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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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But seriously why innovate? Great inventors and innovators are often described as crazy or mad because the risk of failing when creating something new far outways the chance of success. Most people choose to stick with something that works that has a guarantee of some success rather than risk it all on something new.
Innovation isn't an all or nothing thing, you don't need to "risk it all on something new". Unless it's huge leap in an unknown direction
Some of us have an insatiable need to create stuff and for those of us who are less that great at things like drawing, music, sculpture and more in general art (hehe!) that need ends up channelled into inventing stuff that "ticks", be it software or gadgets.
The problem is not lack of innovators, the problem is that nowadays you have to somehow monetise innovation because it needs to pay for your life, which in the rentier economy we have nowadays costs a lot (especially because of the ridiculous prices for housing) or you have to spend most of your time working for somebody else to get the money you need to survive, and the work culture in certain areas (like software development) eats more and more of your personal time so there is no personal time or energy left to indulge in scratring your own innovation itch.
(From what I've seen the same kind of thing is happenning in the arts side of things: in some places you either accept you have to be poor for the sake of Art, or you give up on the whole thing unless you can come from well-off families who will sustain you "until your career takes off". For example in the modern UK pretty much no new actor or actrice comes from a social class below the high middle class, which didn't use to be the case for example when Michael Caine was starting his career).
It's not lack of boredom that's killing innovation (including innovative new stuff in the creative arts), it's lack of time because unless you're born in the Owner Class, you have to spend most of your time running on the Owner Classe's treadmills to pay the Owner Class for a place to live and for life's essentials.