innovation culture

As I note in that post, the successful examples of “socialism” that people cite — the Scandinavian societies of today — are actually social democracies. They achieved their mixed economies through a slow evolutionary process that was absolutely nothing like the revolutionary upheavals predicted and advocated by Marx.

A small amount of compromise is possible, and it is even needed with great funders. But there's no question that Parc would have failed if Bob Taylor hadn't forced Xerox to sign a legal agreement that they had to keep their hands completely off -- in all ways -- whatever we decided to do for the first 5 years.

This was the right ploy because -- as... See more

ONE PARTING POINT

I recently watched the film Conclave, about the electing of a new pope. And in the homily before they enter the session there's a really beautiful statement. That the sin the protagonist is most afraid of is certainty because certainty erodes the need for faith. And faith is the critical point of this.

I think the rational SF... See more

One is simply the sheer difficulty of building a modern commercial aircraft, which is probably one of the five or six most complex technical achievements of modern civilization (along with jet engines, leading-edge semiconductor fabrication, and nuclear submarines). Commercial aircraft must couple a high level of performance in some of the most... See more

Note that the key phenomena are not movements. They are not collective efforts to build social capital around any particular idea or aesthetic or value. Nor are they forms of propaganda or prestige. The real core activities of culture are disciplines of craft aimed at actually achieving something great, regardless of what everyone else thinks. They... See more

The combo of intellectual grandiosity and intense competitiveness was a perfect fit for me. It’s still hard to find today, in fact - many people have copied the ‘hardcore’ working culture and the ‘this is the Marines’ vibe, but few have the intellectual atmosphere, the sense of being involved in a rich set of ideas . This is hard to LARP - your... See more

The default outcome?

Let's grant the assumptions at the start of this post and the above analysis. Then, the post-labour-replacing-AI world involves:

• Money will be able to buy results in the real world better than ever.


• People's labour gives them less leverage than ever before.


• Achieving outlier success through your labour in most or all areas is now

... See more

One of the lessons that TMitTB has tried to get across to you, the big message that matters most to him, is that code is never done; after shipping the new platform (no longer a website, this is a platform), with all its interlocking components, he and his team will continue to work on it forever. There will always be new bugs, new features, new... See more