The Case Against “Stem”
thenewatlantis.com
thenewatlantis.com
In the 1990s the thing to do was work at a consumer website, in the 2000s it was hedge funds and finance, in the teens it was large tech companies.
While the technical skill required to work in any of these areas is considerable, many not involved in tech do not view the output as progress. This may be the greatest complement to those who work in Tech - or it could be a sign that the incentives for what is viewed as true innovation are misaligned.
That being said, as of 2021 we have the following items that would only be dreams when I was a kid.
- Private space companies planning mars missions within the decade.
- Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of energy
- Nearly everyone on the planet has a mobile computer connected to a broadband connection.
- Consumer cars can almost drive themselves in specific conditions
- The most desirable cars are electric and get 300 Miles per charge.
- Almost anything that can be done, can be done over the internet.
It's not quite the extreme shift from the 1940s to the 1960s, but progress is happening.
A big example is the space program. It came out of the desire to develop rockets that could reliably deliver nuclear bombs to kill millions of people in a matter of minutes.
Are you sure about that?
https://en.unesco.org/news/new-report-global-broadband-acces...
source? sounds laughable to me
The limiting factor is exiting infra. If you had the option between the two in a greenfield project solar/wind would win hands down
I think the hubris that "innovation" requires technology is, while common, unwarranted. Although Christiansen use technological examples in his book, his thesis works without it.
Thomas Cook produced a major, world-changing innovation with no technology of his own. Sears was an innovation. MacDonalds was an innovation. The key idea of YouTube (aggregate by content type rather than topic) was not innovative (and wasn't even Youtube's idea); likewise Amazon's original idea did not involve developing technology (use pre existing technology to jump on a curve early, which is not having to manage retail inventory in small amounts).
Personally I have a technocentric approach and am uninterested in companies or models that don't involve developing new technology but I recognize that technology is rarely innovative in and of itself.
0: https://blog.youtube/press/
1: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/google-still-isnt-telling-us...
My point is that technology is neither sufficient nor even necessary for innovation and to assume so is to wear blinders. Sorry my brevity resulted in a lack of clarity.
And we even have a term for pre-baconian work: "pure science" which is the stuff frequently and foolishly pointed at by the usual gradgrinds as being a waste of money.
For example, Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, or the smartphone, or tablet PCs. But they certainly innovated with the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, which became category-defining products.
Also, fine "art" is what Leonardo DaVinci is primarily known for but only a fraction of what he and his contemporaries did during the renaissance.
Edit: removed the word "spurious", to here, near to "specious".
[1]: https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Document/2... [2]: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12599/nsf12599.htm#appendix
The danger of the over-emphasis on language skills is that college bound students who have done well in k-12 carry the notion forward and major in english, and psychology. They are then surprised when they hit against the reality that the job market for those with a 9th grade understanding of math&science that hasn't been exercised in 8 years and the ability to write a 50 page essay is surprisingly limited.
A scientific model is not “true” so much as it is “useful”. In a sense, general and special relativity really did not become “true” to most people until GPS. Newtonian physics really became “true” when it was used to calculate accurate artillery tables. Pasteur’s germ theory really became “true” when antiseptic surgery saved lives.
Without the grounding in usefulness, science as knowledge for its own sake, ends up becoming theology, where we argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin based on the presumed Mind of God, or whether there is a single Universe or a disparate Multiverse based on how elegant the Math becomes.
Is it good for science that the richest, most valuable companies in the world, that are worth Trillions of dollars and generate Billions in revenue, are basically slum lords renting out some pixels on screen?
Is it good for society that thousands of engineering hours are spent on getting the boner pill ad faster to you by few milliseconds?
Stern's large dedicated fan base could even grow over time if his content wasn’t behind a paywall, as it is now. Though, a podcast service could elect to sell the show as a subscription knowing his fans would pay for it.