We are publishing the transcript and video recording of the lecture by Evgeny Kuznetsov, Director of the Department for the Promotion of Innovations and Social Programs of RVC, read on May 30, 2013. within the framework of the project "Public lectures" Polit.ru ".
Lecture text
Thank you very much, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak, because it so happens that I have been dealing with the future to one degree or another for most of my professional career. Either as modeling-forecasting, or as the practical creation, launch or support of some social processes that affect the future. And I practically do not have time, unfortunately, to concentrate on, perhaps, somehow formulating some of the observations that have accumulated over the course of my life, into a set of formal rules, ideas, models. The opportunity to talk about it for an hour is a great gift, because for once you can talk about it without starting from a specific situation. Although the current situation surrounding us very clearly demonstrates one of the most important properties of time as such a social process, namely:our ability to see the future is directly proportional to the amount of stress and tension in our present moment.
That is, three months ago, the future of many of our processes could be measured for years. Now the future of many processes can be measured for a maximum of several months. Until we reach a zone of some social stability, the opportunity to look at the future with confidence again, generally speaking, will disappear. This is actually not a completely subjective property of a person. Society as such, as a collective, as an integrity, also undergoes such a socio-dynamic situation. It may generally find or lose the ability to look to the future. At the same time, the ability to perceive the future, to somehow relate to it is, in my opinion, one of the key indicators of maturity of both a person and society. Because for me the future and its perception are absolutely synonymous with responsibility as some social categories,and responsibility is absolutely synonymous with the ability of people to create correct and ethical practices.
That is, roughly speaking, these are absolutely directly interconnected processes. There are ethical regulators, there are norms, there are rules - there is a future. There is the ability of people to take their steps responsibly, the need for a normal, correct attitude towards each other, ethical and other regulation. These are absolutely synonymous things, and as soon as one of these elements disintegrates, all our ability for normal existence is lost. In human history, more than once or twice there have been moments when society acquired the ability to look far away or lost them. Each time this moment very clearly signaled about, on the one hand, the maturity of society, and, on the other hand, about its health, and the moment that we are now experiencing globally is an extremely significant moment, since this is the very moment when the degree, one side,the homogeneity and correctness of the rules that exist as a whole has reached the critical point when it becomes possible to seriously assume that we have a common future and planning in relation to it. In fact, now there are not so many examples showing that humanity is able to relate to the future as an integral organism, although we all seem to be accustomed from literature, from our habits to believe that we treat the future as an integral, unified, universal concept. Although, in fact, some time ago, and even now, for many, the future is exclusively the future of something specific - the future of the country, society, oneself, and so on. There are not so many examples of a common future for mankind, and every attempt to create the future together is a test for the lice of the very rules by which we agree with each other. Probably, all tonight I will directly throw over the attitude towards the future as an analytical procedure, that is, a certain set of methods, techniques, models and so on. And effective models, that is, methods of expertise, methods of interaction with politics, and so on. Because in my understanding these things, generally speaking, are inseparable. In principle, there is no pure modeling, forecasting of the future. It loses all its meaningfulness when it breaks away from the practice of goal-setting, that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.all tonight I will directly throw over the attitude towards the future as an analytical procedure, that is, a certain set of methods, techniques, models, and so on. And effective models, that is, methods of expertise, methods of interaction with politics, and so on. Because in my understanding these things, generally speaking, are inseparable. In principle, there is no pure modeling, forecasting of the future. It loses all its meaningfulness when it breaks away from the practice of goal-setting, that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.all tonight I will directly throw over the attitude towards the future as an analytical procedure, that is, a certain set of methods, techniques, models, and so on. And effective models, that is, methods of expertise, methods of interaction with politics, and so on. Because in my understanding these things, generally speaking, are inseparable. In principle, there is no pure modeling, forecasting of the future. It loses all its meaningfulness when it breaks away from the practice of goal-setting, that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.that is, methods of examination, methods of interaction with politics, and so on. Because in my understanding these things, generally speaking, are inseparable. In principle, there is no pure modeling, forecasting of the future. It loses all its meaningfulness when it breaks away from the practice of goal-setting, that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.that is, methods of examination, methods of interaction with politics, and so on. Because in my understanding these things, generally speaking, are inseparable. In principle, there is no pure modeling, forecasting of the future. It loses all its meaningfulness when it breaks away from the practice of goal-setting, that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.that is, from activity. And the future exists only in the practice of activity, individual or collective. This is a certain axiom, I will hang it like this, and maybe later I will relate to it, and we will debate it, discuss it, challenge it, and so on.
So, we are at that moment when the future becomes a practical area for sufficiently significant, large societies, to which we can treat instrumentally, that is, we can agree on it, we can plan it, design it. These verbs are constantly used in relation to the future. There is a certain debate, whether the future is the object of project activity, or the future is some flow of various kinds of circumstances that predetermines our activity. I will talk about it; if this thought and dilemma remains insufficiently clarified, we can return to it, because, in fact, it is key. In my understanding, neither one nor the other can be recognized finally and absolutely. It is absolutely pointless to claim that the future is a complete object of construction,likewise, it cannot be said that it does not depend on our strength. It really depends on our strengths to some extent, as far as is the subject of a certain activity and practice. So, if we hold the idea that the future is a sign of the maturity of everything - a person, society, the planet - then we are now experiencing the moment when the future becomes a demanded, necessary practice, a platform for activity for almost all of humanity, or, at least, for its most active part. This moment sets before all of us the task of conventionally negotiating, and around this treaty there arises what we understand as global politics, the global economy, and so on.if we carry out the idea that the future is a sign of the maturity of everything - man, society, planet - then we are now experiencing the moment when the future becomes a demanded, necessary practice, a platform for activity for almost all of humanity, or at least for its maximum active part. This moment sets before all of us the task of conventionally negotiating, and around this treaty there arises what we understand as global politics, the global economy, and so on.if we carry out the idea that the future is a sign of the maturity of everything - man, society, planet - then we are now experiencing the moment when the future becomes a demanded, necessary practice, a platform for activity for almost all of humanity, or at least for its maximum active part. This moment sets before all of us the task of conventionally negotiating, and around this treaty there arises what we understand as global politics, the global economy, and so on. This moment sets before all of us the task of conventionally negotiating, and around this treaty there arises what we understand as global politics, the global economy, and so on. This moment sets before all of us the task of conventionally negotiating, and around this treaty there arises what we understand as global politics, the global economy, and so on.
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Here I will make some methodological remark. Here is the legacy of some Soviet thinking is that we assume the possibility that the future can be accurately recreated instrumentally. The attitude to the future as to the past, which we, in general, know. The fact that we don't really know the past is the subject of other discussions. In principle, we cannot predict the future precisely. There are many examples of this. The most illustrative examples are examples of responsible, long-term forecasts that came into conflict with reality rather quickly. One of the largest failures in the ability of diagnostic thought is, of course, the lack of a forecast as such of the emergence of the information society, even in those years when computers already existed, when they were already engaged in some kind of calculations and calculations. An equally vivid example of the story with the forecast of resource depletion, we can already see that the question of the depletion of hydrocarbons has been postponed for at least another century with a sharp reduction in the cost of extracted resources, and so on. That is, almost any forecast that is used even for making responsible decisions (after all, the forecast of the Club of Rome influenced the social practices of almost all states of the world to a large extent), even such a forecast has every chance of being refuted even at the moment when it is alive carriers.which is even used to make responsible decisions (after all, the forecast of the Club of Rome influenced the social practices of almost all states of the world to a large extent), even such a forecast has every chance of being refuted even at the moment when its carriers are alive.which is even used to make responsible decisions (after all, the forecast of the Club of Rome influenced the social practices of almost all states of the world to a large extent), even such a forecast has every chance of being refuted even at the moment when its carriers are alive.
Very recently, there was an amusing conversation with a number of quite interesting people, they told a story of how several academicians gathered to discuss the future of a certain industry - they talked about medicine. And when they fixed their ideas (this was necessary to develop the next long-term forecast and strategy, we have hundreds of such documents in the country), one of them said: “Colleagues, we are now living in an unusual time: each of you, with taking into account the development of medicine, it has a chance to live up to the time when these forecasts have to be answered. This is indeed a very indicative moment, because most of the long-term forecasts were made by people without the ability to answer for them, that is, in a situation where they are a certain set of ideas that are relevant for the present, not for the future, when, in addition,there is a political discussion at the moment. I will close the remark in the margins and say that, probably, according to my assessment, almost everything that we now call forecasting is nothing more than argumentation in a momentary polemic, and outside the framework of this polemic does not exist. This is quite an important point.
In Soviet times, just as we believed that it is possible to model, plan and implement the economy, that is, to clearly understand what we need, to what extent, to the same extent, there was a hypothesis that it is possible to accurately calculate the future by those or in other ways. This is a rather interesting point, which is currently experiencing on the one hand, both a refutation and a proof. On the one hand, we have witnessed the failures of almost all mathematical models for modeling the future, forecasting the future. On the other hand, at the moment the very possibility of using mathematical methods and various kinds of natural science analogies in social forecasting is no longer such a controversial idea.
