He is correct about the knowledge specialization. He doesnt have the numbers but if you look at studies, most of our innovations are being made at the margins and research has become increasingly harder. A team of 10 researchers today will be responsible for lesss growth than a team of peobably half as much or just half a century before.
+matchbox555 Cell phones, personal computers, GPS, World literacy, eradicating the most virulent diseases, international space station, mars rovers, credit cards, several new pharmaceuticals, machine learning, video games, digital cameras, advances in wind and solar power.. So much has changed over 40 years. Granted, a lot of it is moving x, y, and z to the digital space, but you also need to keep in mind that eventually the well is going to run dry there is no "New Electricity" to invent. And the economics of moving everything online or onto a computer makes more sense than other things. Once we reach the end of the road of conputerification I wonder where we'll go from there.
Joseph Moore If the internet didn't exist our lack of progress would be painfully OBVIOUS even to a dipshit like you. When I look around my kitchen or bathroom or bedroom there is NOTHING there that could not have been there 30 years ago. And then when I go outside the decaying infrastructure is WORSE than 30 years ago. I look up in the sky and I see the same 747s that I did 30 years ago. And the clothes people dress in have hardly changed in 20 years, except they are fatter, look like slobs and are much less polite. Seriously, it may as well be 1995, we are STAGNANT.
@@josephmoore4764 you really dont understand the point of this talk do you? Cell phones - telephones already existed with in 50 years Personal Computers - computers already existed within 50 years Eradicating diseaeses is not a technologocal advancment International space station and Mars rovers hasnt bettered our economy Credit cards - cheques already existed Pharma - already existed Video games - how is that an advance that betters all human race Digital cameras - cameras already existed Wind and solar - already existed This talk was direct aimed at what you have listed, which is already existing technology, that we are now just slightly tweaking. But nothing NEW is being invented that is advancing civilisation and allowing us to grow our economy. Even Elon Musk, he has modiified space travel and rockets. But he didnt invent them. He is updating electric cars, but he didnt invent them. Batteries. Even his underground tunnel system. Machine learning is new, but really just tweaked computer software. And is not providing us a new economy growth
The reason is that knowledge increasing has outrun our ability to learn it. We will spend several generations trying to absorb what we have learned and made, we are exploring the vastness of tech and ability. at some point we will blast forward again. For example, I have so many interest, that I will never come even close to learning all I want to right now. It took us 5000 years to maximise out use of fire. We are just starting with electricty comparitvly.
Also look up Peter Thiel's recent debate with George Gilder on TH-cam. Thiel says that since 1970, most forms of engineering - nuclear, aerospace, architectural, biomedical, etc. - have become effectively illegal. The smart people became programmers and quants over the last generation because these areas faced fewer restrictions. I mean, seriously, suppose you want to major in nuclear engineering in college. Where could you get a job doing nuke engineering these days?
@moridinamael I wouldn't say that. Computer games are programs that take away a lot of our productivity. They may increase temporary happiness, but time that could have been spent focusing on creating new programs that really increased productivity and made our lives more efficient and easier.
Innovation and entrepreneurship are necessary for the continuation of democracy - especially in an era where human work is becoming obsolete to AI and jobs are disappearing. New ideas and a new way of calculating grown and value and human meaning and purpose are a necessity.
nope...most technology isnt allowed to be sold in the US....the regulation burden is incredible...one of my lab-mates has been able to regrow teeth in dogs and bones in mice....but she isnt allowed to give people this technology, even if they are willing to take the risks (which are nearly zero). we can print real bones and organs, but scientists are not allowed to use the tech.
Sooo glad this presentation debuted. You can almost feel the stagnation. Scientists around the world have their sights on innovations that could revolutionize the planet. Namely cures for heart disease, cancer and aging itself (imagine!) Clean energy too. Problem is that wealth has concentrated so much that the owners refuse to invest in the proper R&D to get to these milestones (greed!) How can we advance when the avg researcher doing the drudgery has the same salary as his 70's counterpart!
