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Jan 16 2007 Soc and Info Tech course transcript

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 9 months ago

Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, January 9 - July 30, 2008, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET

on Berkman island in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/114/70/25

Course homepage - socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

 

 Jan 16 2008 Soc and Info Tech course transcript

 

 

[16:04]  You: This evening, we'll examine first the genetic engineering revolution

[16:05]  You: as part of information technology and the network society.

[16:05]  You: And although it's not a specific focus of this course, genetic engineering is integral to the IT revolution.

[16:06]  Geda Hax is Online

[16:06]  You: And will articulate more and more in the future, with waht emerged from the microprocessor, telecommunications, and computing.

[16:07]  You: We'll wait a little bit longer, for other folks. I just saw Geda, for example, come in world.

[16:08]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Geda

[16:08]  You: Hello Geda

[16:08]  Geda Hax: Hi there Guys

[16:08]  Andromeda Mesmer: Hi Geda

[16:08]  Geda Hax: thanks a

[16:08]  kiss sender: Geda Hax thanks Andromeda Mesmer many times over!

[16:08]  kiss sender: Geda Hax thanks Aphilo Aarde many times over!

[16:08]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Geda

[16:08]  Geda Hax: oh man , how annoying

[16:08]  You: This evenin, we'll examine first the genetic engineering revolution as part of information technology and the network society.

[16:08]  Geda Hax: is this mistytool ...

[16:09]  You: So genetic engineering's scientific base

[16:09]  You: starts with Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA

[16:10]  You: which is the information code of all living matter, all known forms of life.

[16:10]  You: in 1953

[16:10]  You: And in 1973, scientists became able to manipualte code

[16:11]  You: This occurred in the Bay Area at Stanford with Paul Burke and at UCSF with Cohen and Bayer.

[16:11]  You: They found recombinant DNA, - t which makes possible ggene splicing

[16:12]  You: In 1975, Harvard isolated the first gene for mammalia.

[16:12]  You: IN 1979, the first human gene was cloned.

[16:12]  You: And in 1988, Harvard patented the first living form!

[16:12]  You: It was a genetically engineered mouse.

[16:12]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[16:12]  You: Harvard thus had a copyright on life.

[16:13]  You: (ONe woman around this time patented herself)

[16:13]  You: And in 1990, a major research program was conceived - the Human Genome Program.

[16:13]  You: ... which is the mapping of the entire sequence of genes and their location.

[16:14]  You: The scientists in this project wanted to complete it by 2005

[16:14]  You: Both a private company and the government did two parallel projects.

[16:14]  You: And they finished by the summer of 1999.

[16:14]  You: Why so fast?

[16:15]  You: Because of the convergence between computing power and genetic engineering.

[16:15]  You: This allowed them to go 50% faster in manipulating plants, animals, and organisms.

[16:15]  You: And in 1997, Dolly the sheep, in Scotland, was cloned - spectacular, but not a big deal.

[16:16]  You: It's much more difficult to learn how to use stem cells, which are cells that produce other cells.

[16:16]  You: And in 1999, the first stem cells were cloned.

[16:16]  You: Science fiction is off the mark.

[16:17]  You: ... about cloning people

[16:17]  You: It won't happen, I think.

[16:17]  You: 1) for ethical and legal reasons

[16:17]  You: and 2) what for? There isn't a use.

[16:18]  You: The notion of cloning is ridiculous because everyone and species evolves its environment.

[16:18]  Andromeda Mesmer: Well, if somebody's kid died young, the parents might want a twin ...

[16:18]  You: And one doesn't need to clone whole persons.

[16:18]  Boston Hutchinson: I think at least a few people might like cloning as a method of reproduction, in the case of infertility, for example.

[16:18]  You: That potential, A, if ever possible, due to the above considerations, is a long time int he future, I think.

[16:19]  Luna Bliss is Offline

[16:19]  You: Perhaps, Boston.

[16:19]  You: We'll see when it happens.

[16:19]  You: But genetic engineering has led to the reengineering of medicine

[16:20]  You: The reprogramming of stem cells - the ability for example toregenerate new blood vessels, is now possible.