According to my personal assessments, they can be challenged by the fact that those who were deeply involved in this, until the 90s, people who tried to apply mathematical models to social dynamics, history, and human activity, were, generally speaking, marginalized. And practically all these theories, even having received trust for a while, sooner or later moved to the field of parascience. Each of these attempts was based on the illusion of the idea that you can take a specific working model and apply it to society, history, and so on. The most famous example is L. Gumilyov's theory of passionarity, which is ideologically built on completely natural-scientific models and, generally speaking, historical circumstances were drawn to it. This is a rather characteristic moment when the mathematization of history arises, and facts are dragged to it. The most egregious example is Fomenko's new chronology. Nevertheless, there are also things that are quite respectable, for example, Kondratyev's economic cycles are a respectable model, despite the fact that the cyclical nature of historical, economic processes is a phenomenon of an incomprehensible nature, that is, there are many explanations, but each explanation is nothing more than an interpretation … Generally speaking, we see that economic and not only economic cycles exist. Some cycles determine our life with almost one hundred percent probability. For example, we, as a rule, go on vacation in the summer, and in the winter we sit at home and warm ourselves by the stove. This is, generally speaking, obvious. On the other hand, none of the models based on cyclicality is explained so much that we can apply it unconditionally - take this cycle,and confidently assume that something will happen. Kondratyev's cycles are quite official, accepted, but there is no explanation for them, which means that there is no trust in them either.
At the same time, literally what happened in the 90s, what I see now, is happening in American universities. Quite respectable mathematical models appear - of course, they mainly stem from the breakthrough made in synergetics and other related natural science disciplines, which gave such food for the mind and such a set of models that they can already be applied with significantly more flexibility, and a variety of games, computational models and so on. And, of course, the triumph of this attempt to give the future calculability is the famous law, which now almost completely forms the idea of the future of technology. I mean Moore's Law. The law is quite simple, which says that every 2 years the processor speed doubles. On the one hand, it seems, well, the speed of processors, but where are we? However,this is shown quite correctly, and the bearers of this ideology, the famous Kurzweil and Diamandis, the founders of the Singularity school show this with such convincingness that it is practically axiomatic for the entire technological environment of Stanford, and indeed America in general, which, in general, is must be taken seriously already. Moore's Law is shown far beyond processors. We see that it completely determines the development of all computer devices: speed, memory capacity, accumulated information, cost of information analysis, and so on. It is possible, on the one hand, to hypothetically assume that Moore's law is related only to digital phenomena, only to digital processes, however, as soon as the convergence of digital and traditional sciences began, this law also began to work quite brightly there. For example,as soon as the process of decoding the genome began, it immediately became clear that this law obeys Moore's law, although in a sense it even proceeds at a faster pace than Moore's law suggests. We can say that there are other circumstances, but the rate of reduction in the cost of genome analysis is now one of the main processes that leads to a fairly deep, complete restructuring of medicine. And, although, of course, the illusion has long been dispelled that the analysis of genetic consequences gives us the ability to predict and treat diseases, it is clear that this is not the case, nevertheless, the number of effects associated with diagnostics and therapy around genome analysis are so large that we are talking about a full-scale revolution in the medical field.although, in a sense, it is even moving faster than Moore's law suggests. We can say that there are other circumstances, but the rate of reduction in the cost of genome analysis is now one of the main processes that leads to a fairly deep, complete restructuring of medicine. And, although, of course, the illusion has long been dispelled that the analysis of genetic consequences gives us the ability to predict and treat diseases, it is clear that this is not the case, nevertheless, the number of effects associated with diagnostics and therapy around genome analysis are so large that we are talking about a full-scale revolution in the medical field.although, in a sense, it is even moving faster than Moore's law suggests. We can say that there are other circumstances, but the rate of reduction in the cost of genome analysis is now one of the main processes that leads to a fairly deep, complete restructuring of medicine. And, although, of course, the illusion has long been dispelled that the analysis of genetic consequences gives us the ability to predict and treat diseases, it is clear that this is not the case, nevertheless, the number of effects associated with diagnostics and therapy around genome analysis are so large that we are talking about a full-scale revolution in the field of medicine.of course, illusions have long been dispelled that the analysis of genetic consequences gives us the ability to predict and treat diseases, it is clear that this is not so, nevertheless, the number of effects associated with diagnostics and therapy around genome analysis are so large that we are talking about a full-scale revolution in the field of medicine.of course, illusions have long been dispelled that the analysis of genetic consequences gives us the ability to predict and treat diseases, it is clear that this is not so, nevertheless, the number of effects associated with diagnostics and therapy around genome analysis are so large that we are talking about a full-scale revolution in the field of medicine.
We are, of course, a little torn off from this, but, as they say, even if we do not participate in this, it will still overtake us. Thus, on the one hand, one should not rely on the fact that natural science models in history and in the analysis of social processes will give us answers to all the questions - they, of course, do not exist. However, the fact that the use of these models can reveal many patterns, give us on their basis the ability to predict the course of processes - they exist. I probably won't go into this direction, although there are many other amusing examples. I saw an absolutely wonderful attempt at modeling history based on a mathematical model similar to the game "Life". You probably know what it is - when the state of each cell of the array is determined depending on the state of the neighboring cells. Based on a similar model with the assignment of certain rules on the map of Europe, a game was played, during which a map of Europe was formed, which surprisingly resembles a real map of Europe, up to the fact that northern and southern Italy are shown as two different countries - which is completely consistent with the real social situation in this country. Quite a few of the most exotic mathematical methods show predictive power. Whether this happens by chance, or are we approaching the accumulation of a predictive mass, when a set of knowledge, facts, models about history and social dynamics will allow us to finally make it an exact science, is a good question for looking into the future. But I do not want to delve into this now, to discuss, because, it seems to me, a number of other issues related to the use of this situation are significant.
At the moment, returning to the thesis that any attempt to look into the future is a subject of current discussion at the moment, I must say that, in general, most forecasting methods are consensus methods, in other words, ways to reach an agreement. The tools for reaching an agreement are different, the ways of reaching an agreement vary, and there is competition of ways. The very process of developing a vision of the future through consensus methods, reaching a consensus or agreement, automatically pays a direct path to the goal of these exercises, namely, an agreement on methods and actions. Well, of course, the famous RAND with its Delphi method and other tools is the classics, the creators of the most correct consensus instruments,which directly reduced the discussion about the future to the instruments for reaching agreement of experts and instrumentalized this issue. All modern methods of discussion about the future are tools for reaching consensus in a specific expert group. Foresight is the most classic one, and in fact it is nothing more than a technology for working with experts. Within itself, this technology does not imply the development of knowledge, it exclusively implies the formation of coordination of ideas and the coordination on these ideas of the possibility of moving somewhere, that is, the transition from an ideological consensus to an active consensus.nothing more than a technology for working with experts. Within itself, this technology does not imply the development of knowledge, it exclusively implies the formation of coordination of ideas and the coordination on these ideas of the possibility of moving somewhere, that is, the transition from an ideological consensus to an active consensus.nothing more than a technology for working with experts. Within itself, this technology does not imply the development of knowledge, it exclusively implies the formation of coordination of ideas and the coordination on these ideas of the possibility of moving somewhere, that is, the transition from an ideological consensus to an active consensus.
Most of the modern forecasting tools directly boil down to this, and there are practically no such solo tools now that someone would take seriously. Any instrument that we are guided by, for example, a forecast of a level GDP or a forecast of economic development, is the fruit of the agreement of experts who can build their agreement around a particular mathematical model, this or that rule, but it is still a consensus. Recently I observed one very interesting process, when sufficiently correct Russian authors modeled which innovative industries could make the greatest contribution to the GDP dynamics, and the result clearly showed that in some areas there were enough experts to make a decision, and in some this is clearly insufficient, and discussion has shown that this is indeed the case,there were not enough experts. And this directly imposes a question on accuracy. As soon as we say that developing a vision of the future is a tool for reaching consensus, we find two fundamental rules that limit the possibility of using consensus methods in understanding the future.
The first is the objectivity and ethics of experts. On the one hand, seemingly banal things - in order for experts to speak, and based on their opinion, one could get a picture of the future, they must be objective and ethical. On the other hand, I may say harshly, maybe I will offend, but I have hardly seen examples of procedures in Russia when methods of monitoring the objectivity and ethics of experts would be sufficient to take this procedure seriously. That is, specific experts tried, and there were results, on which objectivity and ethics did not impose restrictions. But instrumentally this was not guaranteed by anything. The fact is that in the global world, the practice of developing expert agreements is based on extremely tough, draconian instruments to guarantee objectivity and ethics. These are the tools that prevent the scientist froman expert to make mistakes and repeat those mistakes when caught. In other words, if the examination showed that the expert hid or showed any other factor of bias, for example, carried out a theory convenient for him personally, then the fact of opening this circumstance guarantees his complete removal from any repetitive process. This is how the whole system of ethical regulation of expert activity works.
A very important point is that in Russia ethics is nothing more than a set of some kind of humanitarian techniques, while ethics, in my understanding, is a certain foundation of law and any legal activity. Something like this, maybe lawyers deeply working in American law will correct or supplement me, but as far as I studied these processes associated with the development of responsible decisions, any ethical violation, identified and proven, is always guaranteed to have the opportunity to turn into an administrative or criminal case … I mean in the USA, not in Russia. Accordingly, ethics - ethical regulators, codes, procedures, rules - is a certain tool that allows you to identify a gross violation, and then it can be somehow qualified, proven and sanctioned. I have never seen a single Russian code of ethics or other procedure that would be: a) non-declarative; b) had a practice of application that would not allow people who self-regulate this norm to feel confident if they violate it. Accordingly, if we do not have a society that tries to treat the future responsibly, there are no ethical norms, no regulators to guarantee the ethics of experts, then all forecasts are, generally speaking, a matter of hope.allowing to guarantee the ethics of experts, then all forecasts are, generally speaking, a matter of hope.allowing to guarantee the ethics of experts, then all forecasts are, generally speaking, a matter of hope.