It depends how you define innovations. He says that the internet is an innovation but does mention all of the innovations that take advantage of the internet. For example, I can use the internet to work with customer across the US or even the world. I can access their computers and work with them to implement a project without ever getting on a plane and visiting them. Is this not an innovation? I think it is. Even simple things like using the internet to do my taxes or my banking are far more convenient then there were without this capabilities. I am able to manage my accounts and investments with just a few key strokes. I no longer need to talk to people, which takes time. I work from home many days, saving me from fuel expenditures and saving me the time to go to and from work. If everyone that could work from home, did so, we could see big fuel savings, reduction in car accidents and many other things.
Education isn't even consumption, like health care is. You get education so that you can get a better job. It's a cost of revenue, not something that improves your life directly. If it were a leisure activity, the focus areas of study would be very different.
He correctly identifies the 70s as a pivotal point but somehow doesn't fully considers the impact of the neoliberal project that started around that time.. Don't forget, the massive technological advances in the 20th century almost exclusively came from massive state projects.
The income gap that Cowen cites might have less to do with progress slowing down than with the accumulation of capital speeding up. Capital concentrated in the hands of billionaires allows that class to craft a regulatory environment (to commission legislation) that further concentrates capital, producing a conspicuous snowballing effect. Critics of this dynamic are told that they are watching the rightful ascendency of a "meritocracy." Why doesn't America's working class enjoy a 9-hour work week, like George Jetson? Because, looking at wealth and income stats, it appears that the billionaire class has directed to itself the vast efficiency gains granted by automation. Sharing the wealth seems to be anathema to those at the top, possibly because the underclass is gaining in something that the rulers fear: Numbers. A mass underclass must be kept down financially (and psychologically) to hinder its numbers from organizing into an effective resistance, as with a mass strike. Cowen's "stagnation" doesn't take into account the fact that the super wealthy benefit from the status quo, so they are motivated to impede innovation. See the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? Innovative start-up companies that look promising often get purchased by entrenched interests, and then get shuttered, if the asset strippers feel any real threat from the upstarts. If in the past scientists enjoyed greater social status, then maybe too many of them have conducted their careers in ways that have tarred the profession as a whole, fairly or unfairly. Let's be honest about money and motivations. If you're living off foundation grants, then your research topics, methods, and conclusions are likely to support whatever vision of society those foundations have been set up to promulgate. Because you want your grants renewed. Cowen might have contracted an outdated, romantic image of "The Scientist".
Star Larvae - The concentration of capital makes it easier to fund innovation, not harder. However, when the “system” is already in place (roads, carbon fuels, etc.), it is difficult to innovate outside of the norm (make cars, roads, fuels better) versus innovating to create new sources of transportation or new sources of energy. It’s the economic equivalent of, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
I honestly am slightly baffled by this, just in 2011 we still did not understand that the current economic system is broken, and ideas like this are just peripheral to the actual problem: the middle class will vanish; if you don't have capital you will not make capital; the american dream is a myth (IN AMERICA, in countries like denmark/sweden it is still possible). This is FACTS.
+superhund14 - Unfortunately, the idea that the Scandinavian countries are a socialist utopia is not true: www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-culture-markets-and-the-failure-of-third-way-soc
+rd f While they maybe not be a utopia, they're better than our structure in the US by far for more people. Some points on the link are funny using statistics that are vague or don't have an actual correlative value. One in particular makes me laugh: " In Scandinavian labour markets, even immigrants with high qualifications can struggle to find suitable employment. Highly educated immigrants in Finland and Sweden have an unemployment rate over 8 percentage points higher than native-born Finns and Swedes of a similar educational background. This compares with very similar employment rates between the two groups in Anglo-Saxon countries." As if that's a negative. Essentially, their economy doesn't need immigration or artificially cheap inauthentic comparative advantage of some stooge with the same qualifications to do the work. Very bad mental gymnastics usually done by creationists and conspiracy theorists to downplay their successes.
The real problem is that we have an uncritical evaluation of the radical materialism posited by science. Science is good at giving us more stuff - but cannot solve the socio economic problems that we face - or the existential problems of meaning and purpose. I have an advanced degree in science and have been a technology analyst my entire professional life.
