pages tagged innovationENETDOWNhttp://enetdown.org//tag/innovation/ENETDOWNikiwiki2012-11-11T02:32:06ZWhy We Can't Solve Big Problemshttp://enetdown.org//outgoing/posts/2012/11/10/why_we_cant_solve_big_problems/zaki2012-11-11T02:32:06Z2012-11-10T02:04:48Z
<p><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/2012/11/"><img src="http://enetdown.org//outgoing/posts/2012/11/10/why_we_cant_solve_big_problems/400x-mit-tr_nov-2012_cover.png" width="400" height="516" alt="Cover of MIT Technology Review's November 2012 issue" class="img" /></a></p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429690/why-we-cant-solve-big-problems/">Why We Can't Solve Big Problems - MIT Technology Review</a></p>
<p>The article that is featured on MIT TR's cover for this month very much aligns
with my thinking about innovation. We are not innovating at the level that
humanity did in the not-so-distant past. We are working on short-term ideas
that are only incrementally better than what was available previously rather
than creating solutions that transform society. The major problems that
humanity faces are widely acknowledged, but nobody is solving them adequately.
The article argues that the reason we are not solving these large problems is
because society both lacks the environment needed to develop and test ideas for
these hard problems and we are using the wrong tools to solve problems.
Furthermore, the challenges we face now are different from the ones in the past
and require theoretical underpinnings that we are still developing — in
short, these problems are much more complex.</p>
<p>One interesting idea that I took from the article is that not all problems are
technological in nature — specifically the example given about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen">Amartya Sen
</a>'s work which states that the cause
of famine is not from an actual shortage in the food supply, but a problem with
food <em>distribution</em> which is more likely caused by economic or political
reasons rather than simply agricultural inefficiency.</p>
<p>In other news, I just found out that the magazine had decided to go
<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428072/technology-review-goes-digital-first/">digital
first</a>
in June.</p>