Less innovation from 1950-2012 than 1900-1950.

Anarchist420

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It's kind of hard to measure, but if you stop and think about it... then it makes sense.

I think the slump has been due to the patent system of the current world power being one of the strongest in the world.

Your thoughts on this topic and the link below?

Link
 

yottabit

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Jun 5, 2008
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I think the slump is much more due to living standards

Think about it. In 1900 there was no widespread electricity, people had to work a lot harder for everything and there were no widespread antibiotics, industrial revolution had not taken place so most things were made by largely labor intensive processes

Now Americans have it so easy we spend our money on media consumption. That's the next great frontier, spend your money on things that aren't even real or tangible because it's so easy to actually just live and get by with a decent job
 

MagnusTheBrewer

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I think the slump is much more due to living standards

Think about it. In 1900 there was no widespread electricity, people had to work a lot harder for everything and there were no widespread antibiotics, industrial revolution had not taken place so most things were made by largely labor intensive processes

Now Americans have it so easy we spend our money on media consumption. That's the next great frontier, spend your money on things that aren't even real or tangible because it's so easy to actually just live and get by with a decent job

What color is the sky again in your world? :) I think I see where you're going but, your perspective is skewed.
 

Hayabusa Rider

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I'd agree that litigation to protect IP is has more important than innovation, however the half century before into the first half of the 20th century encompassed more scientific advances than perhaps any other time in history. Much could be done because there was much to work with. Relatively speaking we've discovered little that has changed our fundamental concept of reality.
 

dmcowen674

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MooseNSquirrel

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Going from the stone age to microwave ovens will always look more impressive than mapping the human genome, even if it isnt.
 

yottabit

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What color is the sky again in your world? :) I think I see where you're going but, your perspective is skewed.

Technology gets passed down from first world countries on. So I get there's still people suffering right now, but in a few more decades they should be where we are now, and we will have moved on to new heights of useless crap, IMO

If you look at what's going on in China right now, it's very similar to where the US was a few decades ago. Except they have the advantage of being able to copy existing technology rather than having to invent it themselves.

Living in the US, it's really not hard to support yourself unless you have frivolous expenses and don't understand the difference between want and need

How else could social media, entertainment, and sports be such huge billion dollar industries- not to mention video games, luxury items, etc- unless a large portion of the population had money to blow on useless crap? $200 Red Sox tickets don't put food on the dinner table yet people feel the need to work for them

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in the past there was great demand for an easier way to live, I'm not sure that case is so strong for the future
 
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Infohawk

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Living in the US, it's really not hard to support yourself unless you have frivolous expenses

You realize there are millions of people without jobs and millions who can't afford to own a house or education or health care right, whether they have jobs or not?
 

yottabit

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You realize there are millions of people without jobs and millions who can't afford to own a house or education or health care right, whether they have jobs or not?

Sure, 8% of the labor force is unemployed, and the "labor force" itself is a fraction of the population excluding the retired, disabled, young, etc. So the entire country is supported by a fraction of the population.

I know many people that struggle- and most all are in situations they could have escaped

Maybe I'm a little bit of a hardass but I didn't have a whole lot of help growing up and now I'm considered "successful"

Being unemployed in the US is much better than having a job in many places of the world!

I just wish people could see how good we have it here, despite the poor economy

Even "poor people" get all kinds of luxuries, luxuries being defined as things you don't need to live a healthy life

You say people not being able to afford a house or an education like those are terrible things, like they aren't even real people if they have to rent a small apt and get by on public education.
 

Anarchist420

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Think about it. In 1900 there was no widespread electricity, people had to work a lot harder for everything and there were no widespread antibiotics, industrial revolution had not taken place so most things were made by largely labor intensive processes
I disagree, because there were a lot of things invented in the 1800s as well. There are new things invented every century, so I think it's a fair comparison. What about a cure for AIDS? What about all the questionable inventions like vaccines and lossy compression? Vaccines are questionable because they've caused some problems and it can't be conclusively proven that they have prevented more deaths than problems they have caused. Also, people may have been suffering from a reverse placebo effect meaning the vaccines may have been unnecessary because something else harmful was being done to human bodies. I think that before vaccines came out, there should've been more studies looking into alternatives as well as trying to find the roots of certain problems and eliminating them if possible.
 

Infohawk

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So basically you don't seem to understand many Americans are not getting their needs met. Hence your discussion about the next phase being everyone spending their paychecks on video games is quite premature, especially when you consider the rest of the world.
 

MagnusTheBrewer

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Technology gets passed down from first world countries on. So I get there's still people suffering right now, but in a few more decades they should be where we are now, and we will have moved on to new heights of useless crap, IMO

If you look at what's going on in China right now, it's very similar to where the US was a few decades ago. Except they have the advantage of being able to copy existing technology rather than having to invent it themselves.