The second question is to what extent the experts and the expert community that participates in the process of developing expert opinion have competence. In Russia, competence has a very unhealthy tradition of being directly intertwined with status, that is, the classic “I'm the boss, you're a fool” only seems like a joke. If someone has come across the processes of developing expert opinions in the course of agreeing on government programs or something, he will be convinced that this is not a joke at all. Administrative status directly affects the weight of opinions and very often, even if the correct expert procedure tries not to advertise this fact, there is always a roundabout way that will return status to its place in Russia. This is an absolutely dangerous story, and it is from here that there is a protracted, difficult, deep conflict between those who are trying to form an ideology,that the only criterion for assessing the effectiveness of a scientist, which means that the tool for supporting him should be scientific performance, measured by objective instruments that are not connected with human will, relatively speaking, the citation index, and so on - and other camp who say: no, all mathematical methods are incorrect, therefore, the final opinion should still be the opinion of experts and expert organizations.
This pole is, in fact, extremely revealing. It exists only in Russia. The well-known worldwide protest against journal databases is about anything but principle. There is a discussion about the correctness of the methods, but the fact that this method is fundamental, there is no such discussion. In Russia, it exists - this is, in fact, a sign of sufficient prehistoricity, that is, we have not yet entered the moment of understanding that a measurable criterion is absolutely necessary for any activity, and without it, activity cannot be considered correct.
It is, in general, incomprehensible, but I will give an analogy - for a large number of companies, especially state-owned companies, it is still a painful discovery in Russia that leads to constant conflicts that it makes no sense to launch a process, project or any other activity if a measurable criterion is not proven to be objective. This is the classic of project management in the world. The same science says that there should be evidence-based methods of measurement divorced from human preferences. Even if this method is not correct in some cases, it adds up to a significantly healthier environment per lap. Accordingly, we can immediately say that any opportunity to reach a consensus on the future, to do anything related to forecasting, strategizing or developing an idea of the future is incorrect if we have not proved 2 things:a) that we have a method to strictly ensure that the process is ethical; b) we have a method that allows absolutely without the participation of specific people, including the authors of the project or their partners, to prove the competence of the people in it. There must be objective criteria; if not, we are forced to treat this future as one of several alternatives.
Here I would also like to put an end to it, although I am absolutely sure that this thesis deserves a rather lengthy discussion, and probably move on to the last part, which, due to the lack of time, I will try to complete with shock.
What is happening now, it seems to me, I will deliberately sharply formulate polemically, in the world economy. We call this a transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, we see it as a rejection of faith in the possibility of building a planned economy. Although many would be ready to disagree with this, nevertheless, historically this model has lost, again we can say that it lost because someone did something wrong, but if someone did something and had the opportunity to devalue this system, which means that it had a vulnerability, which means it was incomplete. Thus, a certain shift in the economic model is taking place in the world, I have a description of it. I believe that the new economy can be described in terms of the attitude towards the future in the concept of "readiness economy". I will explain what I mean.
The classical intellectual construction, based, in general, on the natural science foundation of the 19th and 20th centuries, assumed that the future could be treated with the basic category of probability. There is a possibility that this or that process will occur. Each process has certain reasons, they can be identified in one way or another, calculated using either various probabilistic models, or by creating a scenario tree and calculating their possible weights and probabilities of occurrence.
This model has a fairly strong vulnerability, namely, any unlikely scenario is automatically ranked as low priority, and any highly probable scenario is ranked as high priority. Accordingly, if something seems incredible to us, we do not do it. This is how we slept through the IT revolution, the digital revolution, this is why we sleep when there is a revolution in biology and medicine. This is how we slept through the shale gas. Because it seemed incredible. Two words, well, this "grandfather" Mitchell, who used his income from shopping centers to drill wells from 1960 to 2000, did not even show signs of possible efficiency. It was all insanely expensive, and it seemed nothing more than eccentricity. However, at the moment when the complex of technologies took shape, and shale gas began to fall sharply in price, and according to the law,comparable to Moore's law, it was assumed that soon it would cost as much as the usual one, at that moment investments rushed there, and from that moment a world energy revolution took place. In terms of probability, our economic elite did absolutely the right thing: up until 2005, the probability of success was extremely low. However, in 2010 the probability became extremely high.
Therefore, it seems to me much more correct - and this has actually become an element of almost all business practices - to operate not with the concept of "probability", but with the concept of "risk". Even if some phenomenon has a low probability, but its consequences have a high risk, therefore, this process should be in the center of our attention. He must receive enough resources to be ready for the moment when this difficult circumstance begins to materialize. A very unpleasant fact - the future cannot be modeled outside the concept of "risk". Can we model the future using the concept of "global warming"?
The likelihood of global warming is incalculable. Until now, there are absolutely reasoned disputes that this is nothing more than a game, and it will not come at all. It is impossible to calculate the onset of global warming by predicting emissions or something else. However, the risk of this scenario is extremely high, so it is absolutely necessary to react to it, and it is necessary to prepare for this. Developing all sorts of models, approaches, attempts, reducing CO2 emissions, reducing the energy intensity of the economy, developing new approaches, and so on, which in itself generates a huge number of achievements. If in the future it is correctly proved that the geophysical, cosmic factors of the earth's temperature are 3 orders of magnitude higher than the anthropogenic impact, and it turns out that all our troubles regarding global warming are nothing more than zilch by analogy with the ozone hole,which everyone was also very afraid of, then in terms of the economy of probability this will mean that we have lost time and money. In terms of readiness economics, this means we channeled money into the right things and along the way discovered a giant class of absolutely useful technologies. This is the difference between forecast economics and readiness economics.
Let me give you some funny illustrative example of how this works. How the concept of technology investment and technology innovation works in Russia. It is assumed that some pool of experts who understand the topic will calculate the most likely areas where a result can be achieved, money will be invested there - and, as a result, a result will be obtained. At this very time, people who think differently and at the same time for some reason have 2 orders of magnitude more achievements, work on a completely different model. Nobody is counting on which industry will bring the most achievements. It just takes a significant number of steps to analyze any possible advances in the widest possible range of areas.
Here's a good example that shocks everyone I tell it to. At the center of the MIT campus is a hefty eight-story cube that houses what is called the MediaLab, a big incubator where about 20 tech companies do god knows what. For example, some guys are developing an emotional interface for robots - whoever loves to google knows such a big-eared robot who is so healthy, smiles, you smile at him, is surprised when you kick him in the ear and does many other strange things. Next to them are people who are engaged in data analysis, other things, there is a hefty tennis table on which these people periodically play, and it all looks extremely strange. The practical benefits of what people do is absolutely incomprehensible - the question arises who pays for it. About 50 sponsoring companies pay for this, with an average sponsorship fee of about $ 1 million. What do you think, what is the right of a sponsor to an intellectual product produced in a mediaab? The answer is no. They have one opportunity - to talk with these guys 3 times a year, to communicate, not to try to learn something, not to influence, not to get involved, to talk. 50 leading world companies pay for this, there is a queue, for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube, which no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will blow, and for it is signed by all the professors of MIT, who are fighting among themselves in mortal combat to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.the average sponsorship fee of which is about $ 1 million. What do you think, what is the right of a sponsor to an intellectual product produced in a mediaab? The answer is no. They have one opportunity - to talk with these guys 3 times a year, to communicate, not to try to learn something, not to influence, not to get involved, to talk. 50 leading world companies pay for this, there is a queue, for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube, which no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will blow, and for it is signed by all the professors of MIT, who are fighting among themselves in mortal combat to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.the average sponsorship fee of which is about $ 1 million. What do you think, what is the right of a sponsor to an intellectual product produced in a mediaab? The answer is no. They have one opportunity - to talk with these guys 3 times a year, to communicate, not to try to learn something, not to influence, not to get involved, to talk. 50 leading world companies pay for this, there is a queue, for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube, which no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will blow, and for it is signed by all the professors of MIT, who are fighting among themselves in mortal combat to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.produced in a medialab? The answer is no. They have one opportunity - to talk with these guys 3 times a year, to communicate, not to try to learn something, not to influence, not to get involved, to talk. 50 leading world companies pay for this, there is a queue, for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube, which no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will blow, and for it is signed by all the professors of MIT, who are fighting among themselves in mortal combat to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.produced in a medialab? The answer is no. They have one opportunity - to talk with these guys 3 times a year, to communicate, not to try to learn something, not to influence, not to get involved, to talk. 50 leading world companies pay for this, there is a queue, for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube, which no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will blow, and for it is signed by all the professors of MIT, who are fighting among themselves in mortal combat to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube that no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will bang, and all the MIT professors, who fight mortals among themselves, subscribe for this fight to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.for one simple reason: something is being cooked in this cube that no one knows if it will give a result, but everyone knows for sure that if something is cooked, it will bang, and all the MIT professors, who fight mortals among themselves, subscribe for this fight to put their doctoral students, graduate students and their project there. That is, people pay to be the first.
