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Q: Is freedom a mandatory for innovation
Just like many others here, I firmly believe the overall lack of freedom in China, both in civil and social life, will be a major impediment to the innovative and technological power the country seeks to become.
But when I try to think a little deeper, I wonder what are the actual links between freedom and innovation. Is there actually any? How being more "free" from social constraints makes you more likely to make a breakthrough in, say, the chemical or electronic domains? Isn't the bigger part of the problem only coming from managerial and work method issues, like DrMonkey often mentions (lack of proper equipment, lack of teamwork skills and the like). In Chinese history, and actually in the world's history, times of war have been known to be great times for inventions, but arguably not as much for personal freedom.
What exactly does make a place a fertile ground for innovation? Can China make it out as a technologically advanced superpower and keep the same education/control over its population going?
On a side note, there is a phenomenon I always found really hard to explain: the regular stories coming out of peasants making planes or vehicles out of whatever they can find, sometimes spending a lot of money on them. Yes it usually doesn't go very far, but what is going on in those people's psychology that pushes them to do that?
Don't get me wrong, I am only questioning my own stance and those are the paradoxes I hit.
Well, if I look at history, you can see innovation flourishing under very unfree conditions.
Nazi Germany have seen impressive innovations going on there : aeronautics (jet engines, many innovative design from asymmetric planes, delta-wings, helicopters, and a lot of crazy stuffs), mechanics, rocket science, etc. Under USSR post 1941, science was strong, I think of physics, Sakarov and Kolmogorov are prime examples of USSR innovation at work (okay, they had Lysenko too).
One thing which does not work in China is the training : you can pass even if you did shit, grade have face value, grading is indulgent to the extreme. Making no waves prime over any attempt to grade objectively. Cram a bit, and you are "brilliant". No critical thinking is taught, all things are taught without debate, all things are facts. Proper writing is seldom taught. All answers have to come from a book, any book. This educational approach makes very poor scientists and passable engineers. Many Master students abroad would make circle around PhDs here. Motivational issue just make this worse, many science students here have zero motivation for science. Contrast that with a science lab abroad, where pretty much everybody was a science geek since an early age.
That is, I think, the top issue. USSR and Nazi Germany educational system did not suffered from all that, at least in science. A bit of personal life : when I was an undergraduate, I used French translation of USSR-era book for classical mechanics (ie. physics pre-1910) and real analysis (ie. math), because they were just the best stuff. I also had a teacher trained in USSR, who moved to France. The guy was beloved by the students for his awesome teaching style.
Then there are secondary systemic problem. If some can get resource for research, if failure is an option, if argumented debate is possible (peer-review, not having political issues overstepping reality), if you can profit from your innovation (not having 143 shanzhai copy of it the day after it's out), then I guess people would innovate.
RiriRiri:
Exactly the enlightening answer I expected from you. Indeed very interesting, but you arrive exactly at the same spot my own logic runs out.
Your point is the main flaw of the Chinese system is in the whole educational & scientific process. I entirely agree with that, but I can't stop thinking this is deeply linked to the whole principle of institutionalized delusion China has put itself into (or rather, the CCP has contributed to put China in), which mainly summarizes in:
- don't question anything, don't make waves, I won't look at your shit if you don't look at mine (because if I allow you to question anything including yourself maybe you'll end up questioning me).
Which arguably revolves around freedom (but maybe this is not the best word). So, if you allow me to reformulate my question to fit better your explanation: would it be possible to put down/improve this very aspect without putting all the rest on the table?
DrMonkey:
Let's imagine that the educational system is improved : kids learn to structure their writing (thus, their thought), less rote learning, grades are much less based on face, etc. Would the kids start to question a lot of things, and point out the over-the-top irrationality ?
Well... Social pressure is a very powerful force, kids might notice that the gap between what is taught and how things are, but shut-up to not make wave, not being noticed, etc. In schools, kids here learn about Lei Feng, helping others, being considerate of others, etc. They might learn they should nt litter. I remember a small kid telling his grand-father that the teacher said it was bad to litter, while yeye threw his empty cigarette pack on the floor. Kids grow up in an environment where people learn to separate the social consensus (not giving a shit, no waves) and their own personal opinion (littering is gross). The No body should loose face, if my neighbour beats his wife it's not my problem society.
So, even if the educational system is improved, the way society works here would repress the wish for social changes. I don't think it's like this by CCP design, I just think it was like this long time before the CCP. However, it's a convenient tool used half conscientiously, in the same way street-wise people understand many things without being completely conscious of it
sorrel:
your comment on the number of innovations during war times puts me in mind of the line from "The Third Man":
"You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
expatlife26:
Yeah I think the #1 factor in promoting genuinely top-level talent is just allowing people to fail out and that has ltitle to do with the openness/repression of a society at large.
What brilliance needs to flourish is a competitive environment full of other brilliant people. If you have 10 physicists, only one of whom had real aptitude for it but was unchallenged by the need to excel surrounded by 9 who really just aren't cut out to be brilliant physicists but were just kinda passed along you aren't getting great science.
