1. You undersell the technical innovation of the tech giants. The green revolution of Borlaug was fundamentally a revolution in efficiency -- more grain from the same land. So too are the innovations of reduced transaction costs/increased competition that tech enables.
2. Innovations in materials science and shipping? I recall the supermarkets of the 1980s, my local urban market now has produce that one could at one point only get Northern California.
3. Innovations in the life sciences. Monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics, targeted kinase inhibitors, gene therapy. All these are (largely) inventions of the past 30 years. Has not solved the problem of human health, but if you have certain forms of cancer, or rheumatoid arthritis -- these are literally life saving. And, of course, we now have superb antiviral therapy against HIV
4. Even in the social sphere, there have been obvious innovations. In 1990, few out lesbian couples raising children in bourgeois circumstances. Now, at least along the coasts, this is unremarkable.
5. If we get fusion power, will that count as genuine innovation? Self-driving cars? Efficient carbon capture? The cure for Alzheimers? Or does it have to be a life-shaping ideology that wins adherents in the public square? If so I suspect we may get that in the form of racially-conscious progressivism. Which will certainly prove that some innovations are malign.
OK - Like the commenter below, I think the claim that "innovation has disappeared" is overblown. The rapid fall in the cost of renewable power generation, the mass deployment of mobile computing, mRNA vaccines - all of these are wonderful things (that may have some less than wonderful consequences). There is more to innovation than Facebook.
What's interesting to me is where this essay ends - with a call for the state to take over technology. Which is an interesting echo of Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State.
Where I would agree with Prof. Pappin is that there is more to innovation than the press releases of the FAANGs. However, the State has proved itself good at funding basic research, not so much at developing desirable consumer goods. If he wants Godly Technology then he should be preaching to the masses rather than using the State to police people's desires. Not because that is bad (although I think that it is, pesky liberal that I am) but rather that it won't work.
1. You undersell the technical innovation of the tech giants. The green revolution of Borlaug was fundamentally a revolution in efficiency -- more grain from the same land. So too are the innovations of reduced transaction costs/increased competition that tech enables.
2. Innovations in materials science and shipping? I recall the supermarkets of the 1980s, my local urban market now has produce that one could at one point only get Northern California.
3. Innovations in the life sciences. Monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics, targeted kinase inhibitors, gene therapy. All these are (largely) inventions of the past 30 years. Has not solved the problem of human health, but if you have certain forms of cancer, or rheumatoid arthritis -- these are literally life saving. And, of course, we now have superb antiviral therapy against HIV
4. Even in the social sphere, there have been obvious innovations. In 1990, few out lesbian couples raising children in bourgeois circumstances. Now, at least along the coasts, this is unremarkable.
5. If we get fusion power, will that count as genuine innovation? Self-driving cars? Efficient carbon capture? The cure for Alzheimers? Or does it have to be a life-shaping ideology that wins adherents in the public square? If so I suspect we may get that in the form of racially-conscious progressivism. Which will certainly prove that some innovations are malign.
OK - Like the commenter below, I think the claim that "innovation has disappeared" is overblown. The rapid fall in the cost of renewable power generation, the mass deployment of mobile computing, mRNA vaccines - all of these are wonderful things (that may have some less than wonderful consequences). There is more to innovation than Facebook.
What's interesting to me is where this essay ends - with a call for the state to take over technology. Which is an interesting echo of Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State.
Where I would agree with Prof. Pappin is that there is more to innovation than the press releases of the FAANGs. However, the State has proved itself good at funding basic research, not so much at developing desirable consumer goods. If he wants Godly Technology then he should be preaching to the masses rather than using the State to police people's desires. Not because that is bad (although I think that it is, pesky liberal that I am) but rather that it won't work.