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The Law of Accelerating ReturnsEvolution applies positive feedback in that the more
capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to
create the next stage
As a result, the rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time
Web of Technology
Products are made using different parts using many technologies -
confection of ideas
"Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich
and that was it." Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992
“And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project, was, the smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back
in time you have to go” - Thomas Thwaites
The Law of Disappearing Technology
When some technique is mastered, it will “disappear” as
something obvious and trivial, and other more useful things that are
built on top of it
The Resistance Corollary
Even outdated things thatshould “disappear” don’t
due to supposed importance
Adjacent Possible
...a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of
things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself
Steven Johnson
Image source: http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HistoryPt4.htm
Vacuum tubes were used to build computers
The Second Industrial Revolution
The period 1870-1914 shaw innovations in the chemical, electric, petroleum and steel industries
Source: Wikipedia, Kondratiev Wave
Wave Years
1 First Industrial Revolution 1787–1842
2 Railroad and Steam Engine Era 1842–1897
3 Age of steel, electricity and internal combustion 1897–1939
4 War and Post-war Boom: Suburbia 1939–1982
5 Post Industrial Era: Information Technology 1982? – ??
Kontrativ Wave
The Prevailing Technology Trap
Current and dominant technology will highly influence and restrict new innovations
Two Waves of Products Development
In the first wave the product is restricted by the
prevailing technology, but in the second, there is
something new
-10.000 TODAY
The brick -7000
Navigation -4000
Cork 1695
The Safe 1844
Submarine 1775
Rubber eraser 1770
1000
The brick
The safe
Submarine
Rubber eraser
Navigation
Cork
slide rule 1624
Telescope
Ceramics
hourglass
Violin
Typewriter
Barbed wire
Telescope 1668
Violin 1548
Typewriter 1873
Barbed wire 1874
Hourglass 900
Ceramics -6000