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The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

bloomberg.com

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Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#111

Post by CodeSheikh »

balthasar wrote: post #68
CodeSheikh wrote: post #14

Part of the problem, money is flowing more towards sinks like "Social Influencers", "V-loggers" and other similar jobs. Younger generation is focusing more on instant fame/money/reward/acknowledgement than investing in long term initiatives like pursuing STEM based programs. Sadly we live in a time where a 15 year old is making more money posting his/her pictures than someone holding a Phd. Forget about academia jobs…

The entertainment industry has always had pop culture icons making more than skilled-professionals. Are you getting social media confused with companies who innovate just because they both use computers?

Agree that people in entertainment always making more money than skilled-professionals. But my point is that younger demographic is heavily influenced by current social-media-preneurs rater than STEM achievers.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#112

Post by dragonwriter »

balthasar wrote: post #68
CodeSheikh wrote: post #14

Part of the problem, money is flowing more towards sinks like "Social Influencers", "V-loggers" and other similar jobs. Younger generation is focusing more on instant fame/money/reward/acknowledgement than investing in long term initiatives like pursuing STEM based programs. Sadly we live in a time where a 15 year old is making more money posting his/her pictures than someone holding a Phd. Forget about academia jobs…

The entertainment industry has always had pop culture icons making more than skilled-professionals. Are you getting social media confused with companies who innovate just because they both use computers?

> The entertainment industry has always had pop culture icons making more than skilled-professionals.

And vast hordes, often indistinguishable but for luck, making far less. But they are less visible, inherently.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#113

Post by cryptonector »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #110
cryptonector wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not achieve much in comparison to the rest of the world. Come on, it's obvious : - a non-hungry society? NO - wealthy society? certainly not - advanced and commercially successful airliners? no (but you'll pick a nit here, I'm sure) - advanced medicine? no (cue BS about how wonderful medicine is in Cuba, but still no) - advanced computing devices? no, certainly nothing like those available in the West by 199…

It's easy to make exclusive lists to try and make one country or another look better. And who is the rest of the world? The USSR achieved a lot in comparison to Africa, South America, the Middle East, and SE Asia.

If you consider the gulag an achievement, sure!

I would definitely NOT say that the USSR achieved more than Latin America. People in much of LatAm are happy and reasonably free -- very free by comparison to the USSR. But I guess you wouldn't consider freedom an achievement -- too easy, perhaps? or maybe not to your liking?

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#114

Post by fishcolorbrick »

creaghpatr wrote: post #65
fishcolorbrick wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>US is planning to spend 1.3 trillion in Israel in FY18 That isn't what your source says... where'd you get that number? [0]: https://www.foreignassistance.gov/explore/country/Israel

On the homepage when you hover over, but say it's $3.1B (the number doesn't really matter because it's impossible to gauge how much goes to military spending) >U.S. assistance helps ensure that Israel maintains its Qualitative Military Edge (QME) over potential regional threats, preventing a shift in the security balance of the region and safeguarding U.S. interests. My argument here is that the US is outsourcing inn…

The difference between 3.1B and 1300B dollars is significant and it is bizarre that you cite a source and then say "the number doesn't really matter". The number definitely does matter...

The number you initially claimed in spite of your own source contravening it would support your argument... if one was moving 1300B from a 18620B economy to a 317B economy... that is to say, providing support equal to 400% of the recipient's GDP, that would be significant.

The actual numbers given in the source you provided are insignificant and don't support your argument.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#115

Post by dvdhnt »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #100
potatoyogurt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd redefinition of innovation. Is Snapchat more innovative than a proof of the Riemann hypothesis? Number of people who Snapchat: apparently at least 178 million. Number of people who want a proof of the Riemann hypothesis? Maybe a million? Out of which probably ten thousand will actually read it? Yes, the Soviet Union had many problems, but >how did they apply these technologies to create products the ma…

"Creating [new/different] products the market actually wants" is a pretty reasonable definition of innovation. The Riemann hypothesis? That's research, not innovation. It's still valuable, but it's not innovation. (Is it as valuable as innovation? Arguably yes, but it's still not innovation.)

> "Creating [new/different] products the market actually wants" is a pretty reasonable definition of innovation.

No, it's at best cherry picking and at worst terrible redefinition of innovation. Innovation is defined as "the action or process of innovating" [1] and innovating is defined as "make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products" [2].

So, while creating new products is innovating, innovating is not necessarily creating new products. In fact, I'd argue that without new methods and ideas, you wouldn't be able to create new products. So, a new hypothesis, by definition, is absolutely innovation.

1. https://www.google.com/search?ei=ENJnWq_SO8zvzgKh8JOQAg&q=de...

2. https://www.google.com/search?ei=ENJnWq_SO8zvzgKh8JOQAg&q=de...