Back to shale gas. Old man Mitchell had several, relatively speaking, "friends" - Texas businessmen with whom he maintained purely friendly communications. These people were the first who bought the rights to the technology from him, which gave a result; then transnational companies bought their shares from these people for billions. These people for 40 years, relatively speaking, "drank beer" with this dude, consoled him, said: "Oh, my friend, it didn't work out - and God be with him." This can be considered a waste, but all these 40 years they have been with him, and suddenly it works out. Another example, there is the famous start-up 23andMe, probably many people here know it, there is a genome analysis on saliva, from which the prognosis for illness, your family history, and so on. Everyone knows that Brin's wife launched it. For a long time I wanted to understand, and who next put the money there, there was an opportunity,looked. The next he put into the fund is Johnson & Johnson. I looked at his briefcase. At that time, there were 123 startups in the portfolio of this venture fund. 123 startups for a venture capital fund means that this is the wrong fund, the right fund has a maximum of 20 startups, otherwise the investment directors have no time to do this. This automatically classifies this fund as a corporate "search fund": there is such a model when the fund has one task - to invest in the maximum of technologies that may be interesting. They do not have any evidence, no one will ever make claims on profitability to this fund so that it recaptures investments, they will make claims against it in one thing - there was technology, a neighbor invested in it, and you do not even have a small search percentage in it. This is a completely different model,if you look at conventionally corporate funds, you will see that this is a fairly massive story.
Thus, if we are talking about the economy of readiness, then it is characterized by completely different tools for managing the future, namely, the future ceases to be only probabilistic, the future becomes a picture of events that are assessed by the risk factor, their possible impact on your current state. The future becomes a puzzle, a set, a kaleidoscope of possibilities that you judge based on how serious it is. Naturally, if some super-risky process, such as the revival of dinosaurs on the whole Earth, is nevertheless extremely unlikely, then, naturally, no one will study it, but if the same process has a probabilistic estimate, for example, it is technically possible seriously discussing the restoration of mammoth fauna is quite possible! - now we need to discuss this,because this concept has risk, consequences, and, therefore, it is necessary to prepare for this, and, accordingly, if some fund has and, roughly speaking, sees that someone is doing something, then it is necessary to somehow relate to this. Of course, the readiness economy is not completely complete at this point. It cannot be said that all risks are covered by funds, instruments, and so on. However, the speed with which this process is taking place is very high, that is, there are practically no areas in which something has not been tried, in which there are no tools, even the classic DARPA - this fund is mainly aimed at touching and seeing what others do not believe in is also a criterion for the maximum of projects, also the main risk for managers that they overslept something.if a fund has and, roughly speaking, sees that someone is doing something, it means that we must somehow relate to this. Of course, the readiness economy is not completely complete at this point. It cannot be said that all risks are covered by funds, instruments, and so on. However, the speed with which this process is taking place is very high, that is, there are practically no areas in which something has not been tried, in which there are no tools, even the classic DARPA - this fund is mainly aimed at touching and seeing what others do not believe in is also a criterion for the maximum of projects, also the main risk for managers that they overslept something.if a fund has and, roughly speaking, sees that someone is doing something, it means that we must somehow relate to this. Of course, the readiness economy is not completely complete at this point. It cannot be said that all risks are covered by funds, instruments, and so on. However, the speed with which this process is taking place is very high, that is, there are practically no areas in which something has not been tried, in which there are no tools, even the classic DARPA - this fund is mainly aimed at touching and seeing what others do not believe in is also a criterion for the maximum of projects, also the main risk for managers that they overslept something.that all risks are covered by funds, instruments, and so on. However, the speed with which this process is taking place is very high, that is, there are practically no areas in which something has not been tried, in which there are no tools, even the classic DARPA - this fund is mainly aimed at touching and seeing what others do not believe in is also a criterion for the maximum of projects, also the main risk for managers that they overslept something.that all risks are covered by funds, instruments, and so on. However, the speed with which this process is taking place is very high, that is, there are practically no areas in which something has not been tried, in which there are no tools, even the classic DARPA - this fund is mainly aimed at touching and seeing what others do not believe in is also a criterion for the maximum of projects, also the main risk for managers that they overslept something.that they overslept something.that they overslept something.
Why did the Americans make such a model? Because they overslept Sputnik. It's even called the "satellite effect". They overslept the risk, the moment when something that seemed unnecessary or unimportant to them suddenly seemed so important and necessary to someone that he took it and did it. They have learned this lesson forever. In my understanding, this lesson is extremely important for us, and with all the stops: the fact that one cannot assume that the future can be calculated mathematically, nevertheless, the future should be the subject of our daily reflection, through the fact that the future is achieved only through consensus, and consensus can be guaranteed only if it is ethical and competent, and through the preparedness model, when we tried to take into account every risk and treat this risk adequately, only through this can we say that modern practice of managing the future is emerging,in which it becomes instrumentally possible for us.
It seems to me that by violating any of these components, we become spectators of the future, which is being formed without our participation. Unfortunately, this is the main process that is taking place in our country, and I will not hesitate to repeat one more point: now we are not fighting for the honorable right to compete with the leaders in the field of technology. We are now fighting for the honorable right to understand what they are doing - why Synthetic Biology was Darpa's biggest grant, why Google is investing in live streaming of emotions to the web and the ability to build emotional interfaces, and understand why they seriously believe that artificial intelligence will supplant the medical profession., and diagnostics on this thing (iphone) will become much more effective than a doctor in 3 generations with 10 years of practice and so on.
Until we understand this, it all seems silly to us, we do not participate in this race.
Thank.
Lecture discussion
Boris Dolgin: Thank you very much! Yes, but I would say that there are so many topics at once and so many reasons for discussion that, of course, there are great fears that we will not finish today. Well, you can transfer some online discussions. By tradition, I will start with my questions, but I will try to alternate further so that everyone has some time. I would, the only one, suggest some conditionally routine both for myself and for other colleagues - not to ask several questions at once, but to ask one at a time, because the thought will immediately go away. So, the first - after all, the transition from probability to risk, you yourself further, in fact, if I understood correctly, led to a situation of some combination of probability and risk, roughly speaking, we had a lecture by Dmitry Vibe about what threaten the Earth from space. He spoke of the specific probabilities of certain processes - of course,we can, without looking at these probabilities, all rush to overcome really serious risks, but just insanely unlikely - that … and so on. But it is clear that it will not be possible to distribute the resources in this way, so how to combine the risk approach and the probability approach?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Well, each of the prioritizations has its pros and cons, of course, but the optimal balance is to one degree or another; I will reiterate: if you rely primarily on probability, and the risk is considered an additional factor, then this system has the following vulnerability: it wakes up unexpected sudden changes. Relying only on risk, not relying on probability, this system has another disadvantage: it requires an extremely large amount of resources. And a significant amount of resources do not produce results.
Boris Dolgin: An infinite amount of resources, ideally.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: And then, ideally, in the limit everything is infinite. That is why it is understandable why all our control bodies are so fixated on the requirement that there is a guarantee that investments in a risky project bring results, because we proceed entirely from the concept of limited resources, and it is clear that it is easier for the American economy to play in a risky economy, these resources can be sprayed more freely. However, the biggest failures in our history are that we slept through a technological shift. Therefore, if we, at least in our own minds, do not balance these parameters, then we will not move anywhere. There is one important remark here, very briefly, the probability is the risk, in my experience I participated in many projects, worked, was present depending on the degree, it turned out in different ways. So,in Russia there is still another model - the future is assessed from threats. Threat is a separate concept that goes back to certain attitude techniques. A threat is not just a risk, it is also a personalized risk, that is, the idea that there is a hostile force, which, as a rule, takes place, time, registration and circumstances, and it is this force that causes certain processes in the future. The Soviet, especially the post-Soviet attitude to the future is simply saturated with the personalization of threats, and this is our domestic know-how, because the future allows us to predict least of all and makes this topic as conservative as possible.takes place, time, registration and circumstances, and it is she who is the cause of certain processes in the future. The Soviet, especially the post-Soviet attitude to the future is simply saturated with the personalization of threats, and this is our domestic know-how, because the future allows us to predict least of all and makes this topic as conservative as possible.takes place, time, registration and circumstances, and it is she who is the cause of certain processes in the future. The Soviet, especially the post-Soviet attitude to the future is simply saturated with the personalization of threats, and this is our domestic know-how, because the future allows us to predict least of all and makes this topic as conservative as possible.
Boris Dolgin: Second question. You said that very often the forecast of the future is just in most cases a reflection of some disagreements in the current discussion. But it probably cannot be otherwise, in the sense that the attitude to the future and the projection of our action in the future is in a sense implied, but the main nerve of the current discussion, that is, it goes for that how to build the future?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: If I didn’t do it very strongly, I’ll repeat: I didn’t make these relations of discussion in a real balancing of interests and forecast of the future directional, this is an absolutely two-sided, equivalent thing. Because really the future is nothing more than a subject of discussion; on the other hand, the discussion of the present moment completely determines the outlook for the future. Moreover, the social future as a certain independent category does not exist at all in its understanding. There will be war - this is a subject of discussion, what should be invested in the army, and not disarmed. There will be war, there will not be - this is a completely separate issue. War can be prevented if you try, but you can not prevent it if it is beneficial to someone, and this, therefore, will be the future or not - this is a separate story. It is always a cast of the present.
