The prime mover of technological and social progress — just as for biological evolution — is variation. Different cultures rubbing up against each other, trading with each other, invading each other; different political orders, wrestling for mastery and searching for some source of economic or military advantage; different companies, competing for consumer dollars and striving to cut costs.
Just as in biological evolution, variation is only half of the force behind social and technological progress. The other half is selection, which is equally essential. The variants that can't propagate themselves into the future, in the face of occasionally severe opposition, die out and the successful variants become the baseline for the next batch of mutations.
This is much less tragic on the social and technological level than on the biological level. I would mourn the loss of tigers much more than the loss of the macarena or the VCR.
1. Walter Scheidel's _Escape from Rome_ is also good on the importance of political competition to European success.
2. On the right (sort of), two folks worth talking to about this are Patri Friedman of seasteading fame and Balaji Srinivasan of the "network state" idea.
3. On the left (sort of), there is Open Source Ecology, whose Global Village Construction Set aims to lower the cost of setting up materially comfortable alternative communities.
> Specifically, the advanced capitalist economies were able to avoid socialist revolution only by absorbing significant amounts of the socialist program into their institutional makeup.
Pseudoerasmus has written about how pre-war Japan engaged in plenty of labor repression while it industrialized (in contract to India).
- I am originally from Europe - where we did not see the USSR as an alternative to the USA (except for its military). The Sovjet Union was a giant on clay feet. The demise of "leverage and status" of ordinary (working) people already started - in my book - around 1980, about ten years before the USSR imploded. Prez Reagan's firing of over 11,000 air traffic-controllers had a huge impact.
- I think you underestimate for Europe the strength of social stratification. The idea that it was possible to break away and start something new, was mainly possible for upper middle and lower upper class people (men).
- In older days people worked in factories, they saw things being made and got ideas how to make the product better, or how to better produce it. That is gone, almost all things are nowadays Made in China. In the US a limited class of people now makes money by moving money. Also, large co.'s used to give R&D departments more money for early stage development. On top of that the US made education very hard to afford for children from the "common folk". This is a waste of talent.
- The world is in many aspects less sewn-up. A flow of ideas I possible thanks to the Internet and also knowledge "for all" is available in a degree never seen before. Anyone can now write, make music, create art, and show it to others, thanks to the cell-phone, the computer, and affordable other equipment.
- If you need more people with innovative ideas why do you not allow them to come to the US ? Your current immigration system is based on family reunion (at absurdum), no education, skills, work experience required. To be allowed to immigrate you need a US family member, not the next great idea. Furthermore, people who arrive on a capped non-immigrant H-1B visa are forbidden to start their own business. H-4 (and O-3) visa holders, mostly well-educated/skilled, are not allowed to work. Another example how this country wastes talent.
- So you look at competition with entities outside of the US, I think the US is losing its edge because of diminished competition within. (Also: Go Metric ! as that is a beautiful, logical, system.)
One small quibble. Climate innovation does not require international cooperation, Although a uniform tax on CO2 and methane emissions would be the best way to sourer innovation, even disparate rates would still work or even other kinds of incentives for each country's private firms to reduce CO2 emissions in the process of creating value.
Just as in biological evolution, variation is only half of the force behind social and technological progress. The other half is selection, which is equally essential. The variants that can't propagate themselves into the future, in the face of occasionally severe opposition, die out and the successful variants become the baseline for the next batch of mutations.
This is much less tragic on the social and technological level than on the biological level. I would mourn the loss of tigers much more than the loss of the macarena or the VCR.
A few observations on this:
1. Walter Scheidel's _Escape from Rome_ is also good on the importance of political competition to European success.
2. On the right (sort of), two folks worth talking to about this are Patri Friedman of seasteading fame and Balaji Srinivasan of the "network state" idea.
3. On the left (sort of), there is Open Source Ecology, whose Global Village Construction Set aims to lower the cost of setting up materially comfortable alternative communities.
> Specifically, the advanced capitalist economies were able to avoid socialist revolution only by absorbing significant amounts of the socialist program into their institutional makeup.
Pseudoerasmus has written about how pre-war Japan engaged in plenty of labor repression while it industrialized (in contract to India).
https://pseudoerasmus.com/2017/10/02/ijd/
Was it really on the verge of socialist revolution? That sounds like deprivation theory too seriously.
https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/most-important-social-movement-research-findings/
- I am originally from Europe - where we did not see the USSR as an alternative to the USA (except for its military). The Sovjet Union was a giant on clay feet. The demise of "leverage and status" of ordinary (working) people already started - in my book - around 1980, about ten years before the USSR imploded. Prez Reagan's firing of over 11,000 air traffic-controllers had a huge impact.
- I think you underestimate for Europe the strength of social stratification. The idea that it was possible to break away and start something new, was mainly possible for upper middle and lower upper class people (men).
- In older days people worked in factories, they saw things being made and got ideas how to make the product better, or how to better produce it. That is gone, almost all things are nowadays Made in China. In the US a limited class of people now makes money by moving money. Also, large co.'s used to give R&D departments more money for early stage development. On top of that the US made education very hard to afford for children from the "common folk". This is a waste of talent.
- The world is in many aspects less sewn-up. A flow of ideas I possible thanks to the Internet and also knowledge "for all" is available in a degree never seen before. Anyone can now write, make music, create art, and show it to others, thanks to the cell-phone, the computer, and affordable other equipment.
- If you need more people with innovative ideas why do you not allow them to come to the US ? Your current immigration system is based on family reunion (at absurdum), no education, skills, work experience required. To be allowed to immigrate you need a US family member, not the next great idea. Furthermore, people who arrive on a capped non-immigrant H-1B visa are forbidden to start their own business. H-4 (and O-3) visa holders, mostly well-educated/skilled, are not allowed to work. Another example how this country wastes talent.
- So you look at competition with entities outside of the US, I think the US is losing its edge because of diminished competition within. (Also: Go Metric ! as that is a beautiful, logical, system.)
One small quibble. Climate innovation does not require international cooperation, Although a uniform tax on CO2 and methane emissions would be the best way to sourer innovation, even disparate rates would still work or even other kinds of incentives for each country's private firms to reduce CO2 emissions in the process of creating value.