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March 13, 2017

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odeboyz

"I'd not be able to find the time to write it (my most brilliant book) or find a publisher."

Did you forget your book' The End of Politics' which is sitting on my bookshelf?

aragon

Well you will read the FT :)

People engaging in enhancing their abilities with chemical's etc is nothing new nor relevant to creativity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/style/microdosing-lsd-ayelet-waldman-michael-chabon-marriage.html?_r=1

"Since then, microdosing has been embraced by a subculture of boundary-pushing (and law-flouting) career-minded people as something of an illicit, chemical form of yoga — an alternative health regimen intended to bring mental balance, as well as enhance productivity."

Capitalism's problem is an excess of rent seeking. Not innovation.

Innovation is still happening...
MIT has an annual list of 10 breakthrough technologies, including Quantum Computers.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603495/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-practical-quantum-computers/

"Eventually, expect 100,000-qubit systems, which will disrupt the materials, chemistry, and drug industries by making accurate molecular-scale models possible for the discovery of new materials and drugs. And a million-physical-qubit system, whose general computing applications are still difficult to even fathom? It’s conceivable, says Neven, "on the inside of 10 years.""

Innovation benefits mankind, and should be undertaken buy the state which has interests outside the monopoly control of markets.

Henri Rouquier

«Such activities seem to me to completely mischaracterise the creative process, especially under capitalism.»
And "capitalism" being a Marxist ideology, think of the creative process, "especially" under a constitutional democracy.

Abdullah

I've never written a good ad on any kind of drugs, smart or not, and nor has anyone I know. But I have had good insights through the process of obliquity although there's less time for it nowadays.

Blissex

Pretty nice arguments throughout, as "innovation" matters only when it is valuable, and what's valuable is indeed a matter of incremental change and experimentation.

The people who try to enhance themselves into higher performance are perhaps victims of the aynrandian propaganda of their own class that all wealth is created by superior heroes.
While the economic systems of countries like Korea or Germany or Singapore of Japan are based on training everybody to improve a bit.

BTW there is an interesting book making the argument that people have been self-medicating with alcohol, books, coffee for a long time, and that it may not be coincidental that widespread coffee use and industrial capitalism happened roughly at the same time.

Just found this amusing link on the same topic:
https://redflag.org.au/article/global-grind-capitalism-through-coffee

Bonnemort

I suppose Richard Branson's more well-known, but the most impressive example of birthing without doing is surely Theranos. Apparently a black polo-neck won't make you the new Steve Jobs.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/06/theranos-lab-closures-walgreens-centers-layoffs-elizabeth-holmes

SJB

Unions gave us a shorter work week. Capitalists only "permitted" it because of the activism of the CIO in the 1930's, along with FDR using that worry along with the threat of communism (with Russia being a viable example) to push them into allowing unions. After that, WWII, the post war boom and active enforcement of labor rights kept the unions strong, until starting in the 1970's, capitalists began to take power back using trade, weakening of labor and antitrust enforcement, and ever-increasing lobbying, among other tactics, to destroy unions and their influence. Now we in the US work harder than in any other industrialized country.

I'd say capitalists are pretty creative at taking advantage of the rest of society. Just like the powerful do in all hierarchical societies, with or without technology or capital.

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