I think upside decay is most applicable to venturesome things. So for example, a plastic chair factory is not very venturesome because the technology and processes are well established. The factory manager can be a real jerk and people will still buy his chairs. On the other hand, things like creating a startup, making smaller semiconductors, or new energy technologies are much more affected by upside decay.
Using the example of scientific discovery, it feels like a major country could have assets such as high investment into education and R&D that helped it have lots of rare discoveries, even if its foreign policy didn’t do it any favors and lost it weak ties.
I think this country would be good at incremental discoveries, improvements, some types of development, and commercialization. But it wouldn’t be good at generating rare discoveries. Using your example of a board game, weak ties can be translated into “Victory Points” at different ratios depending on the type of activity you’re looking at.
I think upside decay is most applicable to venturesome things. So for example, a plastic chair factory is not very venturesome because the technology and processes are well established. The factory manager can be a real jerk and people will still buy his chairs. On the other hand, things like creating a startup, making smaller semiconductors, or new energy technologies are much more affected by upside decay.
I think this country would be good at incremental discoveries, improvements, some types of development, and commercialization. But it wouldn’t be good at generating rare discoveries. Using your example of a board game, weak ties can be translated into “Victory Points” at different ratios depending on the type of activity you’re looking at.