On 4/25/05, Stephen A. Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Keith Nagel wrote: > > >Mike writes: > > > > > >>We moderns suffer from temporal chauvisism, the delusion that we are the > >>smartest of all humanity [which is refuted by any teenager]. It happens that > >>there are more tech geeks like us than anytime in history, so the odds of > >>something useful being found are better, but it does not follow that our > >>individual geekiness woud stand a chance if dropped into, say, King Arthur's > >>Court like the Conneticut Yankee handyman of Mark Twain's novel. Most of > >>Edison's inventions could have been built anytime in the Iron Age by someone > >>"who knew what to do". > >> > >> > > > >Right on the money, Mike! They were us. > > > >I was thinking about just what the difference was between then and now, > >and I came to the same general conclusion as you, sheer numbers. You > >need say 1000 people to produce one innovator, the two support each other. > >You can't innovate when the tiger has you treed, there needs to be > >some kind of infrastructure that the other 1000 provide. I wonder if the > >trend > >of greater numbers/more innovation has a saturation point? > >It seems we may be hitting it now, but perhaps this is just a lacunae. > > > > > We are indeed. The issue isn't just maximizing the number of > innovators, but also maximizing the information available to each > innovator so they can innovate most effectively. > > And that latter item is most certainly hitting a saturation point: > Beyond a certain level of information flow, the "potential innovators" > stop innovating and switch to a mode where they spend all their time > reading Email. > BWAHAHAAAHAAAHAAAAA.
well put. i think we're there! also though, its important becuase, for a long time, people spent a LOT of time reinventing the wheel. a quick google search gives a lot of info, telling you that people ahve already tried your new idea, and no, it didnt work either! > > >>Our common public education is effectively an indoctrination of the popular > >>mythology about who we are and how we got here and what is going on. It's > >>very useful, so we sort of know what to expect from each other and how to > >>play the game. > >>But don't pretend that it is 'truth'. > >> > >> > > > >Well worth requoting. The lack of recorded history for those 150,000 years > >in conjunction with the destruction of much of the more recent history > >by certain parties makes us ignorant indeed. Who benefits? > > > > > Who benefits? From the lack of recorded history for the first 150,000 > years? Are you suggesting that was caused by a conspiracy?? > > -- "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" Voltaire
