Interesting: He makes the argument that progress in physical areas of technology (transportation, chemistry etc.) has slowed in part due to government regulation (which would explain why the computers and the internet have been the one thing progressing drastically). But the United States has never been the source of all or even the majority of the worlds’ new inventions, so an explanation focused on the U.S. government can’t fill that large a gap (although, I suppose a slowdown of 1/3rd or even more would be explained).
Any information on what the situation has been in other countries? I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire First World has trended towards drastically more regulation, which would indeed leave only the places with fewer inventors and little capital to invest or consumer-money to spend able to experiment with technologies in those fields (if true, the implications for the chance of changing the situation aren’t as bright as if it’s just the United States).
Still, this is something that has to be remembered in any discussion of technology, or for that matter any questions of this type. More generally there seems to be a general lack of tendency (among Americans at least) to check on or be aware of other countries in all sorts of questions, and the few times they are brought up it’s usually a single anecdote to reinforce the speakers’ point (but even these are less common than one would expect). That seems to be a serious impediment to actually figuring out problems.
If you look at the area of transportation innovation in trains does happen outside of the US. Japan manages to build better trains over time and even our European trains are better than those trains of the past.
There a general thought that Detroit did worse than German or Japanese carmakers.
In general Europe has also seen an increase in regulation. Europe outlawed GMO’s. Germany banned nuclear plants. German culture is often even more critical of new technology than the US.
Peter Thiel
Interesting: He makes the argument that progress in physical areas of technology (transportation, chemistry etc.) has slowed in part due to government regulation (which would explain why the computers and the internet have been the one thing progressing drastically). But the United States has never been the source of all or even the majority of the worlds’ new inventions, so an explanation focused on the U.S. government can’t fill that large a gap (although, I suppose a slowdown of 1/3rd or even more would be explained).
Any information on what the situation has been in other countries? I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire First World has trended towards drastically more regulation, which would indeed leave only the places with fewer inventors and little capital to invest or consumer-money to spend able to experiment with technologies in those fields (if true, the implications for the chance of changing the situation aren’t as bright as if it’s just the United States). Still, this is something that has to be remembered in any discussion of technology, or for that matter any questions of this type. More generally there seems to be a general lack of tendency (among Americans at least) to check on or be aware of other countries in all sorts of questions, and the few times they are brought up it’s usually a single anecdote to reinforce the speakers’ point (but even these are less common than one would expect). That seems to be a serious impediment to actually figuring out problems.
If you look at the area of transportation innovation in trains does happen outside of the US. Japan manages to build better trains over time and even our European trains are better than those trains of the past. There a general thought that Detroit did worse than German or Japanese carmakers.
In general Europe has also seen an increase in regulation. Europe outlawed GMO’s. Germany banned nuclear plants. German culture is often even more critical of new technology than the US.