Backwards Innovation
February 16, 2010 By Kristeen
Read Peter Lloyd’s latest Right Brain Workout discussing the possibility that the invention of cars may have been a Backwards Invention. He explains that not all invention needs to take us in the direction we presume to think of as forward. Sometimes backwards is forward in the same way that less is more.
Take for example the internal combustion engine; sure cars go almost anywhere faster than their predecessors, the horse and carriage. And they do so in quiet comfort. But cars pollute, consume a dwindling resource and put us at deadly odds with others who want to control the same finite resource.
Read more Right Brain Workouts by Peter Lloyd
Reader Comments
I guess this can also be true when it comes to medicine. Recently, modern medicine has been turning to natural herbs as means in producing new and effective medicine. Before that, I remember several people referring to other members of society as part of the "old people" for using these herbs I guess they changed their minds.
Posted by Kathleen Hall on September 7, 2011
I don't believe that the automobile per se, and the internal combustion engine in general, is a Backward Invention; just because it has been causing pollution and eating up our precious fossil fuels.
The problem is EXCESS. We have failed to control world population. That is the root cause of Excess. More people, more cars, more fossil fuel needed, etc etc. We all have never learned to understand the meaning of Moderation; and we are all suffering from all the consequences. That is progress.
Posted by Bob Diamond on May 22, 2011
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