Good counter on biotech argument

Dateline: in the loft at Nona's, Terre Haute IN, 17 May 2005

Yesterday I wrote about America moving on to the next big thing in economics: biotech revolution and what not.

Good counter in email from Manuel Sandoval:

In that same article you quote "*Inventing Our Evolution: We're almost
able to build better human beings. But are we ready?"* Ray Kurzweil
notes that most of this innovation is being pursued outside the U.S. not
in it.

"All the political energy that has gone into this issue -- it is not

even slowing down the most narrow approach." It is simply being pursued

outside the United States -- in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,

Scandinavia and Great Britain, where scientists will probably achieve

success first, he notes."

This is what I think Friedman is talking about when he says we are

loosing the race, that is, we are letting others do the innovation the

world has come to expect from the U.S. even when it comes to inventing

our evolution.

Points well taken on the article, the industry and Friedman (and yes, I'm trying to be less critical of him).

My counter is to cite the following logical dynamic: Yes: New Core countries like China and India will take more risks in this sort of thing and as they achieve successes first in certain instances, that will blow away a lot of reservations in the U.S. on this sort of thing. Why? We'll fear the competition and we'll want to make the money.

Then there's the larger point of where's the market for this sort of stuff? Here America is clearly the prize because we worship technology and want to be yound and good-looking for as long as possible. We're the ultimate individualists and the economy with the most disposable income in the system, so even if China and India were to pioneer (and they will, as I write in Blueprint for Action, perform this role time and again), watch the commoditization of the technology proceed first and foremost in the U.S.

This is yet another example of why I argue at length in BFA that the U.S. will have to come to grips with the emerging reality that we're more like the New Core than the Old Core.

But I thank Mr. Sandoval for pushing me on this. I met Kurzweil very briefly at the TED conference in Monterey in February. You can hear his brain humming at idle from a distance of about 10 yards.