Not sure I would call it stagnation, I would call it maturity, and now we need technology and innovations to fix all the shit we broke while we were growing up.
If you want further evidence for what this guy is talking about, just look at the number of views this video has compared to one that shows a talking dog. :-P
I feel things have gotten worse since your comment. I can’t describe it well but it’s like we are constantly responding to things that happen through social media or culture wars etc.
Yes how are you supposed to make invitations on something when that something is part of a bigger whole you miss out on what's actually happening and make flawed results and I would say corporate greed doesn't help
Planned obsolescence is our greatest innovation in wealth redistribution. "Video killed the radio star". Eric P. Dollard says electrical engineering died out around 1930. Light bulbs didn't go out 100 years ago. Marshal McLuhan described the invention of the automobile as creating the suburb. Etc. etc.
Another problem is the mediocrity caused by the slow drift to socialist style governments. “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” ― Benjamin Franklin
...2 years ago, this undervalued comment was made, and it rings with such incredible truth more and more each day. God bless you, sir. My name is Nate. We ought to become friends.
Things are finally getting "good enough" well water flushing toilet did like 50-80 years ago, and batteries will in next 50 years ;-), isn't that great, no more need for better and faster and more expensive iPhone each year, no more new car with better mileage every 5-10 years, once small combustion engines get to big ship diesel-like efficiencies? Or batteries in electric car that get you over 50% of miles as same weight of gas?
well technology is at stand still of slow going or incremental. It is from fear and greed. companies want to control everything the people do and use. Innovation is hard because there are the naysayers that will shutdown new ideas based on current assumptions or personal assumptions.
Lol it's not people don't want to learn it's more like Education, such as college is too expensive and getting your MS and PhD causes debt that is too limiting. First Ted TALKS I was like causeation does not cause correlation. What a joke. He is comparing his son dropping out of high school to why we reached stagnation. If anything education and the 2 trillion dollor deficit on college graduates is the reason we reached stagnation.
-Sure, if you are expected to get a post-doc for 30 000 USD/year after, at least, after 4+1+3-6 years of studies, of course, you won't follow the scientific path. -Also, there are a lot of scientists out there, more than ever, so the question of "number of scientists" is a weak argument. Perhaps the question, on that matter, would be related to the "kind" of scientists the Universities are graduating, with their submissive culture, and thus lack of their entrepeneur mentality. Very weak presentation, gave me no much to reflect. I miss Milton Friedman!!
+Ma Ga Friedman was a con artist of a economist, using his now defunct analysis of consumption. And all what you spoke about was hyperbole dribble. "submissive culture"? That's not even economic terminology you can use empirically to do anything with, it could mean anything. I can see why you like Friedman.
Except most economics classes. Teach people how to amplify these wealth gaps and stagnation while he's teaching how it happens and how to reverse or avoid it.
This guy couldn't be more wrong. Not his fault, he's an accountant and they've never invented anything useful. Unless you count stock market crashes and bailouts.
He is correct about the knowledge specialization. He doesnt have the numbers but if you look at studies, most of our innovations are being made at the margins and research has become increasingly harder. A team of 10 researchers today will be responsible for lesss growth than a team of peobably half as much or just half a century before.
its true
apart from the internet nothing has really changed in 40 years
+matchbox555 Cell phones, personal computers, GPS, World literacy, eradicating the most virulent diseases, international space station, mars rovers, credit cards, several new pharmaceuticals, machine learning, video games, digital cameras, advances in wind and solar power.. So much has changed over 40 years. Granted, a lot of it is moving x, y, and z to the digital space, but you also need to keep in mind that eventually the well is going to run dry there is no "New Electricity" to invent. And the economics of moving everything online or onto a computer makes more sense than other things. Once we reach the end of the road of conputerification I wonder where we'll go from there.
Joseph Moore If the internet didn't exist our lack of progress would be painfully OBVIOUS even to a dipshit like you. When I look around my kitchen or bathroom or bedroom there is NOTHING there that could not have been there 30 years ago. And then when I go outside the decaying infrastructure is WORSE than 30 years ago. I look up in the sky and I see the same 747s that I did 30 years ago. And the clothes people dress in have hardly changed in 20 years, except they are fatter, look like slobs and are much less polite. Seriously, it may as well be 1995, we are STAGNANT.
