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
Less innovation from 1950-2012 than 1900-1950
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.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/profit-pr-enemies-innovation
It's what you get when you let the 1% rule.
What color is the sky again in your world? I think I see where you're going but, your perspective is skewed.
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?
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.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
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
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.
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.
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.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?
All the low hanging fruit innovations has been taken a long time ago, duh.
It's what you get when you let the 1% rule.
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.Even "poor people" get all kinds of luxuries, luxuries being defined as things you don't need to live a healthy life