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#116

Post by dba7dba »

cryptonector wrote: post #35
dragonwriter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the USSR failed anyways, and it failed to innovate enough before it failed to overcome the downsides of communism. You mean “the downside of starting off as a poorly-developed state engaged in a multi-generation combination of outright war and proxy wars and military spending races with the most advanced countries in the world”.

No. A number of successful countries started off "as a poorly-developed state engaged in outright war and proxy wars". The U.S. itself, for example. And Israel, for another. Stop making excuses. And, as if the arms race of the Cold War did not involve choices made by the Soviets! Come off it. They could easily have chosen not to get dragged into an arms race. But instead they chose no only to play that game, but to t…

But instead they chose no only to play that game, but to then start quite a few expensive proxy wars... Korea, Vietnam

Actually the Korean War was started upon strong insistence of Kim, Il Sung of North Korea. Sure Soviets gave the approval, but only reluctantly.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#117

Post by dragonwriter »

cryptonector wrote: post #35
dragonwriter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the USSR failed anyways, and it failed to innovate enough before it failed to overcome the downsides of communism. You mean “the downside of starting off as a poorly-developed state engaged in a multi-generation combination of outright war and proxy wars and military spending races with the most advanced countries in the world”.

No. A number of successful countries started off "as a poorly-developed state engaged in outright war and proxy wars". The U.S. itself, for example. And Israel, for another. Stop making excuses. And, as if the arms race of the Cold War did not involve choices made by the Soviets! Come off it. They could easily have chosen not to get dragged into an arms race. But instead they chose no only to play that game, but to t…

> A number of successful countries started off "as a poorly-developed state engaged in outright war and proxy wars". The U.S. itself, for example

The US did not go through a long period of active direct and proxy conflict with the most advanced contemporary nations at it's founding. It fought a brief war to separate (which it was losing until a major power opposed to Britain intervened), and then not much with any major power till it decided to take advantage of the Napoleonic Wars and the pretext of impressment to seize British Canada (unsuccessfully). The US was a sideshow isolated by oceans for the major powers for almost as long after it's formation as the USSR existed.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#118

Post by muninn_ »

watwut wrote: post #86
muninn_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but not buying it. The selection of even 7 categories, let alone suggesting that such categories should be equally weighted is unreliable at best. The nations self-reporting the data is completely irrelevant and, again, at best unreliable. Now, maybe the US isn't as innovative as Sweden is. Ok. What exactly does that mean? Why do I care if the percentage of graduate educated people is higher? How does that actu…

> Now, maybe the US isn't as innovative as Sweden is. Ok. What exactly does that mean? It means exactly the same thing it meant when US was among top. There were people who were interested in it and sometimes happy about it. Those very same people are still interested, but this time wonder whether it means something is changing for worst.

So it was meaningless still. There’s nothing to be interest about here unless unfounded clickbait is a hobby.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#119

Post by totalZero »

didibus wrote: post #56
electrograv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When casual readers see results titled "Bloomberg Innovation Index" (myself included, a while ago), there's a tendency due to brand reputation (Bloomberg!) to believe that this is some scientifically and statistically rigorous analysis of a well-defined "innovation" that can be trusted. This is dangerous, and IMO disappointing (I know, I was naive and optimistic) regarding the statistical credibility of many "reputab…

It sounds a little like denial. I mean, Bloomberg does a great job, its pretty simple: "The 2018 ranking process began with more than 200 economies. Each was scored on a 0-100 scale based on seven equally weighted categories. Nations that didn’t report data for at least six categories were eliminated". So its an equally weighted average of 7 categories. The data was reported by the nations themselves. Now the key tak…

> Comparatively, you can tell something is changing in the US causing a drop.

The reported numbers from other countries, or the reported numbers from the US, could also be flawed. Just because numbers have changed relative to one another, doesn't mean that countries have done so as well. You are assuming a particular causal relationship when there are several plausible alternative theories available.

> more often, there's truth in the metrics

Metric isn't the right word. It would make sense for tangible qualities like area, population, and even GNP. But the measured quality here is "innovation," with an amalgam of other characteristics taken as the one true proxy thereof. It's a ranking, but it's not actually measuring innovation.

> clearly the score change is due to real realities changing.

It could also be a change in reported numbers. Or even random noise that tends to revert. These numbers may not even be relevant to the true seeds of innovation.

Re: The U.S. drops out of the top 10 in innovation ranking

#120

Post by notyourwork »

ryandrake wrote: post #59

The discussion so far reminds me a little of whenever a "Top N school rankings" report comes out. People who go (or went) to any of the top-ranked schools will use it to argue that their schools are better, and people who go to the lower-ranked schools will downplay the results, nit-pick the methodology, point out that the top N are all within a small margin of error, etc. A little tribalism?

Being from the US I think we deserve to be off this list.

We aren’t making America great nor are we doing anything to better the world or our own people. We emphasize the wrong attributes of success which.

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