The End of Necessity-Driven Innovation
What’s next if all is solved?
Growing up I heard stories of great inventors and their inventions, this made me fascinated by their source of inspiration and how they stumbled on their great ideas that have changed the world for the better. Back in junior school, I learned about scientists and their theories and how their works have shaped the world into what it is today, let’s not forget about great minds of the past that didn’t make it to the history books because of societal and cultural barriers, I believe a good number of them were inspirations to well-known inventors and thinkers we admire today.
I am writing to share my thoughts on the nature of Innovation, and the forces behind it, pondering if it is all about meeting the needs of people, like they say Necessity is the mother of Invention, or it’s something beyond the demand and supply of the human needs and desires.
As someone experienced in user experience design, whose goal is to meet the needs of people by any means possible, giving humans the absolute experience of comfort in their day-to-day lives, I can’t help but keep philosophizing about the true nature of Necessity, Technology, and Design.
A closer look at what design is at its core. Design is a plan towards the accomplishment of a goal or the goal itself, I can say I have a perfect design to build the next social media app that will revolutionize the way humans interact with each other, that’s a design even if I don’t get to implement it. If I can implement my plans, and my design starts benefiting people, the final product can also be called Design.
Design is a tool for crafting great Innovations
All fields of life be it philosophy, science, maths, economics, engineering, law, art, architecture the list goes on and on require design to strive, there is a general misconception that design is a creative endeavor left for people in arts, architecture, visual graphics and all, but in all actuality, design is our ability to solve problems using resources available to us.
Design goes beyond aesthetics its core focus is to make things work, to solve problems faced by the human race, from medicine, to engineering, to governance, to economics. Design’s ultimate goal is to solve pressing issues plagued by humanity.
At the peak of Necessity-Driven Innovations.
Here we are in the 21st century where all our intellectual and scholarly contributions have brought us to the creation of something so revolutionary that it has changed the way we seek and interact with information, soon we will be able to analyze and algorithmize all the things that make us human, especially our intelligence.
This has always been the consequence of any innovation, from when Lucy’s Uncle figured out a way to use rocks to crack walnuts, immediately rendering Kong the Homo-habilis with the strongest fist useless, as he no longer needs to crack nuts open with his bear hands, reducing his chance for getting the best mates 😂
Soon we could have completely solved all problems in communication, and have the ability to transmit knowledge and ideas telepathically without the need for screens, regardless of race or culture. Making those who can afford such technology know and learn as many things as possible. THE INTERNET OF MINDS
Imagine Medicine discovering the solution for hunger and then proceeding to solving world hunger, is that a good or a bad thing, I will leave that for you to ponder. Would there still be suffering in the world, if medicine solves suffering, would suffering still plague humanity?
Imagine Physics figuring out a way to travel 100 times faster than the speed of light, will that be a good or a bad thing, if we discovered the four corners of the universe because we can travel to all of its extremes what would that be for us, the end of adventures.
Or with the help of quantum physics, engineers figured out a way to build a teleportation tube, that dissembles and reassembles you at the location you intended to go, making it possible to visit all the major cities on Earth in just a week or two.
Imagine all the problems you have been trained to solve, do not exist anymore, because society is now problem-free, hunger and all diseases have been cured, and AI has built all the software and machines ever needed by mankind what will you do?
Moving from Necessity Driven Innovation to Curiosity Driven Innovation
Most great discoveries or innovations weren’t driven by necessity, it’s natural to look at problems around us and seek various solutions to address them, but in my opinion, that isn’t the most effective way to bring change to the world, anyone can point out obvious problems around them and figure out a viable solution.
Let’s look at a good example, the discovery of fire is one of the most important discoveries of mankind, I am sure to the depth of my bones that early humans weren’t out in the woods finding something called fire, It was a discovery and as intelligent species we found various applications for the use of it, like navigating the dark and most importantly as science suggests, the discovery of fire encourage the act of cooking giving us an advantage over other animals as our brains didn’t have to do a lot of work processing food, in turn, developing our brains much further.
Necessity-driven innovation solves immediate problems without a closer look at long-term consequences, Curiosity-driven Innovation is more instrumental when solving complex problems as it addresses the root cause of these problems.
since there is no pressure to solve problems immediately, curiosity gives us enough time to keep analyzing until we have a holistic understanding of these problems.
How do we develop our curiosity and be better problem solvers?
One way to develop our curiosity is to integrate art into all aspects of our lives, especially in our jobs and vocations, art isn’t limited to traditional creative outlets like painting, writing, acting, etc. Art is the pursuit of our deepest inclination, it’s about following our intuition and various areas of curiosity this will broaden our perspective which comes in handy when navigating a world full of challenges and obstacles.
Seeing our crafts as a form of art and not just a profession will enable us to see new perspectives and insights, therefore keep doing the things that make you feel alive and pursue your curiosity, which might lead you to your paradise.
If you are a writer keep writing the best way you can. If you are a businessman, keep selling the best way you can.
Art is about expressing our truest nature void of societal and environmental corruption.
The Greats, Newton, Einstein, Tesla, and all Legends that have contributed to the development of today’s world weren’t just doing science, they were first doing art, they were expressing their truest nature to learn, discover, and explore, doing that they birthed science.
I will conclude by saying “No Machine, can be better at being who you truly are”
Love & Light ❤️🔆
Dare Oni
