gapingvoid.com directs us to some cool articles of late. First is a brief meditation on Bill Gates’ retirement which argues that Bill and the (ugh) “remix culture” of today have more in common than not. Bill, after all, cherry-picked the best and most innovative software made by other companies and packaged it in a consumer friendly (sometimes) format.
Next, and more interestingly, is the latest from Paul Graham, who asks, “Why Do Startups Condense in America?” (and also, what can other countries do to compete). This essay is full of great questions and observations about what makes certain places more “innovative” than others. It’s focused on the business end of things, but Graham’s points could just as easily help explain what makes one city more “interesting” than another. Example:
A state that bans chewing gum has a long way to go before it could create a San Francisco. Do you need a San Francisco? Might there not be an alternate route to innovation that goes through obedience and cooperation instead of individualism? Possibly, but I’d bet not. Most imaginative people seem to share a certain prickly independence, whenever and wherever they lived. You see it in Diogenes telling Alexander to get out of his light and two thousand years later in Feynman breaking into safes at Los Alamos. Imaginative people don’t want to follow or lead. They’re most productive when everyone gets to do what they want.
He makes another good point in his take on the state of American schools:
Those worried about America’s “competitiveness” often suggest spending more on public schools. But perhaps America’s lousy public schools have a hidden advantage. Because they’re so bad, the kids adopt an attitude of waiting for college. I did; I knew I was learning so little that I wasn’t even learning what the choices were, let alone which to choose. This is demoralizing, but it does at least make you keep an open mind.Certainly if I had to choose between bad high schools and good universities, like the US, and good high schools and bad universities, like most other industrialized countries, I’d take the US system. Better to make everyone feel like a late bloomer than a failed child prodigy.