+matchbox555 now there's boingo wifi on those jumbo jets though.
Thomas C Don't worry, TRUMP is going to get us moving forward again.
@@josephmoore4764 you really dont understand the point of this talk do you?
Cell phones - telephones already existed with in 50 years
Personal Computers - computers already existed within 50 years
Eradicating diseaeses is not a technologocal advancment
International space station and Mars rovers hasnt bettered our economy
Credit cards - cheques already existed
Pharma - already existed
Video games - how is that an advance that betters all human race
Digital cameras - cameras already existed
Wind and solar - already existed
This talk was direct aimed at what you have listed, which is already existing technology, that we are now just slightly tweaking.
But nothing NEW is being invented that is advancing civilisation and allowing us to grow our economy.
Even Elon Musk, he has modiified space travel and rockets. But he didnt invent them.
He is updating electric cars, but he didnt invent them.
Batteries.
Even his underground tunnel system.
Machine learning is new, but really just tweaked computer software.
And is not providing us a new economy growth
The reason is that knowledge increasing has outrun our ability to learn it. We will spend several generations trying to absorb what we have learned and made, we are exploring the vastness of tech and ability. at some point we will blast forward again. For example, I have so many interest, that I will never come even close to learning all I want to right now. It took us 5000 years to maximise out use of fire. We are just starting with electricty comparitvly.
Also look up Peter Thiel's recent debate with George Gilder on TH-cam. Thiel says that since 1970, most forms of engineering - nuclear, aerospace, architectural, biomedical, etc. - have become effectively illegal. The smart people became programmers and quants over the last generation because these areas faced fewer restrictions. I mean, seriously, suppose you want to major in nuclear engineering in college. Where could you get a job doing nuke engineering these days?
@moridinamael I wouldn't say that. Computer games are programs that take away a lot of our productivity. They may increase temporary happiness, but time that could have been spent focusing on creating new programs that really increased productivity and made our lives more efficient and easier.
Counter point: Sim City produced a number of architects and city planners. But yes, videogames do steal our precious time.
@@smallbluemachine If your goal is to play video games, then they don't "steal" your time. Not everyone's goal is to be productive.
Innovation and entrepreneurship are necessary for the continuation of democracy - especially in an era where human work is becoming obsolete to AI and jobs are disappearing. New ideas and a new way of calculating grown and value and human meaning and purpose are a necessity.
This is an issue of corporations giving technologies a lifespan based on how well they sell. It has slowed progress to a crawl.
nope...most technology isnt allowed to be sold in the US....the regulation burden is incredible...one of my lab-mates has been able to regrow teeth in dogs and bones in mice....but she isnt allowed to give people this technology, even if they are willing to take the risks (which are nearly zero). we can print real bones and organs, but scientists are not allowed to use the tech.
@@lukaskoube Interesting! Can you expand more bout regrowing teeth/bones? Which lab was it, did they publish papers? Cheers
Sooo glad this presentation debuted. You can almost feel the stagnation. Scientists around the world have their sights on innovations that could revolutionize the planet. Namely cures for heart disease, cancer and aging itself (imagine!) Clean energy too. Problem is that wealth has concentrated so much that the owners refuse to invest in the proper R&D to get to these milestones (greed!) How can we advance when the avg researcher doing the drudgery has the same salary as his 70's counterpart!
It depends how you define innovations. He says that the internet is an innovation but does mention all of the innovations that take advantage of the internet. For example, I can use the internet to work with customer across the US or even the world. I can access their computers and work with them to implement a project without ever getting on a plane and visiting them. Is this not an innovation? I think it is.
Even simple things like using the internet to do my taxes or my banking are far more convenient then there were without this capabilities. I am able to manage my accounts and investments with just a few key strokes. I no longer need to talk to people, which takes time.
