Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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Just as the planetary environment has shaped our genes over billions
of years, so have innovations shaped mankind's cultures and
economies. Entrepreneurs, financiers or politicians who purport to be
responsible for economic growth and consumer prosperity are really
ten-a-penny and spring up like mushrooms whenever significant
innovations appear. Those three heroes (or anti-heroes) of modern
culture merely take advantage of whatever innovations come along and,
as individuals, happen to be the right sort of person at the right
time and in the right place. Unfortunately, we have no significant
innovations today that remotely compare with the three that took us
through the industrial revolution -- the steam engine, the electrical
dynamo and the computer -- and which spawned thousands of new
consumer good as by-products -- so none of the three 'heroes' at
present know how to lead us out of the economic mess that the
advanced countries find themselves in (never mind the rest of the
world). A corollary of this is that our largest, most efficient
world-wide businesses are presently bulging with profits but don't
know how or where to invest them next in order to produce the next
tranche of consumer goods that, according to orthodox economic
wisdom, could kick-start us into renewed economic growth. So what
will be the next significant innovation(s)? Goodness knows! But if
we had to place a bet it would probably be in one or both of the two
most exciting scientific research areas today -- genetics and
particle physics. Until the next innovation comes along, the best our
heroes could do would be to dampen down the excesses of today -- the
excessive expectations of the mass consumer, the excessive
exploitation of our wonderful natural environment and the excessive
world population. That's more than enough to keep them going while
the research scientists plod away at their experiments.