[16:20]  You: and it's possible to repair blood vessels damaged - like in heart, liver kidneys.

[16:20]  You: And cloning muscle is now legal.

[16:21]  You: And it's already possible to use genetic material in people's bodies.

[16:21]  You: But the Olympics, ofr one, doesn't allow it.

[16:21]  You: Adn there's a double development here.

[16:22]  You: Microeletronics and Genetics are convergent, through the ability to use biology and electronics within living matter.

[16:22]  You: This convergence has allowed us to enter a world

[16:22]  Arawn Spitteler is Online

[16:22]  Breen Mathy is Offline

[16:23]  Andromeda Mesmer: In the news just yesterday -- a monkey making a robot walk through teleconnection.

[16:23]  You: which is constantly processed by multiple sensors linking everywher with everywhere, where sensors in our body connect with the internet, for example.

[16:24]  You: Yes, A. So information technology is now inside, around, and an interconnected networking system powered by the Internet.

[16:24]  You: And we'll examine next where, how, and by whom.

[16:24]  Breen Mathy is Online

[16:25]  You: So the Technology revolution, to conclude last week and what we've talked about this week

[16:26]  You: originated in one area, in institutions there, by innovators, and businesses in this area, and then diffused through the world.

[16:26]  You: But it has diffused differentailly.

[16:26]  You: And they empower places that are early adopters, and disadvantage those that did not.

[16:26]  You: And in this revoultion,

[16:27]  You: the inteital clustering that became interactive as a system occurred int he 1970s

[16:27]  You: with the microprocessor in 1971

[16:27]  You: And digital switches in the early 1970s

[16:27]  You: And optical transmission in the mid 1970s

[16:27]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[16:28]  You: And the PC in the mid 1970s

[16:28]  You: And genetic recombinants from 1973-75.

[16:28]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[16:28]  You: And technology breakthroughs affect each other and became one system.

[16:28]  Breen Mathy is Offline

[16:29]  You: And in the SF Bay Area, for the computer,

[16:29]  You: and microelectronics, Silicon Valley was key., as was TExax with TExas Instruments.

[16:29]  You: MIT in Boston was also key in the 70s.

[16:30]  You: So now let's examine the how this IT revolution developed.

[16:30]  You: Tese changes have considerable implications for what's ahead.

[16:31]  You: And the method I'm going to use will involve telling a story of innovations, then an analysyis of this story, and then an examination of the factors

[16:31]  You: So what was the raw material in this revolution?

[16:32]  You: In the industrail revolution, it was iron, coals, etc.

[16:32]  Andromeda Mesmer: brain cells?

[16:32]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[16:32]  You: And in this revolution, it is not silicon, not talent, not laser . . . yes, in a way, A

[16:32]  You: The most important raw material is information / knowledge

[16:33]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[16:33]  You: And that's the exact charateristci of this revolution.

[16:33]  You: Here knowledge is value.

[16:33]  You: Where is knowledge? Sometiems in Universities, sometimes in research labs.

[16:34]  You: It's in scientists.

[16:34]  You: Knowledge is generated by human minds and bodies.

[16:34]  You: So here, human minds are the critical source of value.

[16:34]  You: And that's the founding concept of this entire course.

[16:35]  You: The founding discovery is the transistor, in 1947, inBell Labs in NJ

[16:35]  You: 3 people did it, and it led to a Nobel - Shockley, ardeen and Bratain.

[16:35]  You: *Bardeen

[16:36]  You: Shockley was the leader of the team

[16:36]  You: He saw extraordinary possibilitis in the transistor

[16:36]  You: and created a whole network of scientists at Bell.

[16:36]  You: But Bell Labs could not take advantatage of it.

[16:36]  You: They were a telecommunications monopoly.

[16:37]  You: And they couldn't go into another business, due to antitrust regulations.

[16:37]  You: Otehr businesses had to pick it up, but businesses were not interested.

[16:37]  You: What would they do with it?

[16:37]  You: So Shockeley tried to create his own lab.

