As for technology, rather than presenting it in oppositional terms of success and failure, I prefer to explore how it changes the world around us in ways which are sometimes more, sometimes less expected. The question is, then, not whether technology works or not, but how it shapes people, things and various relations among them (again, in more or less expected ways).

Best wishes,
Tanja

I ask, because, as the history of science demonstrates, the failure of proposed innovations is more common than their success. Every scientific advance is the result of weeding out competing propositions.

In this respect, science, while a bit more disciplined, is like marketing, a subject I taught for many years. I began each class by remarking that there is only one thing we know for sure about marketing. Each year hundreds of new products will be launched. In most cases, teams of highly motivated and thoughtful people will have developed ideas for their concept, packaging, pricing, promotion and distribution. When budgets are big enough, extensive research may have been conducted. Nonetheless, we can predict with certainty that within two years at least 90% of these new products will have failed and no longer be on the market. Consider, for example, advertising for cigarettes. We may remember the Marlboro cowboy. How many other cigarette campaigns come to mind?

To those who understand natural selection in either a biological or extended sense, this should come as no surprise. An innovation is, in effect, a mutation, and most mutations are fatal. Immediate success is rare. Long term success rarer still.

Dear John,
thank you for your comment. I’m very happy to read that you enjoyed the piece! 🙂

Tanja