Quote:
Originally Posted by bluesdave
Don't you care about what future generations will say about us? I know we will not be around to hear the criticism, but I do not want to be tarred with that brush, thank you all the same.  |
To beat that dead horse again, America has a serious innovation problem. Mostly because America still has a bad habit 'business school' attitude that stifles innovation.
Some tributes to those who fear innovation. A paper $1 bills. The penny. A 'buy American' concept. SUVs and V-8 engines. Purpose of a business is profit. Illegal immigration creates violent crime waves and economic downturns. Man to Mars and the ISS. Cost controls on quantum physics research. Intelligent design complete with swearing on a bible to tell the truth and then lying.
The history of America is about innovation. Innovate is what every great American patriot did. Just like in the 1970s, a solution to both environmental and energy problems was the same solution. Solutions today would solve both global warming and energy problems. Money is not even mentioned.
What is fundamental to stifled innovation? Every problem was "created and stifled" or remained unsolved due to 'fear and loathing'. Same people then assume big bucks will create innovation. Because some innovations require more dollars, then more dollars will create more innovation? Of course not. That business school mentality also perverts innovation.
Same mentality also promotes hydrogen as a 'blue steel' solution. Our problems start with too many lawyers, MBAs, and communication majors believing they can create innovation - only because they feel it must be so or because throwing money at it will create a solution. Throwing money like a grenade at a problem does not create innovation. Solutions are not always expensive. But solutions are routinely stifled by too many 'experts' who don't come from where the work gets done. Those same people promote hydrogen as a 'magic bullet' solution.
Not all environmental improvements are expensive. The SUV is a classic example of something that costs so much more and yet only makes things worse. One need only learn from early 1970s when the Apple Macintosh sat stifled and unsold in a Xerox lab. A solution to worldwide productivity that would remain mostly stifled for another 20 years. Why? Top management had no grasp of what that product really was. Its value did not appear on any spread sheet. Therefore it was not innovative.
More money would not solve that problem either. My post said nothing about more money to solve the problem. Money is rarely the problem. Too often, the naive promote money as a solution.
So what happened to that $100million given to GM in 1994 to build a hybrid? Where is that hybrid?