The reason the number of breakthroughs stays the same while population increases is that our inputs of thought are increasingly the same, since those inputs are the product of industrial processes.
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Strange to me how we seem to jump on the train of such weakly researched articles (brilliantly written) with arbitrary definitions of breakthrough & call it "strong case". The amount & quality of criticism it has recieved is very high. In the end, nothing beats confirmation bias
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It’s a function of opportunity, which I think stays the same. As the population increases - per capital opportunity reduces which makes majority comfortable with status quo. The ones who create opportunity - make the breakthroughs. And that is independent of population.
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No, but they do acquire a different flavor just like additional shocks accelerating beyond mach 1 are different than initial ones. Each time we make the strongest materials ever 3D printed it's a bit uneventful since it just means we ran a slightly different fiber in our machine.
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The illusion of a constant breakthrough rate is itself a meta-breakthrough that reflects shifting domains of innovation that decrease legibility e.g. software switching from straightforward technical problems to complex sociological ones.
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That would be my explanation. Just reaching the knowledge-level to be working at the cutting-edge must take increasing amounts of time. And breakthroughs probably require a wide degree of knowledge, whereas specialization would be needed to get to the cutting-edge.
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