If you want to have a polarizing conversation about the state of American innovation, you can do no better than sitting down George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen, who thinks the last 40 years of innovation have been "meh," and MIT's Andrew McAfee, who's adamant that technologically innovation is accelerating at a pace most people aren't even comprehending. That's what happened today at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
In Cowen's opening remarks, he compared the technological changes in the second half of the 20th century to those of the first half. "In 1900, most American lived in farms," he said. "By 1950, we had a fundamentally different world." If he were to introduce his grandmother to a modern American kitchen, it wouldn't be all that earth-shattering for her, he insisted. "My grandmother, who was born in 1905, spoke often about the immense changes in electricity, automobiles and household appliances," he said. "We have simply not had that many life-altering innovations since 1973."
To read the full, original article click on this link: Business - John Hudson - American Innovation: It's the Best of Times and the Worst of Times - The Atlantic