Boris Dolgin: Hence the last question, before we start alternating. We are talking about the future in two main modalities - forecast and recommendation. How do you see the relationship between these modalities, how carefully does an expert not get confused between these two approaches?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: In the classics of the document, a section called a forecast is, relatively speaking, a set of facts, and models from which conclusions will then be drawn, which are a preset in order to proceed to the analysis of activities. A recommendation is already the result of an activity. This is a certain sequence in intellectual practice: first you need to predict, then give a recommendation. That's all.
Boris Dolgin: There are no problems here? It seems that very often the forecast is exactly the wrapping of recommendations.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: This is absolutely true, but this is even a methodologically absolute criterion for an incorrectly followed procedure, yes, there are a lot of people who predict, this is called a forecast for half past five, that is, 2 times a day the forecast that two arrows will hang down is coming true. Accordingly, there are a lot of people who say all the time: "There will be a crisis tomorrow." There is no crisis tomorrow, in a year, in two - no, in five - no, on the sixth - yes. And they take off: "We told you." Thus, if your task is to use a forecast as an instrument of polemics, naturally, facts fit into it. But this is a slightly different story, this is the use of the technique of working with the future to solve political, financial, and personal problems. It is not a question of trying to predict correctly.
Boris Dolgin: We will alternate.
Evgeny Ershov, Polit.ru I would like to clarify one, apparently the basic category in your reasoning - ethical choice. The choice must be ethical. Could you explain what ethical and unethical choices are and how they affect the effectiveness of our actions? Thank.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: I did not talk about the ethics of choice, I said that any procedure for working with the future should begin with a disclaimer, that all procedures have been followed to guarantee the ethics of the participants. Point. That is, if we can guarantee their ethics, then the procedure is correct; if we cannot guarantee ethics, the procedure is incorrect. All. What is the ethics of people and how it affects, I do not care at all, I care about compliance with the norms, that is, roughly speaking, this has a specific meter, the scientist received 10 years of money from some company for researching the effectiveness of drugs, then he participates in writing of the regulations on the use of medicines, and he did not indicate the factor that he had been sitting on this medicine for 10 years. This is an ethical violation, a conflict of interest. In Russia, this leads almost to nothing,in the West, this can lead to a lawsuit with very large consequences. I use ethics as a kind of legal structure, as an activity structure, not as a philosophical one.
Question from the audience: Good afternoon, my name is Dmitry. I wanted to know your opinion. According to forecasts of the future, there are not only some expert commissions, but also throughout the whole time many famous people expressed their opinions about the future. For example, our great Russian classic said: "Ask me what will happen in Russia in 100 years, I will answer you - alcoholism and theft."
Evgeny Kuznetsov: This is a forecast for half past five, this is an obvious thing.
Question from the audience: And what about the phrase of Steve Jobs, in the mid-80s, when he said that after a while everyone will have computers? At the same time, IBM and Xerox were talking: why computers at home? What do you think of it?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: I understand the question. First, I'll tell you one metaphor. When Jobs invented the iPhone, in America there was an absolutely steady trend for push-button smartphones, the Blackberry model, when he showed this design to his fellow investors, they said: but the push-button model is popular, why are you making a touch screen? he said the phrase: "They will get used to it." They are really used to it. Indeed, there is a consensus - there are people who challenge it, there is a model, a traditional opinion, there are people who go against it. Consensus does not arise at the moment when this person does not agree with him, but when people who trust him begin to appear around this person, that is, when there is some consensus, not a single major invention is made by a loner. Jobs' garage project is a projectborn through the activities of a large number of people who trusted him before. This is just a consensus point. Regarding the framework, the future question is, of course, pure consensus, regarding specific technologies or capabilities - this is exactly what I said about preparedness economics. Jobs could easily fail, and the people around him could be right, but the surrounding situation was set up in such a way that as soon as the process started, they began to support him. Accordingly, the future emerges. If we belong to the category of risk - everything is fine, the investors of the Jobs era are sitting and thinking if this guy is right, then we will turn the world around. They invested money in it and they were right. Based on this, from the model that first a group of wise men should outline the future, and then they should start investing in the future,- this does not work. If I haven't answered, tell me, I'll think about it again.
Boris Dolgin: I will go a little bit in two directions. First, if I understand correctly, in fact, therefore, the transition from predicting the future to projecting the future is in many ways a transition from trying to think to trying to act.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Yes, that is very correct. Jobs, at the moment when he said that everyone would use personal computers, was not an expert, he was an entrepreneur, and all the people who said that it would not be so, most of them were experts, because they did not do anything in this regard, but treated it as an area that they know more than others. This is probably the difference.
Boris Dolgin: From an expert position to a subject position. If you stay in an expert position, how much is it possible at all, do you know such technologies, to predict a trend breakdown? It is clear that a correct forecast of the future is from an understanding of how reality works, an attempt to build some kind of innovative scenario - correctly, accurately, and so on. But at the same time, it is clear that any trend can also be broken.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: I do not know of any other way to predict a break in the trend, except in the economy of readiness to participate in the analysis of the widest possible field of possibilities. That is, just to participate in the processes. It actually works as follows. Each individual entrepreneur, scientist, who makes some new technology, assumes that its development will make a significant change, and these changes are of no value until they take place. It's a classic venture capitalist that the idea has no value. Only a product that is already developing somehow has value. Therefore, all technology, venture, for example, is arranged in this way. You say that you will create a personal computer that will turn the world, but first we will play a simple game, here's 10,000 for you,and you bring me a working thing. Once the prediction that this dude made this thing comes true, they tell him OK, here's 10 million for you to make a thousand such things. Once the forecast has come true, you can move on. If you sit and treat Jobs as an analytical model, that if it comes true, then it is: here you are, dude, 100 million at once. An entrepreneur who has received 100 million immediately, as a rule, does not achieve results, but only if he is constantly hungry, he constantly runs after this carrot, which is tied in front of him on a stick. This is how it works. Accordingly, a break in the trend can only be predicted in one way. A lot of people rushed into this hole, their activities are effective. A very indicative moment, as now Nature predicted science some time ago, it calculated those scientific areas,where most of all, the fastest began to write high-impact articles. And I published this map. For our presentation of science, this is some kind of nonsense, we know how it should be, but for them it is so: if a thousand important people gnawed at it, then there will be changes.
Boris Dolgin: Because they have already bitten into it.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Including. Because the mechanisms of the readiness economy started working. They began to invest money there, resources began to be dragged in, the most talented people began to approach there. This thing cannot collapse dramatically. Even if it collapses, it will be a significant event, but nonetheless not that terrible. Now I want to show a number of such terrible pictures, I always show them when a discussion on this topic begins. About simple calculable instruments. This map is drawn up in exactly 5 minutes on a resource called scimagojr.com. It's just an application built on top of a scopus. It analyzes different processes by country, according to the database of all publications. This chart shows how many articles, in which specific scientific field, are published in which country,and what other scientific fields does this field fit into. Here's a map of US science. We see a giant cluster of medicine, it is about 150 thousand publications, a huge cluster of biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, and a cluster of physics 30 thousand. This is Russia for comparison. This hefty physics here is about half the size of that little physics. You can scale everything else. Now I'm going to get back to this diagram, just to start with, this is Germany. As you can see, it has the same profile as America, the same approximate dimensions, well, physics, perhaps, relatively slightly larger. Well, this is Germany. And this is China. Yes, it will only have to be intellectually turned over, the diagram is built in such a way that you need to mirror it. Yes, the medicine is small in it, but not as small as ours. Look at the main figure - 373 thousand. They lag behind America slightly, they are ahead of Germany by 3, 2 and a half times. According to the Hirsch index to the average, China is weaker, according to the average citation of the article, they are also weaker, I will not talk about cheating, about technologies. But quantity sooner or later turns into quality. Their pace is crazy. But the picture of science is the same. We don't have that map of science at all, it corresponds to the middle of the 20th century. I don't have Japan here, but you can do it yourself - Japan, Britain.but you can yourself - Japan, Britain.but you can yourself - Japan, Britain.
Boris Dolgin: I beg your pardon, there is a question right away. In what case does this card reflect the past, and in what way does it reflect the future?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Now you will see it, I am bringing it to this. Let's take another look at Germany. We see that medicine is green in it, through biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, it goes into chemistry. Molecules, pills, chemistry. Then it goes into physics. Once again, what does "go" means. This is the number of links between articles, that is, articles on related topics, authors of related fields, and so on. That is, a mutual transition, one into another. This is a classic map of science for the early 2000s, even for the first decade of the 21st century. Medicine, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics. Now let's take a close look at the United States. From biochemistry straight to engineering, and only then computer science, physics, chemistry and so on. This transition happened in 2010. If you plot the previous graph, biology and biochemistry go into chemistry and physics in the same way. This transition took place before our eyes, the map of science has changed. What does this mean? That there began a scientific breakthrough or a technological revolution. This is changing before our eyes. At the moment, most of the funds in the United States consider it a priority to invest in Digital health, that is, IT projects in the field of biology and medicine. This breakthrough was recently discussed, one of the literate people suggested that, most likely, these are the consequences of decoding the human genome, because the human genome is an IT project, and a set of engineering solutions follows from it. And this macro breakthrough was reflected in this. And now, when two megaprojects, European and American, on the brain map are completed, we will get an even greater shift here, because we will get a shift directly from medicine from computer science to engineering. And then everything will move there. Here is this tool,relatively speaking, how to track a trend change. This tool has extremely high inertia. We saw this in 2011, and the process reflects 2005. There are other ways to do this, you can analyze it not in 5 minutes, it is done in seconds. But by other, more subtle methods, for example, to look not at all journals, but only at high-impact ones, not by all authors, but by those who are known for their dynamism. Look at where the most unexpected statements are happening and who is responding to them. There, someone said that there would be a breakthrough here, but for some reason they listened to him, money went there, for some reason a conglomerate was formed, a consensus of other centers, we agree with this. The methods are subtle, but they exist, and they are all entirely related to data analysis, they are not related to the analysis of personal sympathies or beliefs,which matured back in university time.