I work from home many days, saving me from fuel expenditures and saving me the time to go to and from work. If everyone that could work from home, did so, we could see big fuel savings, reduction in car accidents and many other things.
Education isn't even consumption, like health care is. You get education so that you can get a better job. It's a cost of revenue, not something that improves your life directly. If it were a leisure activity, the focus areas of study would be very different.
He correctly identifies the 70s as a pivotal point but somehow doesn't fully considers the impact of the neoliberal project that started around that time.. Don't forget, the massive technological advances in the 20th century almost exclusively came from massive state projects.
Richard Feynman
Made my day.
The income gap that Cowen cites might have less to do with progress slowing down than with the accumulation of capital speeding up. Capital concentrated in the hands of billionaires allows that class to craft a regulatory environment (to commission legislation) that further concentrates capital, producing a conspicuous snowballing effect. Critics of this dynamic are told that they are watching the rightful ascendency of a "meritocracy."
Why doesn't America's working class enjoy a 9-hour work week, like George Jetson? Because, looking at wealth and income stats, it appears that the billionaire class has directed to itself the vast efficiency gains granted by automation. Sharing the wealth seems to be anathema to those at the top, possibly because the underclass is gaining in something that the rulers fear: Numbers. A mass underclass must be kept down financially (and psychologically) to hinder its numbers from organizing into an effective resistance, as with a mass strike.
Cowen's "stagnation" doesn't take into account the fact that the super wealthy benefit from the status quo, so they are motivated to impede innovation. See the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? Innovative start-up companies that look promising often get purchased by entrenched interests, and then get shuttered, if the asset strippers feel any real threat from the upstarts.
If in the past scientists enjoyed greater social status, then maybe too many of them have conducted their careers in ways that have tarred the profession as a whole, fairly or unfairly. Let's be honest about money and motivations. If you're living off foundation grants, then your research topics, methods, and conclusions are likely to support whatever vision of society those foundations have been set up to promulgate. Because you want your grants renewed. Cowen might have contracted an outdated, romantic image of "The Scientist".
Star Larvae - The concentration of capital makes it easier to fund innovation, not harder. However, when the “system” is already in place (roads, carbon fuels, etc.), it is difficult to innovate outside of the norm (make cars, roads, fuels better) versus innovating to create new sources of transportation or new sources of energy.
It’s the economic equivalent of, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
Watching this in 2018. Sadly
I honestly am slightly baffled by this, just in 2011 we still did not understand that the current economic system is broken, and ideas like this are just peripheral to the actual problem: the middle class will vanish; if you don't have capital you will not make capital; the american dream is a myth (IN AMERICA, in countries like denmark/sweden it is still possible). This is FACTS.
+superhund14 - Unfortunately, the idea that the Scandinavian countries are a socialist utopia is not true: www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-culture-markets-and-the-failure-of-third-way-soc
+rd f While they maybe not be a utopia, they're better than our structure in the US by far for more people.
Some points on the link are funny using statistics that are vague or don't have an actual correlative value.
One in particular makes me laugh: " In Scandinavian labour markets, even immigrants with high qualifications can struggle to find suitable employment. Highly educated immigrants in Finland and Sweden have an unemployment rate over 8 percentage points higher than native-born Finns and Swedes of a similar educational background. This compares with very similar employment rates between the two groups in Anglo-Saxon countries."
As if that's a negative. Essentially, their economy doesn't need immigration or artificially cheap inauthentic comparative advantage of some stooge with the same qualifications to do the work.
Very bad mental gymnastics usually done by creationists and conspiracy theorists to downplay their successes.
@Egres Tniassiuol, making education (in the area of improving and maintaining health) more efficient, would eliminate many of the healthcare jobs too.
The real problem is that we have an uncritical evaluation of the radical materialism posited by science. Science is good at giving us more stuff - but cannot solve the socio economic problems that we face - or the existential problems of meaning and purpose. I have an advanced degree in science and have been a technology analyst my entire professional life.
Why use household income if households have been getting smaller? Why not just use per capita?
Not sure I would call it stagnation, I would call it maturity, and now we need technology and innovations to fix all the shit we broke while we were growing up.
