Innovation is almost entirely absent | Hacker News Reader

Innovation is almost entirely absent

post-gazette.com

88 pointsedw51921 comments

I politely disagree. There are a couple of reasons that computers/software have been sources of rapid innovation.

First of all, there's relatively little government disincentive to innovate, but there have been significant government incentives to innovative especially during the Cold War (e.g. ARAPnet, etc).

Second, capital costs and the road to release are generally lower/shorter in software. I think the author makes a good point in mentioning an X prize type challenge - these prizes reduce capital costs slightly, but more importantly by generating publicity the prizes can reduce the road to market.

However, these prizes themselves and even the author's article are an example of the power of the "sexy" social technologies. More people are gaining awareness of x prize type prizes in part because of buzz in online communities. I read this article because it was upvoted on HN. The very social technologies that many people complain are outshining innovation in other realms are creating a worldwide communication/social system that is just now beginning to become the foundation on which other innovations can take place.

The most important pre-requisite to disruptive innovation in a variety of fields is the very innovation in communication that software makes possible.

In short, changing our ways of collecting, organizing, and communicating information is the key to future radical innovations.

Another example of a misuse of the phrase "disruptive innovation". The writer marvels at the fact that nearly no venture dough is thrown at the internal combustion engine. But investment in gas-burning engines would be a sustaining, not disruptive, innovation. Hybrid and electric engines are the disruptive innovations here, and plenty of investment is being done in this area.

Not to mention the fact that the internal combustion engine, while it might not receive a lot of venture capital, probably has more money going into research and eyeballs on it than most other technologies. Between the various big motor R&D departments, F1 teams, and even backyard tinkering, there are probably not many more-studied problems.

A modern engine might only be about 20-30% efficient compared to it's theoretical output but most of the energy loss is not in the engine, it's in the aerodynamic drag. Second is probably driving outside of the optimal power band: exactly what hybrid technology addresses. This was a bad choice by the author to make an otherwise good point.

I like the message - more innovation please. But the article contains some questionable passages. For example:

"Both wind and solar technologies require tremendous capital expenditures before they can be brought to the market and scale up to production. In contrast, a radically improved internal combustion engine could be easily produced with existing industrial capabilities and quickly dropped into the global car production cycle."

This seems to indicate that the author believes that a radical design change could be easily produced. But who's to say that a radical design change wouldn't require radically different capabilities? And as far as I can tell, the ICE has definitely seen improvements in efficiency not only in years where there was government involvement. Sure, it hasn't been "disrupted" with another technology, but that doesn't mean there is no innovation.

And what exactly is a "sexy technology"? How would a radical development in ICEs be less sexy than a radical development in battery tech or solar, or computing?

We don't have civilian super-sonic flight or manned space flight anymore. I'd say in some ways we're slipping backwards as far as technological progress is concerned. Progress in energy technology is particularly pathetic. Nuclear energy was discovered in the 30s and no significant new source of power has been developed since (Solar isn't significant).

If you're on the international space station, solar is indeed significant.

Isn't it possible that manned space flight could be considered "slipping backward"? Unmanned space flight is supposed to be an advance because it doesn't put human life at risk, IOW it's an efficiency.

Not to mention if we're ever going to map the galaxy within a mere 200 million years, we'll need autonomous probes capable of making copies of themselves.

The state of the art was stuck at a crappy free market local max, where no one was willing to invest in a thing that might pay off later.

Turns out, we all win; someone just had to bite the bullet and fork up the sweetener.

But we really should have smelled an opportunity here. Like the article says, what else are we missing?

The article presents it like that, but oil companies actually have a huge incentive to make better faster cheaper cleanup, as they have to pay the cleanup costs. I suspect though they are not really paying enough though to incentivise them, and they should pay higher fines for externalities like spills, eg based on amounts of non recovered oil.

They pay nothing close to the cost of the cleanup. Exxon paid less than half of the cost of the Valdez spill, and recovered most of that from insurance claims anyway. They have held up on appeal further damages awarded by the courts for twenty-two fucking years. They still haven't paid.

If you think BP is going to pay anything close to the cost of the Deepwater Horizon spill, you really haven't been paying attention. The fact is that buying a stake in the legislature and the courts provides a much better ROI than investing in cleanup technologies.

> recovered most of that from insurance claims anyway

Insurance companies don't lose money in the long run, so Exxon paid that money too.

Insurance companies make extra money by charging for more risk than is actually present. One way they can do that is by making certain things a condition of insurability.

If the big companies don't have to pay for the mess they make, that's not a free market maximum. It's the typical incestuous government/corporate elite exploitation of the masses.

Is it possible that human beings in "developed nations" are too comfortable to seriously want innovation as a whole? If your basic physical needs as a society are already met, what motivation do you have to develop better technology?

Perhaps a small group of people/organizations are open to the change inherent with technology development/deployment, but a large group likes the status quo because they are uncomfortable with the uncertainty that comes with change that may affect them adversely for the short term. The net result would be that the society as a whole is more sluggish to change in a directed manner. Without an explicit high-level mandate like "Every year, we will spend at least 10% of revenue on R&D in such and such an area.", it's harder for things to change.

I might even venture that a society without strong top-level mandates/directives like that is like a a human being who has sensations, and reflexes, but no conscious control over his body, or even self-awareness. This may be an exaggeration but that's an idea.

It's very easy to just drift along making default choices & lead a very comfortable life. It's easier and safer. As well as individual choice, a huge amount of societies resources is dedicated to making people as comfortable and entertained as possible, the opportunity cost is doing great things, discovering or pushing things forward.

I think you are right that you have to work hard (which is uncomfortable) in order to achieve anything. People still do it, though, for various motivations.

I agree with the sentiment of the article. How many of the innovative products coming out of the Valley (for example) address basic needs and problems, versus providing convenience, entertainment value, or just incremental improvements? How many don't involve websites, phones or even the internet? There are a lot of things in the world that need improvement but don't intersect with digital technologies.

Assuming that innovation truly is dwindling (not saying it is, just saying it is for this argument), maybe it's just because of exponential growth.

Think of the graph of the square root of X[1]; as x increases rapidly, the change in Y gradually gets smaller and smaller.

Maybe as advances in technology increase rapidly (as they have for the past many thousands of years), the amount of true innovation gets smaller and smaller as a function of the same changes.

Or maybe I'm just being a math nerd looking too much into this...

And also, I think if something was truly innovative, maybe we wouldn't immediately be aware of it[2].

[1] http://thesaurus.maths.org/mmkb/media/png/Squareroot.png [2] http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/09/why-we-desire-but-rej...

The square root of s x is not an exponential function.

No, it's not. The diminishing returns dwindle similarly as exponential functions grow, and I figured that getting too technical wasn't necessary just to make a point. Downvotes unnecessary.

Maybe he was looking for a logistic curve. Although I am not sure that any 2D graph of innovation has real meaning.

I agree that more innovation needs to spread across different fields outside of computers and software. But it doesnt just take the knowledge of technology to innovate but the knowledge of that particular field. In a way you need to be an expert in both worlds.

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