FQ.07.45: Favorite Quote for This Week

Contrary to social-science wisdom, almost no discovery, no technologies of note, came from design and planning—they were just Black Swans.  The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves.  So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill. 
—N.N. Taleb

Comments

[Bob]

I don't know where you're going with all this, Steve. Some comments:

Tom Peters coined the term "skunk works" some time ago for the tinkerers that work behind the curtain, so this is nothing new. And 3M has an entire culture of tinkerers and experimenters.

Are you suggesting that either our government or large corporations are doing too much central planning? If the former, I'm not so sure you are on the right track. If the latter, I'm in agreement they should not EXCEPT understanding the market for the business one is in is not a bad thing. I have too much experience with R&D people who think otherwise.

Luck or chance may indeed have a lot to do with new discoveries. However, intense focus on a problem can sure help it along. Edison tinkered like hell and maybe luck had a part but he was still focussed like mad on solving a problem.

[Steve]

It's just another opinion supporting the idea that a politician who thinks government should pick winning technologies and either impose or subsidize them is actually doing more harm than good. Ethanol tariffs, farm subsidies, tax breaks for wind/solar investments come to mind.

I do favor incentives for achieving broadly defined desirable results (similar to the X-prize), to encourage experimentation in directions important to national security, so my position may differ from Taleb's to that degree. We need to encourage (somehow) a lot more Edison-like experimentation.

[Bob]

Well, put that way I have been and will always be in your camp on government encouragement of selected projects especially when they solve major problems. We really need to get moving on transportation energy and leave the rocks on Mars for another day.

Sorry, I had to get in in. :)

[William]

This reminded me of Arthur Koestler's thoughts laid out in his book, The Act of Creation.

[JorgXMcKie]

Tom Peters wrote some good stuff, but he didn't coin the term 'skunk works'. The term originally came from the Al Capp cartoon strip, 'Lil Abner. The Skunk Works (or, alternatively Skonk Works) were where Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe brewed their 'Kickapoo Joy Juice'.

Lockheed Aircraft 'expropriated' the name for their super-secret research lab, where the famous Kelly Johnson and his group designed the first operational jet fighter for the Air Force (or, at that time, that US Army Air Corps, I believe). The Skunk Works officially debuted in 1943 or thereabouts.

[JorgXMcKie]

Tom Peters wrote some good stuff, but he didn't coin the term 'skunk works'. The term originally came from the Al Capp cartoon strip, 'Lil Abner. The Skunk Works (or, alternatively Skonk Works) were where Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe brewed their 'Kickapoo Joy Juice'.

Lockheed Aircraft 'expropriated' the name for their super-secret research lab, where the famous Kelly Johnson and his group designed the first operational jet fighter for the Air Force (or, at that time, that US Army Air Corps, I believe). The Skunk Works officially debuted in 1943 or thereabouts.

[A Tanatar]

This is BS. The Bomb, rocket propulsion and electricity came from a very organized and aimed effort to produce something new. Technologies, unlike some great discoveries, came as a result of a hard labour. Most great discoveries, no matter how ingenious, also came after hard labour aimed at those discoveries.

[woodchuck64]

I think the quote is right on. You can't top-down plan a solution unless you know quite a lot about the problem already, and after that it's usually just a matter of implementation (which is still no small feat). Brand new ideas can't be planned for, they seem to just happen by tinkering with old solutions.