there’s a stereotype of discoveries and
breakthroughs and the stereotype is at
one point you don’t know something and
then there’s a Eureka moment and then
you know something and that’s a
breakthrough
the very word itself implies some
barrier through which you pass with some
force okay otherwise we’d be walk
through instead of breakthrough but I
would claim that most discoveries or
walkthroughs not breakthroughs not
actually breaking things you sell you’ve
got that you got that let me put it
together and I have a new thing well
that’s cool did you break through
anything no no it was like a next thing
you would do with the other things that
exists on your table right now we do
occasionally have literal breakthroughs
yes but most of what we experience in
life and enjoy in life as the product of
science and technology are not
breakthroughs they’re just not there
discoveries that came next after other
discoveries enabled it you can focus on
those things that broke through but that
feeds the bias that that’s how we move
forward in the world was it a
breakthrough that someone decided to
print books small so that you can carry
them with you instead of only having to
be in a library make the jackets out of
paper instead of boards so that they’re
light it was that a breakthrough just
say that’s kind of a fun idea you know
that’s a really trivial example but it’s
the kind of example I’m talking about so
much of what we take for granted
somebody actually had to think up first
but didn’t have to break through a damn
thing to get there not everyone’s brain
is wired to think up these new
applications of what is already there or
to invent a new thing that does not
previously exist that’s a very special
subset of who walks among us as human
beings and we need them otherwise we
stall
we stagnate and if a nation does not
have such people then the nation has to
follow everybody else who does and they
dance to the tune played by other
nations who do invest in that way what I
find fun are products that get invented
and you wonder no one will ever need or
want to use that and then five years
later somebody finds a use and then you
can’t live without it
breakthroughs and the stereotype is at
one point you don’t know something and
then there’s a Eureka moment and then
you know something and that’s a
breakthrough
the very word itself implies some
barrier through which you pass with some
force okay otherwise we’d be walk
through instead of breakthrough but I
would claim that most discoveries or
walkthroughs not breakthroughs not
actually breaking things you sell you’ve
got that you got that let me put it
together and I have a new thing well
that’s cool did you break through
anything no no it was like a next thing
you would do with the other things that
exists on your table right now we do
occasionally have literal breakthroughs
yes but most of what we experience in
life and enjoy in life as the product of
science and technology are not
breakthroughs they’re just not there
discoveries that came next after other
discoveries enabled it you can focus on
those things that broke through but that
feeds the bias that that’s how we move
forward in the world was it a
breakthrough that someone decided to
print books small so that you can carry
them with you instead of only having to
be in a library make the jackets out of
paper instead of boards so that they’re
light it was that a breakthrough just
say that’s kind of a fun idea you know
that’s a really trivial example but it’s
the kind of example I’m talking about so
much of what we take for granted
somebody actually had to think up first
but didn’t have to break through a damn
thing to get there not everyone’s brain
is wired to think up these new
applications of what is already there or
to invent a new thing that does not
previously exist that’s a very special
subset of who walks among us as human
beings and we need them otherwise we
stall
we stagnate and if a nation does not
have such people then the nation has to
follow everybody else who does and they
dance to the tune played by other
nations who do invest in that way what I
find fun are products that get invented
and you wonder no one will ever need or
want to use that and then five years
later somebody finds a use and then you
can’t live without it
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