[16:38]  You: RCA and RAytheon, two companies at the time, said no

[16:38]  You: Vacuum tubes were enough.

[16:38]  You: Otehr possibilities:

[16:38]  You: Shockley went ot Palo Alto ecause his mother was there.

[16:38]  You: He was depressed.

[16:39]  You: He had a Nobel and nothing to do with his innovation.

[16:39]  You: He LATER became a Stanford professor.

[16:39]  You: And Beckman Labs - a midsize company - siad that this thing sounds interesting.

[16:40]  You: And so the head of Beckman helped Shockley start a conductors business.

[16:40]  You: He could do that because a whole network of Palo Alto electrnoic companies was forming.

[16:41]  You: And because Stanford was supporting entrepreneuiral companies, and Shockley had an entrpreneurial attitude.

[16:41]  You: All of these developments were accidental!

[16:41]  You: And that's characteristic of the Information TEchnology revolution.

[16:42]  You: More actors are necessary for this story.

[16:42]  You: A man named Terman, a graduate student in the 1920s, wanted a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

[16:42]  You: He had gone to MIT, had a Ph.D. worked there, got tuberculoisis, and went back to California.

[16:42]  You: He decided to take a position at Stanford, and later became Dean.

[16:43]  Arawn Spitteler is Offline

[16:43]  You: He was not a great researcher or engineer but could identify great minds.

[16:43]  You: At the time, he was experimenting on radar technologies leading to electronics.

[16:44]  You: And was asked why 2 engineers in Silicon Valley, didn't make something practical.

[16:45]  You: Terman took $700 dollars from his own pocket and gave this money to Hewlett and Packard to start a company.

[16:45]  You: WWII started, and the devices that Hewlett and Packard were working on - oscillators - became very valuable.

[16:45]  You: They sold millions to defense.

[16:46]  You: And fater the war, HP was very established.

[16:46]  You: And Terman became provost of Stanford.

[16:46]  You: And this case could become amplified.

[16:46]  You: Many companies followed this 'model'

[16:47]  You: TErman convinced Stanford to use assets they had - land - to start companies.

[16:47]  You: And in 1951, Stanford University started the Stanford Industrial Park

[16:47]  Patrio Graysmark is Online

[16:47]  You: And this had access to faculty and students.

[16:48]  You: Any company had to be approved by Stanford

[16:48]  You: And they provided a long temr lease to companies.

[16:48]  You: Terman convinced established companies to the first tenants, for example, Hewlett Packard.

[16:48]  Patrio Graysmark is Offline

[16:49]  You: And during the 1950s, under the initiaive of Stanford, a cluster of innovative companeis around Stanford started.

[16:49]  You: Here comes Shockley.

[16:49]  You: This cluster was not up to the level of east coast companies.

[16:50]  You: Shockely decided to go into Microelectronics.

[16:50]  You: ...and brought with him the best minds from Bell - the RAW MATERIALS - of this IT revolution.

[16:50]  You: They were 8 youg engineers

[16:50]  You: 6 came from Bell, and 2 from other companies

[16:51]  You: They wanted to work with Shockley

[16:51]  SamBivalent Spork is Offline

[16:51]  You: 1 was Bob Noyce - who worked on integrated circuits with Intel.

[16:51]  Patrio Graysmark is Online

[16:51]  You: Shockley's company failed. He was a genius but a horrible person.

[16:52]  You: And he bacme a prominent professor.

[16:52]  Bruce Flyer is Online

[16:52]  You: (For example, he tried to demonstrate the biological inferiority of women and African Americans).

[16:52]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Bruce

[16:52]  You: But he was a genious, and stubborn, and he wanted to work on microcircuits, but not in silicon

[16:52]  You: Hi Bruce.

[16:53]  Bruce Flyer: Hi Boston, all

[16:53]  You: Shockley wanted to work on microcircuits in the 1950s in gallium arsenide.

[16:53]  Andromeda Mesmer: Should amplify on that "horrible person" more -- it was so bad that at his funeral, his two sons did not attend, and it was a private funeral because apparently very few people would have come -- genius, but ... jealous, mean ...

