1/ For the past year, we’ve been building a new research organization:

Speculative Technologies (@spec__tech) exists to create an abundant, wonder-filled future by unlocking powerful materials and manufacturing technologies that don’t have a home in other institutions. 2/ @Spec__Tech runs research programs across multiple organizations to perform surgical interventions to unlock technologies.

We currently have two active programs, with others in the works. (More below!)

Read our launch essay here:
spec.tech/library/introd…

It's been out for a while but I recently read through the 2018 Faculty Workload Survey -- it's kind of wild.

The survey digs into how much time federal grant recipients spend getting and administering those grants.

To start, just look at these numbers:

I went to the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) last week.

It's a ginormous trade show devoted to CNC mills, grinders, robot arms, metrology, CAD, 3D printing etc.

Felt like a new world (especially compared to Twitter) so I thought to share what struck me

1/ The scale was absolutely huge -- not just the conference space (which we logged miles walking around) but the tools themselves: robot arms that could easily lift cars and combination 3D printing and subtractive manufacturing gantries the size of a warehouse.

2/

1/ Recently finished "The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions" by Narayanmurti and Tsao.

The book lives up to its grand name! It feels like a (fuzzy) image of the elephant that is "how research works" where everybody else is feeling a snake or a tree.

BOOK REPORT THREAD🧵 2/ The authors (who I'll refer to as N+T) call out the post-WWII paradigm from the beginning. I'm not sure that the whole thing can be laid at Bush's feet -- I strong agree that the basic/applied <> science/technology distinction is holding us back.

Thinking about how the authoritativeness of a medium affects how people engage with it.

The hunch is that people will give more real feedback and riff on a sketch or google doc than a beautiful illustrator-crafted graphic or PDF. Heard a story about a big-deal professor who spent *more* time on a sketch for a presentation than he would have on a nice-looking graphic to try to create discussion.

It’s common wisdom that startups are a powerful structure for researchy ideas to become reality.

SpaceX, Genentech, etc

But startup constraints can also be the kiss of death for those ideas.

When should an idea that smells like research be a startup?

parpa.substack.com/p/when-should-… The nature of research and uncertainty make it impossible to create hard and fast rules, but there are questions that hint at the level of uncertainty in an idea.

More answers that lean towards “No” suggest that a startup might ultimately hamstring the ideas ultimate success:

Realized that institutions use one of (roughly) two ways to acquire new ideas:

Hunting and Farming

A quick thread to unpack the framework and argue that the world has swung a bit too much towards hunting ideas instead of farming them.

1/ Organizations that hunt ideas go out in the world assuming that someone external to the organization has come up with the idea. “Funding talent", grants, investing, and portfolios are all hunting strategies.

2/

1/ Thinking about the question:

"What are the conditions for something to be considered part of the body of human knowledge?" 2/ Does it count towards human knowledge if one person discovers the meaning of life, the universe and everything?

What if a group of people invent or discover something but then the knowledge is lost?

Intuitively the answer is no.

A thread of ongoing arguments in innovation/tech/science, etc.

All credit for this idea goes to @ganeumann

https://twitter.com/ganeumann/status/1428472126378594305

@ganeumann "Talk to customers" vs. "If I asked people what they wanted, they would ask for a faster horse."

An ongoing thread of good quotes.

To be updated as I discover them.

"I can tell thee where that saying was born..."
~William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

"🧵" "Ideas may come to us out of order in point of time. We may discover a detail of the façade before we know too much about the foundation. But in the end all knowledge has its place."
~Simon Flexner

15/ It is tricky to prove anything conclusively in this area. It's fraught with counterfactuals, nebulosity, and the streetlight effect.

I appreciate the willingness to say "either you buy it or you don't." 16/ Another tricky thing is that for a funding organization to avoid having an "à la carte menu" it is *a lot of work.*

You need to be willing to put in a ton of time to understand *how* a researcher is thinking. Braben was willing to do this in Venture Research. Most are not.

1/ Recently finished "Scientific Freedom: The Elixir of Civilization" by Donald Braben.

