To Invent the Future, You Must Understand the Past (2015) | Hacker News Reader

To Invent the Future, You Must Understand the Past (2015)

backchannel.com

61 pointsrbanffy14 comments

I would question the above statement under the following premises:

  -Disruption is about taking a different path than the 
   historic "proven" one... example future based on the past
   bad product: motorcycle front suspension fork, disruption
   improved product: telelever suspension (or similar in 
   approach Mcpherson suspension)
  -Based on the past Genetic Algorithms could lead to local
   maximum; alternative option is always to let some non 
   top-fit elements to prevent or minimize this situation.
  -History provides context and therefore bounds... counter
   example of not taking history leads to more successful
   results [0][1]

  [0] http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp
  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig

Edit: I would also suggest a "Confirmation bias" on the Article; from Wikipedia:

>The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

With that said that would lead us to the already existing question of

if correlation doesn't imply causation what does?

Edit2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11211583 which seems to state (a priori) the opposite idea.

> I think I can answer those questions.

Actually, I don't think you can - you're too close to the subject to be objective about it. Maybe in 100 years.

Counterpoint: 20 years ago Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village. Nothing about fishing explains my motherboard or phone. It was central planning not organic growth.

Nexus, like the cities represented by them have always existed as a socioeconomic force. This is true as far as we know further than written history can tell us e.g. Hattusa [1]. And no one can explain them or create them from scratch outside the fact that some last longer than others.

A visit to Amsterdam reveals the lasting power of the Tulip as both a symbol and an economic force over centuries [2]. What physical form will SV take in the future is more interesting than any postulating by the author - who as a historian - should know better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattusa [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

More and more I'm fascinated by this 'ocean' of forces, waves, pressure points and voids that make something like shenzen pop and become a gravity center. Until it's not. And the pole will shift somewhere else. I don't know if there's a name for this, if it's just plain history. Or system theory.. but I'd love to read more about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory is one subdiscipline studied by a group of (mostly Marxist) historians/political theorists, which might be relevant to your interest here.

Pretty cool. Reminds me that I was told about a French history scholar that tried to spread a more 'fluid dynamic' view on history. I cannot recall his name for my life which makes me even sadder.

I don't suppose it would have been one of the Annales historians, would it? There are far too many participants to hazard a guess, but the notable leaders of the different generations of Annales historians would be Febvre, Braudel, Ladurie, and Chartier.

It may be one of the latest generations, but no name clicks. All I remember is a term he coined that was close to fluid dynamics or derivative history (fields and waves, flows, you get the idea).

Eh, 30 years ago Shenzhen's population was 30,000. I guess that's a sleepy village to some, but not to me.

To others, like myself, that's just a couple of buildings.

But I'm just parroting the term "sleepy village" [1] because that's what I've heard Shenzhen described at before it became the the world's manufacturing powerhouse. And it happened all during my lifetime.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-reforms-shenzhen-idU...

I don't buy it. Look at Facebook. It was completely tasteless; they made it big by showing up with the right dumb idea at the right time. The article talks about Zuck studying the past in 2014. That was a long time after he'd made his billions.

(Edit: This article is really about the question, "Why did Silicon Valley happen in the first place, and why has it remained at the epicenter of the global tech economy for so long?". I think that's an interesting topic, I just disagree with the claim in the introduction.)

I hope AIs inherit the earth from us soon so the world can have well-read beings again.

Hi,

Perfectly said "To invent the future, You must understand the past". We can relate it to analytics. Every company needs to analyse tehir performance in all marketing campaigns also with customer feedback to come up with new and best strategies to make their product itself a brand.

True. But rarely do they analyze their way to innovation ...

Analysis leads to improvement. Improvement is not necessarily innovation.

It's more about the evolution of ideas. Can we say that an automobile is an innovation or is it just an improved carriage? So, probably, analyzing what works and how it can be improved can lead to drastic changes in concept.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com