[16:54]  You: And young engineers that were working with him wanted to work in Silicon.

[16:54]  You: thanks, a

[16:54]  You: Hi Josh

[16:54]  Josh1 Sands: hi

[16:54]  Josh1 Sands: going to sandbox

[16:54]  You: So the 8 engineers left Shockley Semiconductor

[16:54]  You: and the company became an empty shell.

[16:55]  You: And Shockley became a professor at Stanford.

[16:55]  You: He invented microelectronics, and migrated knowledge to Silicon Valley.

[16:55]  You: And these 8 young engineers started fairchild semiconductors

[16:56]  You: And each later split, and created his own company.

[16:56]  You: And Fairchild led to Intel, AMD, etc.

[16:56]  You: In all 140 companies were spun off!

[16:56]  You: AMAZING

[16:56]  You: In 1959 integrated circuits were invented.

[16:56]  You: And the Defense department made up 50% of the market.

[16:57]  You: And research programs for microelectronics developed.

[16:57]  You: And in 1957, something else happened -

[16:58]  You: Sputnik was launched.

[16:58]  You: This was the first satellite circling the earth.

[16:58]  You: And it represented the vackward Soviet system overtaking Americans in a space race.

[16:59]  You: And the Defense Department responded with money for technology.

[16:59]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Offline

[16:59]  You: And in 1959, there was a race to the moon -

[16:59]  You: And after these extraordinary events, the military got very involved with technology.

[17:00]  You: So, to review - you have microelectronics, computers, and telecommunications on the one hand

[17:00]  You: AND

[17:00]  You: genetic engineering on the other.

[17:01]  You: So let's return again to genetic engineering in ten minutes.

[17:01]  You: I'll post the transcript thus far to http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com - so folks might review it, if wanted . . .

[17:01]  You: See you in 10 minutess.

[17:03]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[17:03]  Andromeda Mesmer: OK. I will relog, clear cache.

[17:03]  Geda Hax: ok A

[17:03]  Bruce Flyer: My avatar visited New York yesterday, i think

[17:03]  Bruce Flyer: http://www.robertcat.net/myvideo/bruceflyeratsubway.html

[17:04]  Geda Hax: checking the link

[17:04]  Andromeda Mesmer is Offline

[17:04]  Geda Hax: thanks for it Bruce

[17:04]  Bruce Flyer: :-)

[17:04]  Geda Hax: aha a subway

[17:04]  Bruce Flyer: my avatar likes to eat

[17:04]  Geda Hax: hehe

[17:04]  Geda Hax: have you been to startbucks ?

[17:04]  Geda Hax: here in sl

[17:04]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[17:04]  Geda Hax: its a nice place for some chatting with friends

[17:05]  Bruce Flyer: it is inside a cube with real photographs on all six interior surfaces

[17:05]  Geda Hax: cool

[17:05]  Bruce Flyer: is it Startbucks?

[17:05]  Geda Hax: there are soo many interesting places in sl

[17:05]  Geda Hax: startbucks

[17:06]  Geda Hax: the coffee place ?!

[17:06]  Bruce Flyer: i still feel i have very little knowledge about SL

[17:06]  Geda Hax: oh so I might send you a note card with interesting places to visit

[17:06]  Bruce Flyer: i would like that Geda

[17:06]  Andromeda Mesmer is Online

[17:06]  Geda Hax: sure , let me spot it

[17:07]  Geda Hax: my inventory is wild

[17:07]  Bruce Flyer: LOL

[17:07]  Geda Hax: hehe .. it is

[17:07]  Geda Hax: I have over 35k items

[17:07]  Bruce Flyer: i have one shirt here

[17:08]  Bruce Flyer: :-)

[17:08]  Geda Hax: :)

[17:08]  Geda Hax: well you know girls

[17:09]  Geda Hax: only

[17:09]  Geda Hax: sure I really use 20% of all

[17:10]  Bruce Flyer: brb

[17:11]  You: Hi

[17:11]  You: I've posted the first half of the transcript

[17:11]  Geda Hax: Hi Ap , wb

[17:12]  You: Thx

[17:12]  You: I'll check out your link later.

