Academics - Why summarize your theory in 5 minutes when you can spend an hour rambling on about it. BTW - This was HARD to listen to.
Snapshot: Innovation within a society is driven by that society's ability to attain the proper level of diversity and social cohesion for that time period. Currently, America has the optimal level of diversity and social cohesion and that is why it leads the world in innovation. Societies with a high level of diversity but that are not highly innovative need to develop tolerance for their diversity and stress social cohesion so they can realize the benefits of that diversity through increased innovation. Societies with strong social cohesion but that lack diversity, need to become more diverse in order to become more innovative. There was almost zero discussion supporting this conclusion.
Oded talked about the importance of geography, which he later seemed to question, the lack of earlier innovation's ability to increase average income per person within innovative societies, the impacts of agrarian societies on their peoples' cognitive function, a sketchy definition of diversity (when asked to define it), examples of diversity that seemed to equate it with ethnicity, blah, blah, blah.
He seemed to focus on the importance of economic systems (capitalism vs. centrally planned) and political systems and such but then seemed to ignore all of that when claiming diversity and social cohesion were the central tenants of innovation today. I would rather he start with his conclusion and then support it throughout the discussion but alas, that was not to be.
Academics - Why summarize your theory in 5 minutes when you can spend an hour rambling on about it. BTW - This was HARD to listen to.
Snapshot: Innovation within a society is driven by that society's ability to attain the proper level of diversity and social cohesion for that time period. Currently, America has the optimal level of diversity and social cohesion and that is why it leads the world in innovation. Societies with a high level of diversity but that are not highly innovative need to develop tolerance for their diversity and stress social cohesion so they can realize the benefits of that diversity through increased innovation. Societies with strong social cohesion but that lack diversity, need to become more diverse in order to become more innovative. There was almost zero discussion supporting this conclusion.
Oded talked about the importance of geography, which he later seemed to question, the lack of earlier innovation's ability to increase average income per person within innovative societies, the impacts of agrarian societies on their peoples' cognitive function, a sketchy definition of diversity (when asked to define it), examples of diversity that seemed to equate it with ethnicity, blah, blah, blah.
He seemed to focus on the importance of economic systems (capitalism vs. centrally planned) and political systems and such but then seemed to ignore all of that when claiming diversity and social cohesion were the central tenants of innovation today. I would rather he start with his conclusion and then support it throughout the discussion but alas, that was not to be.