA consultant in 3 times as many more. I'm in a developer job at the moment, but when I was actively consulting I'd just learn how they run operations, and the glaring opportunities for substantial expense eliminating and productivity enhancing changes glow like the sun.

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