[17:12]  You: Is Andromeda back

[17:13]  Andromeda Mesmer: :0

[17:13]  You: So genetic engineering started in hospitals in 1953

[17:13]  You: and it became a technology when UCSF and Stanford experimented with splicing.

[17:14]  You: So . . . to synthesize broadly again.

[17:15]  You: Culture is very imporant in the information tech rev because it influenced the thinking about waht to do with it.

[17:15]  You: And this culture was

[17:15]  You: 1) decentralized

[17:15]  You: 2) it made things micro

[17:15]  You: And 3) it opened up source code and processes to the public.

[17:16]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[17:16]  You: This was entireley different from IBM and AT&T

[17:16]  Connected

[17:16]  Bruce Flyer: networks vs hierarchies?

[17:17]  You: But the most extraordinary events in the technology revolution emerged from the following three processes

[17:17]  You: Let me explain Bruce

[17:17]  You: 1) the entrepreneurial attitude, that partly emerged from Stanford University was very signficant.

[17:18]  You: 20 that technology migrated from major research centers, then the military became involved

[17:18]  Chinadoll Lulu is Online

[17:18]  You: and 3) the cultural revolution from the countercultual.

[17:19]  You: So, now to be analytical and sytematic

[17:19]  You: What created Silicon Valley as the site of this revolution?

[17:19]  You: !. All regional economies are based on

[17:19]  You: 1. Raw materials

[17:19]  You: 2. Capital

[17:19]  You: and 3. Labor

[17:20]  You: And what was specific to S.V. were specific forms of raw materials.

[17:21]  You: ...namely knowledge and information generating capacity, that, while not exactly emerging from Universities, did come from Bell Labs, and then diffused.

[17:21]  You: 2. Labor

[17:22]  You: Labor here was highly skilled - it was technical and scientific labor, emerging in large part, from Stanford and Berkeley, with market origins.

[17:22]  You: (And Stanford, Maryland, DC, Virginia and Harvard were all major centers for gene splicing).

[17:23]  You: Another key aspect was the cultural develoments taking palce in Silicon Vallyey.

[17:23]  You: ...namely, the ability to innovate by thinking new applicaitons that weren't there before.

[17:24]  You: And this came directly from 1960s cultures.

[17:24]  You: this included thinking differently and rebellion against the establishment, for example

[17:24]  You: These people didn't want a revolution, they wanted their revolution.

[17:25]  You: And culture was extermely important, especially in the SF Bay Area, where alternative forms of computing, linked to the PC, emerged.

[17:25]  Chinadoll Lulu is Offline

[17:25]  You: This comptuer taht was orignially called the microcomputer, cam direclty from the Homebrew Computer Club in Sausalite, Menlo Park and San francisco.

[17:26]  You: And people part of the Homebrew Comptuer club were finding codes that computers worked on - and

[17:26]  You: they created a whole world around new languages.

[17:27]  You: Countercultural scientists like Stweart Brand, and the Whole Earth Cataloghelpfed bring the counterculture to the public

[17:27]  You: and became the bridge between society and counterculture.

[17:28]  You: So, producing Ph.D.s became part of University poicy.

[17:28]  You: In the 1950s, Berkely and Stanford produced less than 1/2 the Ph.ds that Harvard and MIT produced.

[17:29]  You: Then Stanford decided to fund engineering and Berkeley got money from the State.

[17:29]  You: And int he 1960s, Stanford and Berkeley produced 4 x as many PH.D.s as Harvard and MIT in computer scinece related fields.

[17:30]  You: There was a deliberate government policy to support the production of knowledge, in the form of Ph.D.s

[17:30]  You: So the technology revolution became a business investment.

[17:31]  You: 3. Capital

[17:31]  You: There was big problem here

[17:31]  You: These businesses - semiconductors,etc. - were RISKY

[17:32]  You: becasue they invloved trying something new.