Living in the US, it's really not hard to support yourself unless you have frivolous expenses and don't understand the difference between want and need

How else could social media, entertainment, and sports be such huge billion dollar industries- not to mention video games, luxury items, etc- unless a large portion of the population had money to blow on useless crap? $200 Red Sox tickets don't put food on the dinner table yet people feel the need to work for them

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in the past there was great demand for an easier way to live, I'm not sure that case is so strong for the future

My point was that the gulf between the haves and have nots is much greater than the difference in infrastructure between the 1st world and 3rd world countries. I agree the money is currently in intangibles. However, money and people are not synonymous. In your example, the 'haves' willing to spend $200 on those Red Sox tickets represent a majority of the disposable income yet, the majority of people (right here in the good ole U.S. of A.) are struggling to put a roof over their heads, food on the table and, keep the electricity on.
The slow down is not coming from a lack of innovation, it comes from dispersing the current level of technology throughout the world. We will continue to innovate when the corporations succeed in making us all 2nd class citizens.
 

1prophet

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Aug 17, 2005
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America's decline began when it's ideals changed from,

"ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what, together, we can do for the freedom of man."


to the

"what have you done for me lately"

mentality somewhere between the late 1970's and early 1980's.
 

yottabit

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Jun 5, 2008
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So basically you don't seem to understand many Americans are not getting their needs met. Hence your discussion about the next phase being everyone spending their paychecks on video games is quite premature, especially when you consider the rest of the world.

I agree it's premature, but I think that's the direction things are heading. Either that, or everyone will see all these hundred billion dollar industries as a bubble that are going to burst (which is what they are IMO)

But as of right now all signs point otherwise- social media, gaming, etc is all growing despite these hard times

Corporations are driven by quarterly profits, and they need something to keep selling

My point is that we are moving into an era of a new level of consumerism, and other countries are moving into the era we used to be in
 

yottabit

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Jun 5, 2008
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My point was that the gulf between the haves and have nots is much greater than the difference in infrastructure between the 1st world and 3rd world countries. I agree the money is currently in intangibles. However, money and people are not synonymous. In your example, the 'haves' willing to spend $200 on those Red Sox tickets represent a majority of the disposable income yet, the majority of people (right here in the good ole U.S. of A.) are struggling to put a roof over their heads, food on the table and, keep the electricity on.
The slow down is not coming from a lack of innovation, it comes from dispersing the current level of technology throughout the world. We will continue to innovate when the corporations succeed in making us all 2nd class citizens.

I think we are hitting on some of the same points. It just bothers me that I see people that ARE "poor" and struggling, doing things like taking their family to a baseball game and spending a ton of money they don't have. The difference between want and need is what I think is responsible for so many people's struggles, not the climate of our economy as far as what it costs to make it by with the bare essentials and what someone fresh out of high school determined can earn.

The two points about the slowdown are related. The innovation needs to always come from the leading countries (take the US for instance). But the demand for improved standards of living (take life in US for instance) is low, while the demand for exporting these technologies so other countries can rise to our level (as you mention) is high, so why would anyone bother innovating?
 

MagnusTheBrewer

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I think we are hitting on some of the same points. It just bothers me that I see people that ARE "poor" and struggling, doing things like taking their family to a baseball game and spending a ton of money they don't have. The difference between want and need is what I think is responsible for so many people's struggles, not the climate of our economy as far as what it costs to make it by with the bare essentials and what someone fresh out of high school determined can earn.

The two points about the slowdown are related. The innovation needs to always come from the leading countries (take the US for instance). But the demand for improved standards of living (take life in US for instance) is low, while the demand for exporting these technologies so other countries can rise to our level (as you mention) is high, so why would anyone bother innovating?
Innovating is part of being human and has little to do with economic demands. I guess that is the main point. The major advances come from many people innovating in the same place.

The current argument is that computers allow innovation between people without the need for proximity but, another human trait is the need to see, touch and, feel for themselves. It's how we learn and how we best relate. You never see truly important decisions being made through conference calls, whatever the technology employed, they are always made face to face.
 

Cerb

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Aug 26, 2000
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Even "poor people" get all kinds of luxuries, luxuries being defined as things you don't need to live a healthy life
Which is bullshit, because what is largely needed to live a healthy life is lacking. Luxuries don't matter, whether people have them or not, until the non-luxuries are taken care of. People in the U.S. have much less access to non-luxuries than just a couple decades ago. Going several years without luxuries would still not save enough to pay for basic medical care for a single year.
 

Karl Agathon

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Sep 30, 2010
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I always thought innovation skyrocked after 1950. Due mostly in part to the reverse engineering of the craft that was discovered at Roswell just a few years earlier.
 

Screech

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Oct 20, 2004
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More world wars in 1900-1950 than after.

As far as drug companies -- when they went from being run by scientists to being run by lawyers, their downfall was essentially guaranteed.....only a matter of time.
 
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