Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new” • Hacker News Board

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#21

Post by nitrogen » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 8:17 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #18

confluence wrote: post #12

Let me just ask - When has anyone ever actually invented anything totally new? The telephone? It was referred to as the "speaking telegraph" (telegraph + speakers). The car? Horseless carriage (engine + wheels + steering + brakes) The plane? Glider + engine. The Wright brothers invented powered flight - not flight. The difficulty was getting the weight to lift ratio high enough with a primitive heavy engine on board.…

Upvoted, but I disagree. I think you are spot on with suggesting actual progress does not happen by inventing anything 'new' from scratch. But I do not agree nothing new is ever invented. Arguing that things come about as combinations upon combinations of small, 'not completely new' inventions is begging the question. When you compare the state of human affairs in 5000 BC with the state now, you can't possibly mean t…

Arguing that things come about as combinations upon combinations of small, 'not completely new' inventions is begging the question. When you compare the state of human affairs in 5000 BC with the state now, you can't possibly mean that no 'completely new' things have been created.

This is like measuring the slope of a line across a very large span, and saying that because the change in Y value is so large, there must be a discontinuity.

This is the same problem as e.g. distinguishing species in biology....

I don't think biology is the best place to look for guidance when creating an epistemology or taxonomy of technology. The concept of species is important in biology, because it's a strong signal as to which organisms can successfully interbreed. In technology, nearly any two (or more) ideas can be combined.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#22

Post by BadassFractal » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 9:38 AM UTC

confluence wrote: post #12

Let me just ask - When has anyone ever actually invented anything totally new? The telephone? It was referred to as the "speaking telegraph" (telegraph + speakers). The car? Horseless carriage (engine + wheels + steering + brakes) The plane? Glider + engine. The Wright brothers invented powered flight - not flight. The difficulty was getting the weight to lift ratio high enough with a primitive heavy engine on board.…

Sounds very analogous to Steven Johnson's "Adjacent Possible" from his book "Where Good Ideas Come From".

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#23

Post by Retric » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 1:12 PM UTC

confluence wrote: post #12

Let me just ask - When has anyone ever actually invented anything totally new? The telephone? It was referred to as the "speaking telegraph" (telegraph + speakers). The car? Horseless carriage (engine + wheels + steering + brakes) The plane? Glider + engine. The Wright brothers invented powered flight - not flight. The difficulty was getting the weight to lift ratio high enough with a primitive heavy engine on board.…

The first battery is in no way a simple composition of existing ideas. Inventing a useful and novel idea is both hard and rare. The most extreme example might just be the fact Australia had 'modern' humans for 40,000 years without inventing the bow and arrow even though they had spears. And the rest of the world spent those 40,000 years without inventing the returning boomerang even though 'hunting' sticks where found in Europe well over 10,000 years ago.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#24

Post by Dn_Ab » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 1:25 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #23

confluence wrote: post #12

Let me just ask - When has anyone ever actually invented anything totally new? The telephone? It was referred to as the "speaking telegraph" (telegraph + speakers). The car? Horseless carriage (engine + wheels + steering + brakes) The plane? Glider + engine. The Wright brothers invented powered flight - not flight. The difficulty was getting the weight to lift ratio high enough with a primitive heavy engine on board.…

The first battery is in no way a simple composition of existing ideas. Inventing a useful and novel idea is both hard and rare. The most extreme example might just be the fact Australia had 'modern' humans for 40,000 years without inventing the bow and arrow even though they had spears. And the rest of the world spent those 40,000 years without inventing the returning boomerang even though 'hunting' sticks where foun…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_battery suggests that basic knowledge and early experimentation with the known concept of electricity and a disagreement about whether a dead frog's leg can generate electricity inspired the battery. Volta notes those whose work he relied on.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#25

Post by confluence » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 1:52 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #23

confluence wrote: post #12

Let me just ask - When has anyone ever actually invented anything totally new? The telephone? It was referred to as the "speaking telegraph" (telegraph + speakers). The car? Horseless carriage (engine + wheels + steering + brakes) The plane? Glider + engine. The Wright brothers invented powered flight - not flight. The difficulty was getting the weight to lift ratio high enough with a primitive heavy engine on board.…

