Read on Twitter
"Everything has to be invented" is something I learned from @jasoncrawford who writes (founded?) @rootsofprogress - maybe best to say his "mission" is to explore how the world gets better
Here is my Twitter-thread exploration as I dug into the phrase a little more
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Here is my Twitter-thread exploration as I dug into the phrase a little more
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First, as far as I can tell Crawford only used the term "Everything has to be invented" three times. Here they are:
Robert Adler invents the mute button in 1956 https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1248452474895093761
Robert Adler invents the mute button in 1956 https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1248452474895093761
John Thorpe invents the CORRIDOR in in 1597 (prior to this rooms were connected directly without hallways) https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1282858523278245889
Dr. Shin invents Milk Cartons that can be opened without scissors in during the Korean War https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1281347372958666752
...But Jason talks about the concept far more than he just uses the specific term. Here he is talking about the can opener - invented in 1855 - 43 YEARS after the invention of canning https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1210275321955655680
More modern example: Andrew "Boz" Bozworth ( @boztank) invented the "newsfeed" which has become standard far beyond Facebook https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/23866108980
The emoticon (either 1979 or 1982) https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/115904745897607170
Folks at IBM invented so many fundamental things we take for granted now: programing languages, operating systems, relational databases... https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1084497124065042432
The bicycle had to be invented. But then someone else needed to invent pedals for accelerating the bicycle https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1150475618317819904
Searching more broadly for the term on Twitter (and filtering out the junk) the latest example of the term is in relation to Larry Tesler, the invention of "cut and paste" (and "copy"). He passed away in February 2020, and was featured by the @BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51567695
Similarly there were a few tweets about Doug Engelbart back in 2013 when he passed away. Engelbart invented the computer mouse https://twitter.com/Adzswann/status/352772755894177792
...But that is about it. Every other tweet I could find using the term seems to be about how some company or country doesn't need to invent everything itself ("Everything doesn't need to be invented here"). Telsa (the company) gets a lot of mentions
Searching Google did not help much more either. Lots of examples of how the world is changing and we have to re-invent everything again. Not the stuff I was looking for.
A book that dives into this idea in an orthogonal way is @duncanjwatts' "Everything is Obvious Once you know the Answer" https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Obvious-Common-Sense-Fails/dp/0307951790/
Watts' book is fantastic and I find myself going back to it again and again. It is less about invention than it is about prediction - and how what seems obvious NOW was NOT obvious before it happened. He focuses on trends and media, but the same principle applies to invention
Another related book is @TimHarford's "50 Things that Made the Modern Economy" https://timharford.com/etc/50things/
There is also a podcast series: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c/episodes/player
Tim's list includes things like "paper", auctions, franchising, sewing machines, stock options, postage stamps, the pencil, cellophane, double-entry bookkeeping, the "S-bend", market research, LLCs, Fixed prices, clocks, the barcode, standard sized shipping containers
A great book I am reading now is "The Enemy of all Mankind" by @stevenbjohnson - it has been full of amazing discoveries for me on "things that had to be invented". From that book:
Owning stock in an "ongoing concern". The idea you could raise money and pay dividends, but never have the company "close down". Prior funding had been done for series of initiatives, but the idea of a never-ending company had to be invented
The term "terrorism" was invented by James Monroe writing to Thomas Jefferson in 1795 (wrt what was happening in France)
The ability to dye cloth to have (1) vibrant colors, (2) hold those colors after washing, and (3) remain soft was incredibly complex - and incredibly valuable, allowing India have the highest GDP in the world for 1500 years (more than China!)
(He argues that India could have dominated world trade, but did not largely because of the Hindu prohibition against oceanic travel)
Another idea: "International Law" that goes beyond country-specific rules. The first of which was "Hostis humani generis", Latin for "enemies of all mankind", which gave authorities the ability to punish transgressions from outside their borders
(Also used by the US after 9/11)
Travel memoirs. The Novel. Passing power to the oldest son (and what happened in India before that "invention")
Labor action: "The word "strike" itself derives from their strategy of "striking" or lowering the sails of anchored ships as a sign of their refusal to work."
Unclear if they invented it, but pirates were some of the first to use things like "insurance" (increased share payments if injured in battle)
Pirates also had constitutional separation of power decades before America. The captain was like the executive (mission, battles, authority), but the quartermaster controlled judicial and financial (punishments, compensation)
Back to where this thread started:
As far as I can tell, the full term itself, "Everything has to be invented" can be traced back to @MairaKalman - author/Illustrator in her book https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Happiness-Maira-Kalman/dp/0143122037/
The book looks great and I just ordered a copy
As far as I can tell, the full term itself, "Everything has to be invented" can be traced back to @MairaKalman - author/Illustrator in her book https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Happiness-Maira-Kalman/dp/0143122037/
The book looks great and I just ordered a copy
The book seems to be an exploration of democracy in America. From the Amazon description:
"Maira Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a year-long investigation of American democracy and its workings...
"Maira Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a year-long investigation of American democracy and its workings...
...The result is an artistâs idiosyncratic vision of history and contemporary politics.
Whether returning to Americaâs historical roots at the Lincoln archive and Jeffersonâs Monticello, or taking the pulse of the present day at a town hall meeting in Vermont, an Army base in...
Whether returning to Americaâs historical roots at the Lincoln archive and Jeffersonâs Monticello, or taking the pulse of the present day at a town hall meeting in Vermont, an Army base in...
...Kentucky, and the inner chambers of the Supreme Court, Kalman finds evidence of democracy at work all around us. Her route is always one of fascinating indirection, but one that captures and shares in hundreds of beautiful, colorful reasons why we are proud to be Americans."
I believe part of the book explores the founding fathers - and Ben Franklin in particular. Here are (what I believe are) some beautiful images from the book related to Franklin:
https://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/can-do/
https://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/can-do/
Here is the the full quote where she turns the phrase:
"Everything is invented. Language. Childhood. Careers. Relationships. Religion. Philosophy. The future. They are not there for the plucking. They donât exist in some natural state. They must be invented by people...
"Everything is invented. Language. Childhood. Careers. Relationships. Religion. Philosophy. The future. They are not there for the plucking. They donât exist in some natural state. They must be invented by people...
...And that, of course, is a great thing. Donât mope in your room. Go invent something. That is the American message. Electricity. Flight. The telephone. Computers. Walking on the Moon. It never stops."
- Maira Kalman
- Maira Kalman
As a bonus those images include more examples of "things that had to be invented" like the bobby pin, and "the peach"
As a bonus those images include more examples of "things that had to be invented" like the bobby pin, and "the peach"
One personal note: When in business school someone once told me that the biggest difference between @Wharton and @HarvardHBS was that at Wharton you were taught that the world was very "efficient".
If there was a $20 bill lying on the ground in a crowded street, it was likely a counterfeit (otherwise someone would have picked it up already).
Whereas at HBS they were taught that the world was FULL of inefficiencies, and that they, as students, should find as many as they could and take advantage of those gaps to make the world better (and make themselves rich)
I think both attitudes have elements of truth to them. @ESYudkowsky wrote a book on this idea of "where can you identify when the world is inefficient". Recommended https://www.amazon.com/Inadequate-Equilibria-Where-Civilizations-Stuck/dp/1939311225/
