Science and the Boing Boing economy
Mar. 23rd, 2007 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thepeopleseasonCory Doctorow, writer, technologist and blogger-proprietor of Boingboing.net was recently interviewed by US News and World Report about the projected downturn in American productivity. His suggestions about what we should do to turn the economy around in the long term resonate pretty well with me, given that I, myself, am something of a technology buff.
A while ago a link came up on Digg.com about a biotech company in Singapore that was able to create human embryonic stem cells without introducing living non-human tissue. In the discussion that followed, two comments stood out to me: "are we losing to Singapore?" and "How is medical advancement about winning or losing?" I've posted about the general American distrust of science previously, where I included the following quote, which I think sums up why medical advancement is about winning and losing:
We are shackled to our old ways--we are far too scared, too dumb to change our cars, our business models, our minds. The technology that American ingenuity has created will only bring us so far--if we're unwilling to continue to learn, to stay on the bleeding edge, then we will, as the commenter on Digg stated, "[lose] to Singapore" and all the other developing countries of the world.
A while ago a link came up on Digg.com about a biotech company in Singapore that was able to create human embryonic stem cells without introducing living non-human tissue. In the discussion that followed, two comments stood out to me: "are we losing to Singapore?" and "How is medical advancement about winning or losing?" I've posted about the general American distrust of science previously, where I included the following quote, which I think sums up why medical advancement is about winning and losing:
Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can't manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world.Our ignorant politics and corporate salad-tossing are eroding our competitive edge against the rapidly-modernizing third world. With the advent of the internet, countries like China and India, countries that value science as a discipline are overtaking American industries. With idiotic laws and copyright policies, the government is (at times, literally) handcuffing software companies with novel products, such as Napster. The kowtowing we do to the RIAA and MPAA will prevent companies like Last.fm and Pandora from seeing their innovative software to a profit. And the president's close-minded veto of government-funded stem cell research will only make for profits for cures created in other parts of the world.
--Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
We are shackled to our old ways--we are far too scared, too dumb to change our cars, our business models, our minds. The technology that American ingenuity has created will only bring us so far--if we're unwilling to continue to learn, to stay on the bleeding edge, then we will, as the commenter on Digg stated, "[lose] to Singapore" and all the other developing countries of the world.