Question from the audience: Thank you very much for the wonderful lecture. Alexander. Please tell me your lecture is called "Forecasting the future", but I would clarify, forecasting the future or making a profit - or are these synonyms from your point of view?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: The future is what we can use to improve our activities. It can have any measure: arrival, health, life expectancy, number of wars, deaths in man-made or military situations. Any objective indicator, and you can sympathize with it more or less. If you want to talk about profit - see which industries are developing most dynamically, if you want about security, about war - see how the army is changing, why now the army is again in the center of the infantry, why the key technologies in the army are control technologies. These are other stories, and they somehow happen. The criterion is important for you. I may have used the term "economic models" more often, but they are closer to me, more illustrative. It's harder to talk about security, the army: we don't know everything. But this is nothing more than instrumental.
Boris Dolgin: In fact, human everyday life still actively sounded next to profit, something that actively concerns us not because it actively brought someone profit, but because we are now living with this and so on.
Question from the audience: I have a clarification to the previous question. Do I understand correctly that all these technologies are equally applicable to both the fast-moving technological aspect and fundamental science with long periods of understanding, payback?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: At the level of principles, it seems to me that these principles are equally applicable, at the level of specific instruments - of course, not, but, for example, the restructuring of science funding for a grant model is purely a readiness economy, because I was told how they compete between are the managers of the grant fund. They compete in the amount of impact their scientists have earned over a given period. They have a concrete result. It's the same story about preparedness economics. If they missed a study or a scientist that could have a big impact, that's their problem. Accordingly, they are instrumentally different, but fundamentally the same. Talking about the idea of the future of fundamental science based on a consensus of ten people is wrong. For this, ethics, correctness, competence must be observed,and competence is shown only by arrays of large numbers.
Lyudmila Vakhnina. You have just shown a brilliant world of intelligence, plus one correlated with ethics, with economics, but I have such a dreary idea that in our life intelligence is of minimal importance, this is somewhere in China, maybe, but we have myths, prejudice, charlatans brainwashed
Boris Dolgin: But they are already being brainwashed with the help of new technologies.
Lyudmila Vakhnina: But here's the question. This is not only here, there is a huge part of the world about which we can probably say the same thing. But how do we make the intellect become a real force in society? I don't see that.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Not an easy question. I absolutely agree with you. How to answer it, I do not know. We recently watched a good report on how China's technological innovation system has developed. We traditionally believe that we begin to trace this history from the 90s, when the construction of technoparks, investments in science, etc. began. Correct colleagues look practically from the end of the Cultural Revolution and follow. The whole history of the Chinese explosion begins from the moment when the Chinese revolution was rethought, when what the respected lady said was said, when, instead of turning the intellect into an object of persecution, an attempt began to rely on something to rely on, on which they always relied, for example, on smart people. A very clear example of how something worked in China that did not work for us.
The Chinese completely shamelessly haunted high-impact professors, giving them salaries comparable to those of the Americans, calling them the chief professors of universities and surrounding them with all their care. We have not achieved this, we still consider it unethical, incorrect behavior: how! ours endured, and now we will pay this comrade who sat there, as if he was there ?! It's not fair. The Chinese were not ashamed of this, and they began by comprehending values.
I'm afraid we need to start with that too, with consensus. Incidentally, this is a matter of public consensus and public trust.
Boris Dolgin: True, I am afraid that there was no public consensus in China in 1977 at this place.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: There, probably, the society was locked on this.
Question from the audience: Please tell me how the development of the social sciences: philosophy, art history and, in general, everything related to culture, affects forecasting.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: In an absolutely direct way, because if I was not diligent enough in expanding my thoughts, then I will repeat myself. All the basic substratum of any attempt to do something is purely humanitarian things: ethics, a system of values, respect for other people, a correct attitude to the results of activities, that is, a purely humanitarian foundation. As soon as the humanitarian foundation subsides, absolutely the entire superstructure collapses. For me it is unambiguous that no scientific breakthrough of the 19th century, which, in my opinion, was brighter in Russia than in the entire 20th century, the fundamental science of Russia of the 19th century gave more than science of the 20th century, in terms of the number of scientific breakthroughs, Nobel laureates … Maybe I didn’t count by the Nobels, but by the bright stars, the number of breakthrough technologies, it is still considered,that the most financially significant technology that influenced us was television. This is all the history of the late 19th - early 20th century. The whole story about science of the 19th century is a story about the culture of the 19th century, these are things that are absolutely inseparable from each other. If you do not deal with the humanitarian substratum, then nothing happens. At the moment, there is a more active convergence, in particular, the humanities are rapidly becoming instrumental. For example, the revolution of linguistics, philology, which is becoming an engineering science, and in less than 10 years it will become a mass engineering science. What does mass mean? Like web design. If you do not deal with the humanitarian substratum, then nothing happens. At the moment, there is a more active convergence, in particular, the humanities are rapidly becoming instrumental. For example, the revolution of linguistics, philology, which is becoming an engineering science, and in less than 10 years it will become a mass engineering science. What does mass mean? Like web design. If you do not deal with the humanitarian substratum, then nothing happens. At the moment, there is a more active convergence, in particular, the humanities are rapidly becoming instrumental. For example, the revolution of linguistics, philology, which is becoming an engineering science, and in less than 10 years it will become a mass engineering science. What does mass mean? Like web design.
Very interesting story. But if we talk about purely humanitarian aspects, this is the foundation, the substrate, and nothing works without it. This is the question of the cultural revolution and its understanding.
Konstantin Ivanovich. Thank you for the nice lecture. My question is this. How much you need to trust the experts, and is this not a global mistake, because to take the reaction of Belousov and Zhabotinsky, they said that it was nonsense, nonsense. If we take Holovaty's theory, they said that it was generally incomprehensible, and so on. Does it make sense to divide the entire forecast area into 2 halves? The first half are experts, the second half are non-experts. Thank.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: This is a very interesting question. I, unfortunately, do not remember very well the history of the rehabilitation of these cyclic reactions, although I once read it. But there was, in my opinion, a classic moment when, being not in the mainstream, but in the field, the authorities did not raise questions, they were quite respectable. But what they did is not clear, and when an array of similar things accumulated, it became possible to generalize it, Prigogine appeared, and then the whole story began with the rehabilitation of these things. In my opinion, this is a story about critical accumulation, but in any case, in order to be a participant in this race, you need to observe the principles with which I started, that is, to prove your correctness and your worth. Then you are in the club, you can wait until a sufficient array of data accumulates. It is the same with any technology - you can invest in a losing project for 40 years, everyone will laugh at you, and then suddenly a critical mass accumulates - and the iceberg turns over. Experts are of secondary importance; the main thing is that you entered the procedure correctly, you use the right methods, you defend the results, you work on measurable indicators and you try to generate knowledge. I understand that I probably did not fully answer this dilemma, it really exists. But one cannot unambiguously choose from it, one cannot say that an expert does not mean anything. This means, but when he is not alone, when he is correctly included in the procedure, and when this entire sequence is observed.the main thing is that you entered the procedure correctly, you use the right methods, you defend the results, you work on measurable indicators and you try to generate knowledge. I understand that I probably did not fully answer this dilemma, it really exists. But one cannot unambiguously choose from it, one cannot say that an expert does not mean anything. This means, but when he is not alone, when he is correctly included in the procedure, and when this entire sequence is observed.the main thing is that you entered the procedure correctly, you use the right methods, you defend the results, you work on measurable indicators and you try to generate knowledge. I understand that I probably did not fully answer this dilemma, it really exists. But one cannot unambiguously choose from it, one cannot say that an expert does not mean anything. This means, but when he is not alone, when he is correctly included in the procedure, and when this entire sequence is observed.when it is correctly included in the procedure, and when this entire sequence is observed.when it is correctly included in the procedure, and when this entire sequence is observed.
Boris Dolgin: I am afraid that the author of the question has a problem with the word "trust", because what is it - to trust experts and non-experts? I understand that at the time of the creation of quantum physics, most physicists doubted this, but another question is that a lot of non-physicists did not understand anything about this at all. Colleagues, further.
