Stewart Brand on How Progress Happens
5 days ago
- #optimism
- #innovation
- #maintenance
- Stewart Brand's new book 'Maintenance: Of Everything' promotes maintenance as a key driver of progress, not just a chore.
- The history of interchangeable parts, starting with military innovations like cannons and muskets, influenced manufacturing and the Industrial Revolution, as seen in Ford's Model T.
- Precision in engineering has evolved from tolerances of a tenth of an inch in Watt's steam engines to nanometers in modern chip fabrication.
- The Scottish Enlightenment fostered a literate society and intellectual boom, with works like the Encyclopædia Britannica highlighting blue-collar skills and rational discourse.
- David Deutsch's 'The Beginning of Infinity' argues for an optimistic view of progress, where solving problems leads to more discoveries, aligning with Silicon Valley's 'just try stuff' mentality.