A world with pyramids Which would you choose— a world with pyramids, or a world without? Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises beautyevil
To know evil For to know evil, for them, was to know it not by pure intelligence by by experience. Charles Williams, The Mind of the Maker evil
If you look for the light If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see. — Uncle Iroh The Legend of Korra lightdarknessgoodnessevil
Age of Invention A Series by Anton Howes antonhowes.substack.com I’m a historian of innovation. I write mostly about the causes of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, focusing on the lives of the individual innovators who made it happen. I’m interested in everything from the exploits of sixteenth-century alchemists to the schemes of Victorian engineers. My research explores why they became innovators, and the institutions they created to promote innovation even further. Upstream, Downstream inventioninnovationhistoryindustry
Upstream, Downstream To truly increase innovation, I think we need policies focused on what goes on even further upstream, before much of the supply of new inventors is inevitably siphoned off into distractions, dead ends, and failure. Most policies inevitably have a marginal effect, but a slight expansion of the incoming swell of potential inventors can have a much greater impact than fiddling with the incentives of the few hundred who’ve already somewhat made it to the final trickle. Increase the strength of the flow upstream, and everything downstream flows the faster too. Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation innovation