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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

#81

Post by adventured »

rayiner wrote: post #78

An "innovation" ranking that doesn't have the U.S. in the top 10 is like a ranking of U.S. universities that doesn't have Harvard or Stanford in the top 10. It says more about the ranking methodology than what is being ranked.

Wait, you don't think Finland produces radically more innovation than the US?

I mean comeon, everything about CRISPR, AI, VR/AR, automation, mobile software, Internet software, Internet services, media technology, space tech, biotech, military tech, video gaming, it's all pouring out of Finland at a far higher rate than the US.

I'll say that Finland is very obviously a wonderful country on most metrics. No question about that at all. They aren't even remotely in the same league as the US on innovation or invention. It's the same exact bullshit you run into when people compare Sweden vs the US, it makes no sense on scale. For the same reason, comparing Finland to the US on innovation, is an absurdity, a nation of 5 million vs a nation of 330 million. You could compare Massachusetts to Finland perhaps, or Sweden. The US should be compared against larger entities (EU, Eurozone, Germany, France, China, Japan, Russia, etc.), or otherwise assessed at the state level of elite outcomes vs small nation elite outcomes. There's just as large of a gap between Massachusetts and Louisiana, as there is Sweden and Romania.

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

#82

Post by logfromblammo »

potatoyogurt wrote: post #62
pimmen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, they produced a lot of research. So, how did they apply these technologies to create products the market actually want? And abundance for all people to lead better lives?

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…

They're a lot easier to move, if you own the goalposts.

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

#83

Post by davidf18 »

The truth is that innovators from all over the world come to the USA to follow their dream -- be it in technology, fashion, media. I live in NYC and meet a number of people from all over the world that want to work in the exciting environment of NYC. Russian ballet dancers come to NYC. French fashion designers come to NYC. Israeli and other tech innovators come to NYC or go to SV.

So many young innovators from all over the world come to NYC, SV, Boston, and a few other places, that we may risk a "brain drain" from developed and low-income countries alike.

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

#84

Post by slededit »

mindcrime wrote: post #24
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how developed nations(particularly with service-based economies) depend on ever-increasing specialization to drive economic growth and efficiency, what makes you think the percentage of grad students and graduates _wouldn't_ be a good proxy for relative economic strength?

At first blush, the idea that comes to mind is this: Innovation and associated economic growth isn't the exclusive domain of grad students and graduates. Undergraduates can innovate, as do lots of people who are in private industry and not associated with academia at all. Of course all that means is that it isn't a perfect proxy. It may well still be a good proxy. Tough to call.

Others can innovate but it really isn't their full time job

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

#85

Post by adventured »

FRex wrote: post #41
pimmen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, they produced a lot of research. So, how did they apply these technologies to create products the market actually want? And abundance for all people to lead better lives?

The original point was that SU never achieved much in any area (which is clearly not true). A point could today be made that lots of research in the USA with its growing inequality is also not being used to create 'an abundance for all people to lead better lives'.

The median full-time wage in the US is 70% higher than the EU median full-time wage.

The high US inequality is a result of the spectacularly extreme outcomes that come from simultaneously having a very large integrated economy & population base, extremely high economic output, and extreme national wealth.

If you integrated large parts Europe, you'd see a similar extreme inequality between eg the top end of Norway or Sweden, and the bottom of Bulgaria or Moldova. Or othewise the top end of wealth outcomes, such as Amancio Ortega or Bernard Arnault, versus the bottom end of wealth outcomes in Croatia. Except the US bottom is dramatically above the bottom of Europe.

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

#86

Post by watwut »

muninn_ wrote: post #61
didibus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#87

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #45
martinshen wrote: post #6

Honestly a lot of these "global" rating systems are ridiculous. The US easily produces the most innovation globally. This is similar to ranking systems that consider McGill the Harvard of Canada or consider Babson College the #1 for Entrepreneurship.

>The US easily produces the most innovation globally As would be expected given the size of the US population. The only two more populous countries are both developing nations. But a ranking that didn't normalise over the size of the population would make even less sense than this one.

By the same ranking, China is way below the US. It has a lot of educated people, we can argue that it has innovation in its first tier cities, but it also has A LOT of uneducated farmers.

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

#88

Post by adventured »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #18
zakk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They beat the US in sending the first man to space. Saying that “they never achieved much” is a gigantic understatement!!

And today, when American astronauts need a ride to space, guess who we have to bum it from? It's a disgusting state of affairs, regardless of anyone's opinion on Russia.

Pretty silly context dropping.

The US has superior launch capability to Russia. SpaceX performed more launches all by itself in 2017 than all of the large Russian nation that has been doing space launches for 60 years. That gap is about to get dramatically worse over the next five years.

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

#89

Post by CandidlyFake »

electrograv wrote: post #16
tlb wrote: post #8

What drags the US down most in these rankings is "tertiary efficiency": roughly the fraction of people in grad school or with graduate degrees. Ranking countries is a dodgy business, even more than ranking colleges. A different set of weights or ways of measuring things could give you totally different answers. If you're looking for a way to claim the rankings are biased, you might argue that this up-ranks countries…

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…

You forgot the elephant in the room. Money. Everyday these writers have to make up the most outlandish "story/fake news" to get you to click to sell you ads.

"statistically useless, arbitrarily rated average of multiple human designed score scales, meant to loosely relate to some quality we want to measure, but in reality is more a game of politics and adversarial score optimization." while honest and true doesn't get the masses clicking. Honest and true doesn't get stories bumped to the frontpage of HN.

I do feel for these journalists. They are like daily vloggers who have to deal with the constant pressure of generating content every single day to make money. That's like clickbait is so rampant in both the traditional and social media.

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

#90

Post by watwut »

adventured wrote: post #85
FRex wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original point was that SU never achieved much in any area (which is clearly not true). A point could today be made that lots of research in the USA with its growing inequality is also not being used to create 'an abundance for all people to lead better lives'.

The median full-time wage in the US is 70% higher than the EU median full-time wage. The high US inequality is a result of the spectacularly extreme outcomes that come from simultaneously having a very large integrated economy & population base, extremely high economic output, and extreme national wealth. If you integrated large parts Europe, you'd see a similar extreme inequality between eg the top end of Norway or…

I won't bankrupt if I get sick or get in accident, even if I get sick while unemployed.

I don't have college debt. And also those who were not able to finish college are not crippled by debt till end of their lives.

Aaaand your wage statistic does not count in surplus of prisoners US have.

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