Intensive and Extensive Innovation: A Proportionalist

Approach

European Association for the Study of Science & Technology (EASST)

Situating Solidarities: Social Challenges for STS

Torun, PolandSeptember 17-19, 2014

Gregory SandstromPostdoctoral Fellow, Lecturer

European Humanities University, VilniusLithuanian Research Council

Presentation Outline1) Mosaic – Global Society in Electronic-Information Era

2) Intensive & Extensive Growth – Economics & Society

3) University Extension & Cooperative Extension Services

4) Peter Thiel’s Entrepreneurial Challenge – R&D

6) The ‘Golden Ratio’ of Global Progress – Proportionality

...and Solidarity (Solidarność)?

Basic Principle: “All human artefacts are extensions of man[kind].” –

Marshall McLuhan (1964)

United Nations Mosaic

Lewis Lavoie (Quebec) – “Adam: One Blood, Many Nations”

Intensive & Extensive Growth in Economic Theory

Cobb-Douglas Production Function: X = A×F(L,K)

“intensive growth is derived from gains in overall productivity, i.e. increasing efficiency of labour and

a better utilization of capital and other means of production.” – Jozef Wilczynski (1972)

“Economic developments make it crystal-clear that a determined shift to intensive sources of growth has become an absolute necessity.” – G. Pisarski (1969)

Ester Boserup – ‘agricultural intensification’ (1965)

Intensive & Extensive Growth in Economic Theory

“[M]any of those lands which are the least fertile when cultivation is merely extensive become among the most fertile when cultivation is intensive.” –

Alfred Marshall (Principles of Economics, 1890)

“Extensive growth can be considered a key feature in the Soviet growth strategy of catching up with the developed West as rapidly as possible, maximizing growth rates in the shorter run at the expense of economic potential in the more distant future.” -

Gur Ofer (Soviet Economic Growth, 1988)

Intensification-90 “Perestroika”?

“The Extensions of Man” Human Extension

“The human body is the magazine of inventions, the patent office, where are

the models from which every hint was taken. All the tools and engines on earth are only

extensions of its limbs and senses.” – Ralph W. Emerson (1870)

Positive:“When technology extends one of our senses, a new translation of culture occurs as swiftly as the new technology is interiorized.” – McLuhan (1958)

“Technology as extension of human faculties.” – Philip Brey (2000)

Negative:Thinking of ‘extension’ explodes the myth of

inevitable evolution.Artefacts do not ‘evolve’ like biological entities

and other non-human made things.

“The Problem is Choice.” – Neo (“The Matrix”)

The Story of Human Extension

“A wide agreement to represent process of innovation as an evolutionary process which involves different stages (Anderson and Tushman 1990)” – P.-B. Joly (#easst2014)

“The analogy that relates the evolution of organisms to the evolution of scientific ideas can easily be pushed

too far.” – T. Kuhn (1970)

“Darwin’s theory was good biology which was perverted by others to support bad sociology.” – T. Dobzhansky (1956)

What are examples of things that don’t ‘evolve’? Possibilities and limits of evolutionary theories

‘Human Extension’ provides an alternative meaning of change-over-time (origins & processes) to evolutionary

theories in SSH

Human Extension vs. SSH Evolution

University Extension & (Cooperative) Extension Services

Cambridge and Oxford Universities – 1860s & 1870s

“a movement in the sphere of education…of which the main feature is the spreading of knowledge of such subjects as are treated in Universities to other places than towns or cities where Universities already exist” –

William Draper (University Extension, 1923)

“Universities are living institutions capable of extension in various directions and in more ways than

one.” – Draper

Digital Extension of University – ‘Local Lectures’ – MOOCs

USA – Land Grant Act 1914 – Today University Extension & Cooperative Extension System in all 50 states

Innovation diffusion = Extension Theory (JoE)

21stc. Global Society in TensionWhat does ‘Intensity’ imply that

‘Extension’ does not? Not just efficient / inefficient

Not just quantity / quality Not just growth & progress without shrinkage

& regress

Large Inequality & Disproportion: U.N. Millennium Development Goals 2015

(...then what?)

Finding a balance in economics, ideology, politics & technology

Dynamic ways of resolving social tension (X-&Y-Theory/IMT), not as a ‘struggle for

existence’

Tension and/with ‘Big Data’Tension: “[D]uring a

particular period either extensive or intensive sources [of growth]

predominate.” – Wilczynski (1972)

“This new intensive-materiality is

informational.” – Scott Lash (Intensive Culture, 2010)

How can ‘intensity’ be measured in research,

business, education, etc.? What activities can encourage

‘intensive’ research and growth that drives global &

local processes?

A New Model of Intensive and Extensive Thinking

 Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook, Breakout Labs, 20 under 20)

(min) 0.0 1.0 – Intensive, vertical, scale/degree Innovation – radical new ideas, products, services

1.0 ∞∞ (max) – Extensive, horizontal, units Spreading already conceived ideas, products, services; imitation,

copying, streamlining, etc.

(Post-)Globalisation, ‘technology slowdown’ & how to measure intensity in productivity, communication, research,

education, labour relations, etc.?

Creativity is not deterministic, not merely biological or technological ‘evolution’

Proportion & the Golden Ratio“The recent ages

have been mechanical. The electric age is

organic.” – McLuhan (1969)

“The new electronic interdependence

recreates the world in the image of a global village.”

(1962)

Norman Rockwell (1961)

Intensive and Extensive Innovation: A Proportionalist

Approach

European Association for the Study of Science & Technology (EASST)

Situating Solidarities: Social Challenges for STS

Torun, PolandSeptember 17-19, 2014

Gregory SandstromPostdoctoral Fellow, Lecturer

European Humanities University, VilniusLithuanian Research Council

The Extended Mind (Clark & Chalmers 1998), Extended Knowledge (Edinburgh, Pritchard, Palermos, et al. 2013-2016)

“the ultimate self-empowerment of the mind comes from extending itself into the world.” – Georg Theiner (2011)

“The entire evolutionary process shifted, at the moment of Sputnik, from biology to technology.” – McLuhan (1969)

The Story of Human Extension

McLuhan’s Ex-tensions of Man

“That which had been the first great extension of our central nervous system − the mass media of the spoken word − was soon wedded to the second great extension of the central nervous system − electric technology.” (UM)

What did McLuhan leave untouched?

In-tension Tension

*** Electric Tension ***

Stephen Hawking (1989) – “A Brief History of Time”

Human Extensions & Intensions in M-DimensionsWhat to look for: What to look for:

Social strings, common threads, patterns that connect, network logic. Environments & the

choices that shape them.Human-made things, artefacts, institutions,

systems, societies, nations & their development ‘extend’ from/to people (individuals & groups)

making goal-oriented choices & actions.

PLoS – Map of Science