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I'm seeing a consistent theme of innovation through hardship. That itself is not a difficult idea whereas many of us still claim that necessity, is the mother of invention. But in this case, I'm referring to a more socially tragic phenomenon, where the story of our progress actually requires that good ideas, and the men and women who inspire them, are to expect ridicule and obscurity – only until later when the idea is revived. We then publicly celebrate the revivalist and not the originator. This seems consistent with the narrative of your ‘Sleeper Curve’ (Everything Bad is Good for You).
The path to innovation starts with a desire to know, a curiosity toward an otherwise meaningless result. Meaningless, only to most, but not to those few who would slowly build a misunderstood idea into a revolutionary technology. These ideas build from extremely humble beginnings, and are inconsistently built upon through multiple generations of tinkerers. Each tinker has a blind spot, a direction for the technology, totally clear to you and I today, but unforeseen at early stages. This is what causes the tragedy of ridicule and obscurity. Generation after generation, we're guilty of these same mistakes.
Thank you Steven (@stevenbjohnson) for coming by, this was a wonderfully enlightening discussion. I'm looking forward to your next project How We Get To Next. Please be certain to check out the PBS series to wet your appetite for this text.