Question from the audience: You spoke about rather risky venture investments, but in Russia, for example, RVC or other companies are ready to work with this approach?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: We are trying, or rather, we are working, of course, but it's difficult. There are many institutional barriers that prevent this model from being implemented in its pure form. And the barriers are not obvious. The obvious ones are customs, we have said a hundred times, but the key barrier is trust mentioned by Boris. Without a high level of trust in society, specific technologies for investing in a risky project do not work. Because you start to compensate for the trust with analysis, and at this point, venture capital investment turns into zilch. You invest in something that cannot be verified. Recently I spoke with one of such famous business angels of Russian origin in Boston, Semyon, a very famous guy. He was once famous on the MIT team that beat casinos in Las Vegas, and they made money from it. He raised capital for himself there first. Then he started investing as a business angel. 35 investments in 2 years, I spend, say 15 minutes on investment: I see a person who inspires trust - I give him money, he is considered one of the most successful business angels, he already has 2 outputs, he doubled his capital. It works only on trust, no analytics, no procedures, no host of experts who will count - and nothing will happen. Therefore, without such complex humanitarian infrastructures, this thing works very hard, but there are some results. Probably, we will accumulate a critical mass in something, society will move to the side, if it is not shocked. There is no other answer.which inspires confidence - I give him money, he is considered one of the most successful business angels, he already has 2 exits, he doubled his capital. It works only on trust, no analytics, no procedures, no host of experts who will count - and nothing will happen. Therefore, without such complex humanitarian infrastructures, this thing works very hard, but there are some results. Probably, we will accumulate a critical mass in something, society will move to the side, if it is not shocked. There is no other answer.which inspires confidence - I give him money, he is considered one of the most successful business angels, he already has 2 exits, he doubled his capital. It works only on trust, no analytics, no procedures, no host of experts who will count - and nothing will happen. Therefore, without such complex humanitarian infrastructures, this thing works very hard, but there are some results. Probably, we will accumulate a critical mass in something, society will move to the side, if it is not shocked. There is no other answer.but there are some results. Probably, we will accumulate a critical mass in something, society will move to the side, if it is not shocked. There is no other answer.but there are some results. Probably, we will accumulate a critical mass in something, society will move to the side, if it is not shocked. There is no other answer.
Question from the audience: Thank you. And the second question. What is the potential in Russia for the modernization of the scientific base, at least according to the scheme that you showed? Changing the scheme of connectivity of various directions of development.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Modification of the sphere of science. This is a very difficult question. For 160 thousand publications on medicine in the United States, there are 1,500 publications in science in our country. When the difference reaches two orders of magnitude, it is very difficult to talk about something. This is a difficult question, and I will try to answer it in two ways. First, there are technological methods, simple technical methods. China has achieved much of its success thanks to clean technology, database technology, and journalism. These techniques are reproducible, and they can have a great effect, which can be a powerful wind in the sails of a ship, which will go faster and faster - and everything will go more lively. However, if the sails are lowered, then it is useless to blow, that is, if certain decisions are not taken at the ideological level, that for example, a 2 orders of magnitude lag in medicine is a national disaster,then technical methods of inflating the number of publications will not help. If a combination of these decisions comes about, I think we will be rehabilitated. Russia has the most phenomenal property of maintaining an extraordinary ability to generate smart heads with a constantly fluctuating superstructure in the form of science, economics, politics, and so on. The genetics is strong, the batch is so vigorous, and, perhaps, one can hope that there will be enough for one more time, or maybe the mycelium is exhausted. I cannot answer this question.perhaps one can hope that it will be enough for one more time, or maybe the mycelium is exhausted. I cannot answer this question.perhaps one can hope that it will be enough for one more time, or maybe the mycelium is exhausted. I cannot answer this question.
Question from the audience: I would like to ask, maybe I misunderstood. You mean, one of the aspects of the future and forecasting the future is that in modern times there are certain influential circles in the economy who can also maneuver and at the same time determine the future with their interests. That is, for example, you talked about experts, but experts who are not supported by certain circles will be such nameless people whom we will not know well. The question is: are these people, those who choose the direction of the future, are they really the source by which we can determine what kind of future it will be?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: If we take three principles - ethics, objectivity and competence of experts, and we sift everything through these sieves, and if suddenly it turns out to be too little, then we will hire or expand the object of search, then everything will probably become easier. The problem is that these three sieves do not apply. And, accordingly, we have a distorted future, it is. Is this why the American economy and all aspects of it work? Because she is on top of the world, she is the pump, she has no problem with the lack of experts. Clouds of experts are pouring there to prove their worth. China solved the pump problem with money, simply bought experts, lured them to itself. Peter I did, by the way, the same thing. We need some tools to make the expert environment sufficient to simulate the future. We will do it - and something will start to change.
Boris Dolgin: It seems to me that there was one more point in the question, it was half-voiced. Some ideas of the limited circle of those who can determine the future not from the position of an expert, but from the position, relatively speaking, of an investor. Isn't this opinion wrong? What, in your opinion, is the mass layer of potential business angels?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: I did not hear this in the question, but I will answer it. The circle of participants in the process of shaping the future, not necessarily experts, must constantly expand. It is quite possible that all effects, such as Moore's law, some kind of exponential increase in something is a consequence of the same exponential increase in the number of participants. The more massive the network of participants becomes, the more is the effect of the system's ability to generate the future, the idea of it. I don't see any other answer. If we hope that 3 people are selected for a thorough procedure and they will do everything, then we are mistaken. If we say that now there are 3 thousand of them, but there should be 30 thousand, but when there will be 3 million, we can guarantee something - this is a normal approach. We will fight for a concretely measurable result. About business angels. Throughout the history of the readiness economy, there has been a decomposition of the centers of the formation of the future and the creation of networks.
The clearest example: corporate science is dying, the number of articles, patents that large corporations produce is diving. Corporations are getting rid of their corporate centers. They realized that the dinosaurs have lost, they are switching to an open innovation model, they create new tools, create contests, venture funds. They are moving into a preparedness economy. This is an absolutely accomplished institutional reform. The number of business angels is growing, because even a venture fund is considered too conservative, because the procedures are not cheap there. A business angel makes it easier, in a venture fund and so in 15 minutes Senya will not make a decision, he has to do due diligence, but an angel can. But there are more angels, so if before the number of subjects was measured, for example, dozens. Then they began to measure themselves in thousands, and now in millions. There are already millions of business angels to one degree or another. Everyone plays this roulette, most of them lose, the best win. We recently calculated how much investment a business angel needs to have to be successful. 12 is something that guarantees him that he will stay in the club, but 50 is normal, that is, the only criterion for the success of a business angel is the number of investments made. Everything else can be forgotten.
Question from the audience: I would like to clarify this point, you, of course, answer to one degree or another, but I would like to get a slightly more vivid picture of Russia, because we all live in it, and I would like to apply this whole theory to us regarding the education system. You know that changes in the education system are now strongly criticized, but at the same time we have an education system. Can you say, in your personal opinion, what our education system provides today? And the general question: the educational system that educates everyone, does it really give us more smart people than just a way to select the smartest and educate them specifically? Thank.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Good question, thank you. Probably off topic, but I'll try to swim to the topic. The main subject of my dispute - by the way, many thanks for the lecture by Auzan, who spoke brilliantly on this issue. The main subject of my constant dispute with people who are engaged in education, which angers me when they consider the main function of education - to give knowledge. I think this is generally absurd. The main function of the education system is to form a worldview, build a person into society, and educate. The ability to acquire knowledge, technologies for acquiring knowledge are now much more competitive than going to school or university, much more competitive. The modern school has lost the competition in education to tutoring. Universities in general are now being eroded by the new idea of distance learning, edutainment, etc.and in general, according to my personal forecast, in 15 years the secondary university will turn into an assessment center, in which people will sit who confirm that the person who received knowledge from the professor at the first-class university really received this knowledge via the Internet. Everything, period. And universities of the second plan - there will be no need for professors: why listen to Rabinovich, if there is a radio, and you can listen to Chaliapin? The same is happening now in education. Therefore, the main problem of our education is that we have lost the function of education. The school has lost the function of education, the university has lost the function of education and the formation, generally speaking, of a worldview. And the upbringing was taken over by just anyone: TV, street; the family does not correct this story well. For many reasons, I do not want to leave the topic. It seems to me, if we return to this topic,then this is about the same humanitarian substrate and foundation that we talked about. The substrate is the base, this is what you cannot live without. In my opinion, the main school subject is literature. If a person understands physics, you can overwhelm him with a problem, he will eventually bury himself and click with pleasure. The main task is to give him this opportunity. If a person has not received a good worldview education, the only thing that this gives is literature, then, generally speaking, this is a strong problem. I came across, talked with MIT-scholars, they say that every year we accept more and more bad students from Russia. And I say, what's the problem, sillier? No, not more stupid, lazier, they don't want to study, they are unmotivated, they are not ready to work hard, they do not have this need. They are both lazier and more self-confident at the same time. This is an exclusively ideological jamb. Generally speaking, the problem of education. A person is not imparted with craving and the need for work. If, in my opinion, the ability to solve problems, analyze patterns is still a genetic thing, that is, we can still assume that there will be enough in the mycelium for 3 generations, then in terms of educational, this thing degenerates before our eyes for half a generation. If not artificially restored, then from the point of view of the production of brains as a resource, if in the economy oil is resources, energy, then now the main resource is brains, people. In terms of the quality of our exports, we are losing the quality of exports; Whereas earlier we sold high-calorie oil and brains, now we sell low-calorie oil and brains. At an earlier stage, requiring more cutting and preparation with less assurance of sweat. That is, this process is under way. I say this unfounded, there is no research to confirm this, but everyone with whom I communicate testifies to this.
