Is Competition Vital To Innovation?
 

So I'm having this discussion else where thought it might be worth having here.

The argument is that competition breeds innovation and with out it we wouldn't have phones, computers, gone to the moon, etc.

I disagree, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this idea.

Sounds like some bull**** people use to defend the class hierarchy of capitalism.

Sometimes.

I think it's plausible, but unlikely. Correlation does not imply causation.

Advancement begins with a conceptual idea in a field of expertise...

While I agree that competition creates the foundations by standardization, if you notice with advancement: Every time a new advancement is made, a new standardized model is thereafter released...and that this is fundamentally true with most fields from technological, to medical, to financial, to architectural, and even that unto the arts themselves (for example: Without Bach, we would not have gotten to Chopin, etc. ...)

Innovation is the result of a creative mind in a conceptual trance or focus, whereas industrialization is the aftermath of that creativity wherein new standardization is released in the format of competition.

Nobody that ever got anywhere worth noting did it out of competition. They did it out of creative ideas and conceptual thoughts within their field. For that matter, the computer scientist and doctor are just as much of artists as painters, sculptors, and musicians. It's just a different kind of art, a different expression of art.

The general public, I feel, doesn't like looking at it this way because it doesn't fit the comfortable little box of tightly-knitted feelings and societal directional paths...but if you think about it: No actual innovative path ever actually begins inside the box, because that's not how advancement happens.

Somebody creates an idea, runs that idea into the ground until it works, and the box of standardization adjusts itself accordingly as a result. Therefore: Competition is just the aftermath of innovation, not the driving cause of it.

Alexander Graham Bell developed the foundation for the telephone while experimenting with ideas to help deaf people. However, before the technology was perfect a race for the patent probably sped up the process.

Obviously this is just speculation but once the telegraph and the radio were invented the phone as we think of it now was already inevitable. However, without “competition” (quotes used because that’s a very vague word) we’d probably still be using those things with dials in 2019.

And at this point much of the technology that's most important to us is so complex that single people aren't really gonna get anywhere without cooperation, and also about phones...

It's not vital, but it speeds things along. Like the Manhattan Project. Innovation can be a result of necessity too, like food and consumption, but you could simplify it's most basic form of innovation as a competition between living and dying.

In the ad hoc sense, sure. In the realistic sense, it can but it's not a requirement.

The history of mathematics alone says otherwise. It's circumstantial at best.

Really what does math say?

Its filled with people obsessed with solving problems without competition or out of necessity.

And then there's your self-important ass.

Self-important? I don't think you know me very well.

He got to know your donkey when he was hiding in the bushes.

I see what you did there. :clap:

I'll be honest I don't remember any of these posts.

You should go watch some awesome Numberphile videos.

Who are you?

DwnWthVwls from NJ. 33/male/white privileged.

You wouldn't happen to have a sexy beard I could throw pencils at to see if they get stuck would you?

Holy **** sending you a dick pic.

That's a no. **** outta here with your pencil nonsense batboy.

EDIT: Meant for DWV but it still fits, unfortunately.

This is me. Once I get comfortable with a job I tend to find ways to innovate and fix problems or road blocks that prevent everything from running smoothly and it often times results in more work being put on my shoulders that I didn't need to do. I refuse supervisor positions though. I don't like the competition those positions breed and I feel as though a forced competition caters more towards sociopaths rather than people with skills.

Tesla wanting to provide people with free energy. He wasn't motivated to innovate out of competition. That'd be Edison and he electrocuted a puppy just to force us to pay for energy.

When it comes to phones, Idk what the person who made that example meant.

They also used the race to the moon as an example. My rebuttal was that I doubt any of the actual engineers and scientists cared about beating Russia.
If they had free reign to innovate then we'd probably be much further.

I do that too, only I *do* take the supervisor position and hold it for however long it suits my resume to hold it, and then when I leave, typically the whole roof collapses on everyone that didn't want to listen to me. I'd make a career out of doing this if that were actually possible.

I.e.: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Me: "A destroyer of worlds."
:-P

I’m thinking probably Dunning–Kruger effect