Human Ignorance and Market Genius
28th March 2018
Here’s a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later?
For example, who would have thought that we’d have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK, and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity? This list could be extended to include thousands of goods and services that could not have been thought of in 1950.
In the face of this gross human ignorance, who should be in control of precursor goods and services? Seeing as it’s impossible for anyone to predict the future, any kind of governmental regulation should be extremely light-handed, so as not to sabotage technological advancement.
Compounding our ignorance is the fact that much of what we think we know is not true. Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analyzing science, technology, and innovation. It holds that many of the “facts” you know have a half-life of about 50 years. Let’s look at a few examples.