Innovation (and the Monetary system)

There are a number of types of Innovation.
Incremental innovation, Incremental Innovation with Side Effects and Transformational Innovation.
  • Incremental innovation — Small changes which have small outcomes. Moving things closer, making things a little bit faster.
  • Incremental Innovation with Side Effects — Small changes which have a dramatic effect. e.g growing of opposable thumbs, or the internet being made fast enough to view videos.
  • Transformational Innovation — Completely re-designing the way things are done. e.g Changing from Hunter/Gathers into Farmers (agriculture and eventually civilisation), or organisms evolving out of the water and breathing air.
There will usually be a transformational change, followed by a period of incremental innovation (progressive enhancement), and eventually another transformational Innovation, and so on.
A video explaining this concept in far more detail is Douglas Merril’s talk on Innovation at Google [50mins] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GtgSkmDnbQ#t=10m11s (unfortunately not a very high quality recording, let me know if you find a better one).

What is important to note about this is how it relates to the Monetary system.
There is a Crisis of Capitalism and if you know the history of the monetary system, initially as a form of barter and trade to get around the (double) coincidence of wants, through to the current fiat based, fractional reserve lending system in use today, then you’ll be able to see that it’s now time for a transformational change to the way we distribute resources.
The best current plan for a new system is a Resource Based Economy, as suggested by Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project, and promoted by the Zeitgeist Movement. A system which promotes collaboration instead of competition, automation of jobs instead of slavery, efficient use of renewable resources and sustainable practices, and most of all, use of the scientific method for global concern.
If you want to know more about the check out The Future of Economics.

The Future of Economics – A Perspective from The Zeitgeist Movement from Ben McLeish on Vimeo.Lecture on commodity, receipt and fractional (and by extension fiat) money by Ben McLeish of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Covers automation, resource based economy, employment, technological unemployment, fractional reserve banking, and the media in the monetary system.

Recorded at a meeting with the UK arm of Humanity Plus (H+) in Birkbeck College, London.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • PDF
  • RSS
  1. This is a very relevant important result and people should be able to understand and respond to this

    • shecky
    • October 5th, 2010

    infinite growth potential in a finite space defines a black hole, not an economy. what more do i need to know than that? welcome to the suck zone.

  1. No trackbacks yet.