It's a sobering (but hopeful!) exploration of the stagnation in what I would call "paradigm shifting research" and what to do about it.

BOOK REPORT THREAD 🧵 2/ Braben points out that the number of scientists has exploded to the point that just increasing the quantity of funding without changing *how* it's assigned, won't make any difference.

Note that he points to the same dynamics outlined in "The Decline of Unfettered Research.

1/ Recently finished "Where’s my Flying Car - A memoir of Futures Past" by J Storrs Hall.

It's simultaneously extremely critical of the state of atom-based technology and presents a precise and aggressively optimistic vision of possible futures.

BOOK REPORT THREAD 🧵 2/ The core of the book is the question "Why didn't the future that people expected in the 50's come to pass and how could we get back on track?"

This question is not new, but Hall's approach is the most precise and brutal treatment I've seen.

1/ Recently read "The Decline of Unfettered Research"

It has a ton of sharp insights about how science/technology creation has changed that I hadn't seen before.

The uniqueness, coupled with the fact that it was written in 1995 makes it seem worth a PAPER REPORT THREAD. 🧵 2/ First, the term "unfettered research" (and the converse, fettered research) feels important because it acknowledges that the external incentives on researchers are important.

1/ Did you know that Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A space Odyssey) wrote about science possibility in addition to science fiction?

His book Profiles of the Future, from 1962, is an amazing view of possibilities still on the table and how to make good predictions.

BOOK REPORT THREAD 2/ Let's bring back this attitude!

Also fascinating that the term "fantastic" used to imply "like a fantasy!" more than "great!"

1/ It's crazy how much WWII and its aftermath shaped our current research system and its associated incentives: grants, patents, and power.

This letter from Sen. Kilgore illustrates how they basically made up what we take for granted:

science.sciencemag.org/content/102/26…

@anecdotal 2/ He proposes the current structure of the NSF - president appointed directed + board members.

The six-year board members remove power from the president because there will always be cross-administration people. Truman and Eisenhower were pushing very hard for only a director.

1/ It's always surprised me how many people who are interested in technology are unfamiliar with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs.)

It's a great framework for communicating a technology's maturity and it's time for them to be used outside of aerospace.

benjaminreinhardt.com/trl 1/ TRL1 - Basic Principles Observed and Reported

In the world of atoms TRL1 is reporting on an observed phenomenon. In the world of bits TRL1 means showing the properties of an algorithm and maybe writing some pseudocode.

"Hey look! Kerosine tends to explode"

Freeman Dyson died today.

A thread because

1. Many people who haven't heard of him who should!

2. He's a gestalt person, so many people only know a few of the pieces - physicist, theoretician, builder, science fiction inspiration, literary critic, institution defier ... Let's start with the Dyson Sphere. The idea is that an advanced civilization could build a structure that captures every photon of sunlight from a star.

Consider that a solar array the size of Texas could supply all out power today ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sph…

1/ Did you know that Vannevar Bush (you know, the guy who helped enable everything from radar to the manhattan project, the NSF to memexes) wrote an autobiography?

Turns out that yes he did, it's been out of print since the 70's, and it's *excellent*

BOOK REPORT THREAD 2/ Before you even start, it has one of the best forwards I've ever read* and like much of the book, doesn't feel dated at all.

"I have drawn on the wealth of the vocabulary of the youth of our times. Theirs is a pungent stock of words, and action marks most of them"

1/ Individual Incentives + Corporate R&D: A Thread

The built-in incentives mean that corporate R&D orgs can only get and keep the best people in a narrow range of circumstances. 2/ People are generally motivated by one or more of money, glory, autonomy, or impact.

Let's see how each of those interact with corporate R&D

One like = one opinion (+reason) about Elon Musk.

Took the @vgr bait to do a one-opinion-per-like personal challenge. Live-fire stress test of your brainstorming capacity

https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1206123389351366657

1. We should strive to live in a world where Elon Musk is unremarkable. “Oh yeah, that guy getting to Mars. He’s cool but I’m a fan of the guy building a tunnel between China and the US”