Humans attention was focused on the wrong things
OK, so home sales have plummeted and unemployment is critical. The economy is in recession and declining further. How did the country that put a man on the moon get into this mess. If the US had the intellectual ability 40 years ago to engineer space travel, wouldn’t we be able to maintain a continually growing and productive society?
Of course we could have, but the creative genius of humans was distracted to other enterprise for the past decades. It started in the 1970’s when the the education profession was not the most attractive option for intellectuals. many went into business enterprise, such as engineering and science. At first, this was still a benefit to the advancement of American ingenuity. We developed the IBM 360 computer, cutting edge medical science, and business systems.
The problem was in the 1980’s, more intellectual horsepower was diverted towards business “engineering.” Junk bonds, hedge funds, financial derivatives, and risk arbitrage required extreme brilliance to engineer. The financial attraction to these enterprises was hard for a genius to resist. For the individual, it improves the status in life. For society, it can have long-term consequences.
“Financial engineering” does not actually improve production of a society. It simply reorganizes the profits of a company to allow more to be extracted from them. It can make a company look more profitable than it is, and mask problems. At the same time, it shifts the emphasis from research and development of new products to just running existing products into the ground.
Even the “technological” developments of the past decade are not really new production. Amazon.com is one of the most successful “Tech” companies, but it does not produce anything, it simply has developed an efficient system to sell existing products. The medical “advancements” of the past decade are not earth-shattering breakthroughs curing serious diseases, but more often marketing schemes to sell less urgent drugs to consumers. The TV ads for Nexium, Zolft, Paxil, Ephedra, and Viagra certainly do not promote the treatment of life-threatening diseases. However, the marketing creates a society more anxious to self-medicate themselves for conditions that are more inconvenient than dangerous, and are very profitable for the drug companies. This results in more scientific and medical brainpower being pointed towards these treatments rather than more serious diseases.
Research is very hard, and the best minds that work on cutting edge projects are aware that the things they are working on currently have no answers. The solution is up to them. This is a significant difference from most careers. In
most jobs, the employee is taught by superiors or trainers that have experience in the position, and explain to them exactly what to do. Research scientists are right at the edge of current human knowledge. They are literally creating new knowledge. Many scientists find their apparent stupidity frustrating. Because of this, it is tempting to take a project which is easier, and more lucrative. A guaranteed bonus for formulating a drug which reduces the symptoms of heartburn can easily be made to appear more desirable than chasing a currently impossible cure for cancer with no guaranteed reward is
Calculating a new geometric equation for resolving the surface area of a fractal is nothing compared to being hired by Bear Stearns for millions to engineer a derivatives trading system.
While the best minds were realizing financial rewards for creating these medical trinkets and questionable financial products, the economy in general was ignored. Obvious tactical errors such as excessive debt and irresponsible lending were overlooked because many brilliant minds were involved with projects which produced more immediate rewards.
Now that Wall Street does not need as many genius’, we may be able to have more of them available for projects that can build more long term value and substantial developments. The next scientific breakthrough could not only be a benefit to the culture, but could also provide a permanent financial advantage if it provides durable profit for its producers and savings for its country. If brilliant physicists could calculate a method of creating an overunity system, for example, it would be a method for the country that produces this system to create unlimited energy, and substantial income by providing the product to other countries.
Aware Brain 