Now if out of the 100 physics students that produced those 10, there was genuine struggle to get qualified and a need to be talented, you might weed out the 90 weakest ones and be left with the cream of the crop. They needed to be good to not wash out and those 10 you are left with are who can produce great science.
It's weird because I almost want to say they are being...considerate of people's feelings? Not wanting to expose someone to the loss of face of being told they don't have the chops to be good at something. But that can't be it...can it?
Samsara:
Excellent, intelligent and informed answer, Dr Monkey.
And possibly the best question ever, RiriRiri (considering the depth and complexity with which you started the discussion).
I have so much work to do today because of my superhuman inability to organise my time. This topic (which I desperately want to speculate about now) has really compounded the problem.
Scandinavian:
Nazi Germany didn't lack freedom, only for certain ethnic groups. For the common white person, it was a good place at least until the war started to come too close to home.
Necessity is the mother of innovation.
I think your not seeing any innovation because it isnt needed. If you compare China to how it was doing in the past then things are going quite great. Others invent, china copies and thus far havent had any problems.
Their priorities are completely different from ours and any new innovation is much harder to profit from than known products.
Wars create needs, less steel, more firepower ect, so when the need is born the mind gets to work.
The chinese are certainly innovative when it cones to theft and scams. (Need for money)
Perhaps its the opposite and your seeing a lack of innovation because China is too free!
ScotsAlan:
I would also say the natural resources have an impact. For example, China has bamboo. And bamboo is pretty much a wonder material.
We did not have bamboo in the west. We had to discover how to make steel before we had a material to rival it.
In my opinion, the United States punishes inventors, and it has draconian copyright laws which stifle innovation. We even allow people to patent software CODE, which is ridiculous. The U.S. is falling behind badly, and innovation is slower than it should be.
Remove all the unjust, oppressive laws and we'll likely see more innovation.
China's shanzhai culture is actually really impressive to me. I like when they make a product better than the original, and release it before the original. They improve on the original... that's innovative.
I do think that freedom will help innovation, but so does money. The more money you have, the more you can innovate by investing in R&D.
RiriRiri:
The US (by extension, the world) is a whole other problem. And I think too that the patents system is a cancer designed by corporations to make sure they can grab any freelance innovator by the balls before they can do anything (listen/read R. Stallman).
Social pressures could be another factor:
the pressure to have a good job, get married, have a child and a financially secure future means many who have the talent or desire to innovate might not have the opportunity.
I am sure those of us who teach have met many students who have a talent/interest in one area are pressured to study/work in another.
Creativity is sucked out of many during formative years: if you look back at some of the most successful inventors/innovators, you will probably see a childhood or creativity and encouragement from parents
I agree with mike1243. China is in a "sweetspot" where everything it needs already exists, ready to be stolen and copied. No need to think yourself.
Innovation happen at many different occasions. During war, during famine, during sitting comfortably on your sofa without a worry in the world except you need a slightly more convenient way of getting a cold one from the fridge.
That being said, a needed seed for innovation and creativity is being able to ask questions. A simple "is this really the only way to cut a carrot?" question gets you a long way, instead of being told "THIS is the ONLY way you can cut a carrot"
Freedom is many things, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom to decide over your own life.
If one looks at the history of invention and innovation, it has been a rather slow process.
The stone age lasted tens of thousands of years, then the bronze age, the iron age, the age of discovery and sailing ships. Each subsequent age got shorter, until finally, BOOM: Abraham Darby set up his Iron works and the Industrial Revolution was launched. Since that day in the 1700's innovation and invention has grown exponentially.
Did freedom play a part? Yes of course it did. There was freedom to make money. But remember, Britain was still pretty much a feudal society when the industrial revolution started, but the land owners had the freedom to make money. And that had a cascaded throughout society.
Do Chinese people today have freedom to make money? Yup, of course they do. But their innovation is not visible in the mainstream. They innovate in how to make things cheaper, quicker, and with a higher profit margin than we managed to do in the west.
The Chinese Government is actively working on growing the innovation sector of the economy. But as Hulk says above, R&D costs money and investment. And at the moment, the factory owners here can still make money from copying products, so perhaps their desire to invest in product development is low. But they are driving innovation in manufacturing. Because if they can make things cheaper, they can make more profit.
Awesome question...
I'll start with a quote from the late Robert F. Kennedy...
"Most people see see things as they are and ask why...I see things that never were and ask why not."
Creativity requires free thought and the vast majority of the Chinese people have had those free thoughts oppressed from birth through upbringing and indoctrination through education to be normal and unexceptional.
So it's not freedom per say but freedom of thought...the ability to see things that never were and innovation is not possible when their creativity and innovative thoughts are suppressed at such an early age. Freedom is a very broad term.
Also true creative innovation is not always inspired by a monetary incentive...most of the greatest creations in history where born out of passion for something other than money..
This concept has long been lost in China.