[17:32]  You: These innovators and companies had to be stubborna nd keep trying.

[17:32]  You: And a startup failed on average 7 times.

[17:32]  You: So venture capitalists liked to give money to failures.

[17:33]  You: In the 1960s, when the technology revolution was about to explore, no capital was available.

[17:33]  Whitelight Christiansen is Online

[17:33]  You: And two kinds of special capital developed.

[17:33]  You: - Capital that was desgned to be lost and capital that was speculative.

[17:34]  You: So, who can give moey and never EVER expect a return?

[17:34]  You: Who can do that?

[17:34]  You: The government.

[17:34]  You: But why? (international pride and competition?)

[17:35]  Bruce Flyer: reelection

[17:35]  You: No, - the governemnt expects a return down the line. And it does come back.

[17:35]  You: :)

[17:35]  You: (military funding for one, seems to proceed without regard to elections).

[17:35]  Kid Kuhn is Offline

[17:36]  You: It's the part of the governemt that doesn't care about cost, only performance - MILITARY INVESTMENT

[17:36]  You: When you have to survive, you don't count money.

[17:36]  You: What made Silicon Vallye original

[17:36]  Andromeda Mesmer: Well, some of the politicians wind up on boards of directors of defense corporations -- a significant source of income for them after they leave -- also work as lobbyists.

[17:37]  Bruce Flyer: it is easier to sell defense than going to Mars

[17:37]  You: was unlimted

[17:37]  You: funds from the miliatary.

[17:37]  You: Companies couldn't fail.

[17:37]  You: If finally you got the right chip, you get military superiority.

[17:37]  You: And it wokred out exactly that way.

[17:38]  Andromeda Mesmer: temporary superiority -- the process keeps going.

[17:38]  You: And 20 years later, the U.S. outperformed the Soviet Union completely by 1984.

[17:38]  Bruce Flyer: the suicide bomber is a symbol of the nontech response to technology

[17:39]  You: Hi Whiteloight - transcript from the first half of the class is here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com and here

[17:39]  You: http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com/Jan-16-2007-Soc-and-Info-Tech-course-transcript

[17:39]  Chinadoll Lulu is Online

[17:39]  You: Yes, A - many politicans cycle on and off of boards.

[17:40]  You: and defense has a very long history, compared with space projects.

[17:40]  You: Bruce

[17:40]  You: And the process goes on and on . . .

[17:41]  You: Yes, Bruce - there are lotsof people frustraited by these processess.

[17:41]  Boston Hutchinson: I thin government funding of academic research dried up in the 70s. The government didn't want to fund the counterculture around universities, and looked to "privatize" military and space research.

[17:42]  You: So you had a purely military startegy that developed in the 1970s - and all the money taht went into technology paid off.

[17:42]  You: The second source of capital - money you are ready to lose took shape

[17:42]  You: because when you win, you win really, really big.

[17:43]  You: And since these developments in the 1970s, venture capitalists in the 1990s have increased best by a factor of seven, counting potetnial losses.

[17:43]  You: The reward cam a little bit later.

[17:43]  You: When indsutry developed, people from the industry became rich.

[17:44]  You: Venture capital money came originally from inside industry.

[17:44]  You: They started to work with other established firms

[17:44]  Sysku Mayo is Online

[17:45]  You: So these special kinds of raw material -

[17:45]  You: capital, and labor

[17:46]  You: were concentrated in one area - the SF Bay ARea

[17:46]  You: And something else as a consequence arose.

[17:46]  You: taht Saxenian's "Regional Advantage" characterizeds

[17:46]  You: She's a UC Berkeley Professor

[17:47]  You: And in this book, she compared Boston and the Silicon Valley areas, and showed how in the 1960s and 70s, Boston was far ahead

[17:47]  You: in microelectronicis, computers, telecommunications and networking technologies.

[17:48]  You: And then Silicon Valley and the SF Bay Area caught up

 

 

Connection lost . . .

 

[17:59]  You: are there questions?

[18:00]  You: We've also been talking a lot about the Network Society side of things. At a later date in this course I'd also like to talk about identity quetions.