If you want further evidence for what this guy is talking about, just look at the number of views this video has compared to one that shows a talking dog. :-P
I feel things have gotten worse since your comment. I can’t describe it well but it’s like we are constantly responding to things that happen through social media or culture wars etc.
What do you think now and what this decade holds in store in general?
Is that dog a stuffed prop?
No it's a stuffed pup
Yes how are you supposed to make invitations on something when that something is part of a bigger whole you miss out on what's actually happening and make flawed results and I would say corporate greed doesn't help
Tyler is so funny bros.
God Damnit Houser. . .
Planned obsolescence is our greatest innovation in wealth redistribution. "Video killed the radio star". Eric P. Dollard says electrical engineering died out around 1930. Light bulbs didn't go out 100 years ago. Marshal McLuhan described the invention of the automobile as creating the suburb. Etc. etc.
ikr
Internet also destroyed innovation in the way nobody tinkers anymore. Kids play games not build things. Our they learning anything.
It depends on the kid (and parents).
Another problem is the mediocrity caused by the slow drift to socialist style governments. “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” ― Benjamin Franklin
...2 years ago, this undervalued comment was made, and it rings with such incredible truth more and more each day. God bless you, sir. My name is Nate. We ought to become friends.
Things are finally getting "good enough" well water flushing toilet did like 50-80 years ago, and batteries will in next 50 years ;-), isn't that great, no more need for better and faster and more expensive iPhone each year, no more new car with better mileage every 5-10 years, once small combustion engines get to big ship diesel-like efficiencies?
Or batteries in electric car that get you over 50% of miles as same weight of gas?
well technology is at stand still of slow going or incremental. It is from fear and greed. companies want to control everything the people do and use. Innovation is hard because there are the naysayers that will shutdown new ideas based on current assumptions or personal assumptions.
Who are the "people who don't want to learn" that Cowen is referring to at 9:30?
Politicians.
Lol it's not people don't want to learn it's more like Education, such as college is too expensive and getting your MS and PhD causes debt that is too limiting. First Ted TALKS I was like causeation does not cause correlation. What a joke. He is comparing his son dropping out of high school to why we reached stagnation. If anything education and the 2 trillion dollor deficit on college graduates is the reason we reached stagnation.
We also got welfare the break down of the family . Why should people learn or invent when they don’t have to or need to.
You most certainly can get a job with a nuclear engineering degree. Energy, defense, research, etc.
No one landed on the moon.. the end
🤡
that is quite the interesting balding pattern.............
Audience of philistines unappreciative of Nixon humor :(
Dude is SO out of the loop.
-Sure, if you are expected to get a post-doc for 30 000 USD/year after, at least, after 4+1+3-6 years of studies, of course, you won't follow the scientific path.
-Also, there are a lot of scientists out there, more than ever, so the question of "number of scientists" is a weak argument. Perhaps the question, on that matter, would be related to the "kind" of scientists the Universities are graduating, with their submissive culture, and thus lack of their entrepeneur mentality.
Very weak presentation, gave me no much to reflect.
I miss Milton Friedman!!
+Ma Ga Friedman was a con artist of a economist, using his now defunct analysis of consumption.
And all what you spoke about was hyperbole dribble. "submissive culture"?
That's not even economic terminology you can use empirically to do anything with, it could mean anything.
I can see why you like Friedman.
Like if you are watching this for ecuntnomics class
Except most economics classes. Teach people how to amplify these wealth gaps and stagnation while he's teaching how it happens and how to reverse or avoid it.
When technical illiterates create mythical causes for perceived deficiencies, based upon the most moronic of premises.
Dammit Houser, we already have to sit through YOUR monotonal ill-informed lectures. WHY MORE???
Technological progress has accelerated... I don't now where he gets this from.
This guy couldn't be more wrong. Not his fault, he's an accountant and they've never invented anything useful. Unless you count stock market crashes and bailouts.
In 1973 Rov v. Wade was decided. Think of all the individual and collective brainpower that has been aborted.
exactly what I said. glorified accountant.
Give me a one example of a finance guy inventing anything useful