The first battery is in no way a simple composition of existing ideas. Inventing a useful and novel idea is both hard and rare. The most extreme example might just be the fact Australia had 'modern' humans for 40,000 years without inventing the bow and arrow even though they had spears. And the rest of the world spent those 40,000 years without inventing the returning boomerang even though 'hunting' sticks where foun…

As much as it pains me to say this, you are wrong :(

If you read the battery's history carefully you'll realize that it's the combination of previous findings in chemistry and electronics. See the other comment with the history link.

Just because you cannot conceive the exact intermediaries between single cells and a human being does not mean they didn't exist or that human's appeared from thin air.

I repeat: Everything is a remix.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#26

Post by Retric » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 1:57 PM UTC

confluence wrote: post #25

Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first battery is in no way a simple composition of existing ideas. Inventing a useful and novel idea is both hard and rare. The most extreme example might just be the fact Australia had 'modern' humans for 40,000 years without inventing the bow and arrow even though they had spears. And the rest of the world spent those 40,000 years without inventing the returning boomerang even though 'hunting' sticks where foun…

As much as it pains me to say this, you are wrong :( If you read the battery's history carefully you'll realize that it's the combination of previous findings in chemistry and electronics. See the other comment with the history link. Just because you cannot conceive the exact intermediaries between single cells and a human being does not mean they didn't exist or that human's appeared from thin air. I repeat: Everyth…

There where battery's in 200BCE making that line of argument moot.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#27

Post by adestefan » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 2:00 PM UTC

pmboyd wrote: post #15

Netscape no longer exists as a company (or meaningful subdivision of AOL) so that might not have been the best strategy. Copying got them ahead quickly but didn't keep them there.

Poor business decisions and copying by a competitor is what killed Netscape.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#28

Post by confluence » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 2:02 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #26

confluence wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as it pains me to say this, you are wrong :( If you read the battery's history carefully you'll realize that it's the combination of previous findings in chemistry and electronics. See the other comment with the history link. Just because you cannot conceive the exact intermediaries between single cells and a human being does not mean they didn't exist or that human's appeared from thin air. I repeat: Everyth…

There where battery's in 200BCE making that line of argument moot.

Perhaps but my point still stands.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#29

Post by Retric » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 2:04 PM UTC

Dn_Ab wrote: post #24

Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first battery is in no way a simple composition of existing ideas. Inventing a useful and novel idea is both hard and rare. The most extreme example might just be the fact Australia had 'modern' humans for 40,000 years without inventing the bow and arrow even though they had spears. And the rest of the world spent those 40,000 years without inventing the returning boomerang even though 'hunting' sticks where foun…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_battery suggests that basic knowledge and early experimentation with the known concept of electricity and a disagreement about whether a dead frog's leg can generate electricity inspired the battery. Volta notes those whose work he relied on.

Your confusing the origin of the term and the reinvention of the battery with the actual first battery ever produced in Mesopotamia if not earlier.

Re: Marc Andreessen “tried really hard not to invent anything new”

#30

Post by Retric » Sun, Jul 15, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

confluence wrote: post #28

Retric wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There where battery's in 200BCE making that line of argument moot.

Perhaps but my point still stands.

? You can say everything is just a pattern using a relatively small set of elementary particles. And that's more or less true, but once you start moving back eventually you will find two hydrogen atoms that where cold enough to stick together for the first time, and guess what that had no prior precedence.

So to the line that separates a true multicellular organism from a colony of related cells that assist each other is not completely obvious, but when that colony starts to have specialization that's a 'new' thing.

As is the line that separates a smart phone from a normal one. Perhaps you move back the smart phone to include the first phone with an app store, but there is still a line you can draw even if where you draw it comes down the the specific definition you use.

PS: Fuzzy definitions does not mean you can't draw the line, just that different people will use a slightly different definitions to draw a slightly different line.