I stumbled across an article from a couple of years ago by Neal Stephenson from a couple of years ago entitled Innovation Starvation. (Seems like I read it a while back as well; I’m not sure if I commented on it.) He generally laments the seeming inability of our present culture to execute on the big things, as opposed to, say, the America of the early and mid 20th century where we created the airplane, the automobile, nuclear energy, and the computer; not to mention getting people to the moon. He quotes one grizzled NASA veteran as saying, ” A grizzled NASA veteran once told me that the Apollo moon landings were communism’s greatest achievement.”
Stephenson sees a role for science fiction in setting a coherent narrative that will inspire inventors and engineers. He sees current sci-fi as more involved in creating dystopian narratives about the downsides of the technology we currently have.
While I agree that new and coherent narratives facilitate invention; on executing the big stuff, I think our bigger obstacle is probably individualism. Individualism is a good and useful concern; but I don’t think it’s an accident that some of the big accomplishments Stephenson cites, e.g. nuclear energy, computers and rockets, came out of World War II. An existential struggle between nations has a way of bulldozing through a lot of individual or factional disagreements about whether and how to get things done. Not that I’m recommending war – you don’t ask for the mushroom cloud just so you can have a silver lining.
I remember coming across a story recently talking about the tone of sci-fi as a function of the current economic situation. I can’t find it now, but the basic idea is that the worse the economy, the more dystopian the sci-fi.
As to the innovation issue, there’s been a marked shift in innovations, away from the private sector and toward the university and hybrid projects[1]. Arguably, this leads to more iterative innovation (grad students work on smaller, discrete projects and then move on to the “real world”) at the expense of broader projects. I don’t think it’s fair to conclude that we’re starved for innovation. If anything, we’re surrounded by it so much that we’ve tuned it out. It’s just that the innovations are smaller, but more numerous.
[1] http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/3/459.short
Ben’s last point is very well taken. We are so surrounded with innovation we have tuned it out. (Or tuned it in and taken it for granted.)
I am returning from my “spring break” from Albuquerque. Having lived there a wistfulness is brought on. But I recall important events that ttrack technology. First DSL, first smart phone, GPS that could guide us to relics while hiking. And the professional technology. From IPS, back to client server, to cloud and backups of mammoth amounts of data. Real-time Medicaid claims ajudication.
And it is arguable that was was seen as quantum leap technological advance was really a series of small steps that are combined unusually, or by the creation of that mssing link between the technologies.
WWII was, in no way, an “existential struggle between nations.”
Do you know what the word “existential” means? What Hollywood-ized History have you been fed?
“I think our bigger obstacle is probably individualism.”
Wow.
I was using “existential” as a struggle to continue to exist. World War II seems to fit the bill unless you’re telling me it was more of a border skirmish.
As for your content-free expression of disbelief about the possibility of individualism getting in the way sometimes, I would respond that individualism is good, but it’s not an unmitigated good. One story that comes to mind is, according to legend anyway, Genghis Khan toward the end of his life talking to his sons, took arrows and showed them that, one by one, they could be broken, but placed in a bundle, not even the strongest man could break them. He was showing his sons that, individually, they could be broken; united, not so much. And Genghis Khan might be the most breathtaking example of a rags to riches, self-made man we’re likely to find.
The problem isn’t “individualism.” The problem is that freedom-haters like Freedom and others have put forth their particularly noxious form of collectivist authoritarianism (capitalism) and dishonestly called it “individualism.”
Definition of EXISTENTIAL
1
: of, relating to, or affirming existence
2
a : grounded in existence or the experience of existence : empirical
b : having being in time and space
3
[translation of Danish eksistentiel & German existential] : existentialist
Read number two.
The first great innovation of the 21st century will come when someone convinces some future generation that “Space Western” is a genre of light entertainment, not a substitute for philosophical inquiry.