[18:00]  Andromeda Mesmer: No - no questions so far. Just thinking of possibilities.

[18:01]  You: For example, A?

[18:01]  You: (it looks like the connection stopped at 10 before the hour).

[18:01]  You: I'll post the transcript through then.

[18:02]  You: I see you have voice, as do Boston, Bruce.

[18:02]  Andromeda Mesmer: The way that important and ground-breaking research used to be conducted mainly in the US, and how it is being done in Europe again -- but also in counries all around the world -- for example the Chinese are building world-class universities.

[18:02]  Bruce Flyer: i am concerned about some of our universities

[18:02]  Andromeda Mesmer: I have also been told repeatedly China is run by engineers or people educated in technical fields -- instead of lawyers. I wonder what effect that has ...

[18:03]  You: Why does innovation occur in specifc geographies at dfferent times.

[18:03]  Andromeda Mesmer: It gets encouraged, and researchers have a high status?

[18:03]  Andromeda Mesmer: Looked up to by the public?

[18:03]  You: In the IT revolution, you had counterculture, which contributed to thinking differntly - key in this revolution, and you hlso had unlimted resources form the military.

[18:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Politics, culture, capital?--they've all been involved in the ebb and flow of innovation here.

[18:04]  Eshi Otawara is Offline

[18:04]  You: And the point of this course is that these conditions lead to governments producing knowledge workers, and Ph.D.s, a dramatic first on this scale in history.

[18:04]  You: Yes, and this one is on an unprecedented scope and scale.

[18:04]  Eshi Otawara is Online

[18:05]  You: And the hacker culture roots, which run deep, are still very much part of it, and will lead to ongoing innvoations.

[18:05]  You: We'll talk about them later.

[18:05]  Boston Hutchinson: It seemed to me that there were big cuts in the budgets at MIT in the 70s, especially the Regan era.

[18:06]  Boston Hutchinson: I wonder if that was the case at Stanford and Berkley also?

[18:06]  You: And the synergies that arose organically in Silicon valley are also significant, around networking, due to these new technologies.

[18:06]  Bruce Flyer: as knowledge grows the capacity of human minds remain about the same and as the number of highly educated people increases the requirement to be highly specialized increases. He need ways for IT to expand collective intellectual capacities.

[18:07]  Andromeda Mesmer: Librarians and google get to be important then.

[18:07]  You: I dont' know the data about MIT specifically, Boston, but military funding was bascially unlimited, and I suspect MIT benefitted from that as well.

[18:07]  You: Yes, we'll ge to that, A.

[18:08]  Andromeda Mesmer: I know that the US military was giving $ to the Dept. of Chemistry at the University of Toronto for some research -- when I heard about it, it did not seem to be related to any military project at all -- quite surprising.

[18:08]  Boston Hutchinson: We got cut. There was still money, but they tried really hard to buy fromthe private sector.

[18:08]  Boston Hutchinson: I think it resulted in poorer quality technology

[18:08]  You: Yes, Bruce, and that took the form here of the entrepreneurial culture of Stanford, and teh CA govt vis-a-vis Berkeley producing Ph.D.s - see the transcript, also.

[18:09]  You: Quality of technology is an interesting question.

[18:10]  Boston Hutchinson: In the case of the Space Shuttle, for example, MIT got a much smaller role than in Apollo, and mostly indirectly as subcontractor to private companies.

[18:10]  You: These change so quickly, but numerous versions generally improve quality in microelectrnoics, computing and telecommuncations.

[18:10]  You: Yes, monies went both to scientists in Universities, but much went to companies, as we've seen.

[18:11]  You: So let's talk about these questions more next week.

[18:12]  You: Please keep in mind how these synergies may give rise to new ongoing innovations, throughout this course.

[18:12]  You: And see you next week.

[18:12]  Bruce Flyer: bye

[18:12]  Bruce Flyer is Offline

[18:12]  Boston Hutchinson: Thanks. See you then.

[18:12]  You: I'll post teh transcript here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

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