Question from the audience: And in continuation to the same topic about humanitarian education, how can we finance it then? Business angels will not lend money for this research.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: The general answer is that there are two models, just like with taxes - there are countries where large taxes are distributed by the state, where small taxes are distributed through charity funds (charity). The same is true for the humanities. This must be realized by society, the need for high culture must be a public need. This need can be met either through high taxes and, accordingly, budgetary maintenance, or through these rich funds and large philanthropic projects that will support this substrate. How best to do this now, I'm afraid to debate, because the cultural support system is identical to the tax system. They are structured in the same way, and these fundamental infrastructures are completely revealing. China, when it began to build its offshores, it transferred them to British law,they did not speculate, they just saw that all the successful innovative economies were built according to British law, they did not even try to analyze, they copied. These infrastructures are fundamental, we are not talking about them. So, through these funds or taxes, I don't know, but until there is a public consensus, until society either forces the state or forces the oligarchs, nothing will happen. When I say these things, I mean society. Society seems to be demanding, shouting, you know, shouting is a small part of Moscow society who go to public lectures. The main part of society does not shout, but watches the first channel. You have to be realistic. In the 19th century, this was decided by the consensus of the elites, and the state simply pumped in money. Absolutely true, when Tchaikovsky received a million rubles,then naval officers gave up their careers to write operas. This is logical. Well, perhaps, perhaps, I will agree that the state should invest, there is nothing to expect from useless oligarchs. I agree with you as a citizen, we can force the state to do this, we will try.
Question from the audience: Will you allow the question to be clarified? The development of social technologies is the subject of venture investment, isn't it?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Classical - no, because, unfortunately, a venture game is a game about profit. Invests in where the money is fighting back. This is a game about money, this is a casino, relatively speaking. Investing in a new university, which will start earning a huge amount of money, a venture capitalist will agree with pleasure, but he will not be able to invest in some kind of humanitarian technology, the result of which is enlightenment and the quality of knowledge, because the technology is arranged in such a way that he invests first, then three more are invested, then five more, and then everyone makes money by selling the company. Unfortunately, this is not applicable to humanitarian technology. This is a property of technology.
Question from the audience: Thus, we will never get changes in this public demand, a qualitative breakthrough in the development of science, and we will never get out of the shameful state in which we find ourselves?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: I have beautifully described venture activities, and everyone will start thinking: maybe it will help? No single tool is ever the only one - you need a saw, a plane, and an ax. Venture business knows how to make effective companies, indirectly, this has a positive effect, because, for example, what did Zuckerberg do when he already made his billions? He created a lobbying group whose task is to improve the quality of education. Indirectly, the people and the venture capital industry who invested in Zuckerberg influenced the fact that there was more money in the social sector, but it worked in the US model environment, where a lobbyist group can be registered, and you will not be imprisoned for this, where registration of a lobbying group allows you to do more. your capital is stable because you distribute taxes more efficiently, and so on. Where the entire national system works for this. Venture capital alone won't do anything. If all the other institutions grow, the system will probably start working. Well, by the way, the people I know who made capital in Russia on venture capital are just socially responsible, and very much. Look at Segalovich and his wife - these are just examples of correct ethical behavior, this is a classic millionaire who made money on a venture project. Look at the projects of Yandex, Parallels, Abby, at Universities, at their educational programs. They generally count money and believe that it develops their business. Well, this is indirectly developing MIPT, developing programs. These people understand: perhaps in 10 years we will have not 2, not 10, but 100 companies that have made themselves on this model. Perhaps these people will be more socially responsible. This is one of the positive scenarios.
Question from the audience: Good evening, my name is Herman. Returning to forecasting the future, as I understand it, you said that there should be clearly measurable metrics about this process.
Boris Dolgin: Are there clearly measurable metrics in forecasting itself?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: All activities are based on clearly predictable metrics, clearly calculated metrics.
Question from the audience: And this relates to forecasting, I don't quite understand?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Once again: to any human activity. In particular, forecasting becomes effective when there are metrics to rely on.
Question from the audience: That is, when predicting the future, you need to have some kind of objective approach?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Naturally, there is no such parameter, by measuring the dynamics of which, you can predict the future, but there are parameters, by measuring which, you can tune the system so that it becomes predictively effective.
Question from the audience: It seems to me that there are more people making the future, it is difficult to predict, because …
Boris Dolgin: What is difficult to predict?
Question from the audience: The results of the activities of people who create the future give breakthrough innovations.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Again a question about Jobs, and you can try to answer it again. It is not the person who is effective, the system is effective. When such people can act effectively, the system has the ability to create the future. To predict is not a fact, but to create. When Jobs said something, the future was still hazy, when he did it, everything became clear. The system is capable, when properly configured, to create the future. An individual concrete person outside the system means nothing.
Question from the audience: Returning to your schemes, the scientific map, this is a retrospective analysis, we understand that once it was done by someone, on the basis of some, including subjective, signs. The person thought it was a cool thing, believed in it, but did not rely on objective metrics, do I understand correctly?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: The investor is trying to measure something objectively. Once again, this is purely an object of the system, that is, those who make mistakes many times go bankrupt - the one who makes successful steps wins. In general, you know, when you start looking at this matter from the macrolevel, a person loses some such sacred essence, he becomes an automaton that either learns or does not learn, you see his purely probabilistic approach. People invest, invest, and they do it so successfully that their capital grows, and the portfolio grows, and these are investing, they lost money, got kicked out of the market - and goodbye. And to assume that this can be taught, you can calculate, you can find people and rely only on them … I am sure that it is impossible, because there is such a rule about the American venture business. Sorry, I often talk about this topic,because this is a very unusual area for Russia and there is a lot of indicative data in the context. There is a rule of thumb for how a venture capitalist turns out - that's $ 20 million and 10 years of failure. A person must lose 20 million dollars, after which he begins to understand something. Kaufman graduation in 2 years is the only one where they try to teach them, guaranteed, and then you start to squander the fund's money and lose it. There is no other way. Activity, the result of this activity, objective metrics to measure it - and the system begins to drift somewhere. Kaufman graduation in 2 years is the only one where they try to teach them, guaranteed, and then you start to squander the fund's money and lose it. There is no other way. Activity, the result of this activity, objective metrics to measure it - and the system begins to drift somewhere. Kaufman graduation in 2 years is the only one where they try to teach them, guaranteed, and then you start to squander the fund's money and lose it. There is no other way. Activity, the result of this activity, objective metrics to measure it - and the system begins to drift somewhere.
Question from the audience: So it is impossible to formalize this process?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: Impossible.
Question from the audience: So it turns out that you cannot rely on objective metrics?
Boris Dolgin: Metrics of what? I asked for a reason.
Evgeny Kuznetsov: No, there are metrics, the fund's portfolio. People collected one fund, then they collected another. They are profitable, they were given money for a second fund. A person made a startup, sold it, they will give him money for a second startup even easier, and so on. And there are metrics. It is impossible to formalize, that is, look at the parameters, run it through tests, give money and hope that it will have a high return.
Question from the audience: Potentially, it is possible to create such a process of forecasting the future, described by some images, which would give a more accurate forecast of this future?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: It is possible, by improving the system and procedure, to make the ability to work with the future as efficient as possible. It is possible, but this is the job of the system. Is it possible to create a center that predicts the future of medicine in isolation from everything else? You can't. Is it possible to create a university environment surrounded by a cultural environment, good laws and good courts - and as a result, this system will begin to better and faster readjust to the changes in medicine? Yes, you can. That is, no particular solutions are possible. Do you know where this story was born, why should we put together a sharaga here, create a nuclear project, and so on? It was created from the old industrial model, and in it it worked largely due to the economies of scale of the mutual overflow of knowledge. There were also some elements similar to venture elements. Some technologies didn't work,they were shot at, some technologies worked, they made the head design bureau, the tool too. At one time I read a wonderful note by Stalin, a letter from a Belarusian front-line soldier. A wonderful task, the person writes, asks for a million to create a collective farm, starting with his intelligence history, proves his effectiveness as a scout, then says that he wants to remake in the collective farm, then asks for money. For which he receives a resolution - "give". The man made the first collective farm-millionaire in Belarus. This is a classic "pitch" in the field of venture capital. First you show yourself, then traction (movement history), then you get money. It's just that in venture technology, if you lose money, you get a pat on the shoulder, dude, try again. At one time I read a wonderful note by Stalin, a letter from a Belarusian front-line soldier. A wonderful task, the person writes, asks for a million to create a collective farm, starting with his intelligence history, proves his effectiveness as a scout, then says that he wants to remake in the collective farm, then asks for money. For which he receives a resolution - "give". The man made the first collective farm-millionaire in Belarus. This is a classic "pitch" in the field of venture capital. First you show yourself, then traction (movement history), then you get money. It's just that in venture technology, if you lose money, you get a pat on the shoulder, dude, try again. At one time I read a wonderful note by Stalin, a letter from a Belarusian front-line soldier. A wonderful task, the person writes, asks for a million to create a collective farm, starting with his intelligence history, proves his effectiveness as a scout, then says that he wants to remake in the collective farm, then asks for money. For which he receives a resolution - "give". The man made the first collective farm-millionaire in Belarus. This is a classic "pitch" in the field of venture capital. First you show yourself, then traction (movement history), then you get money. It's just that in venture technology, if you lose money, you get a pat on the shoulder, dude, try again.proves the effectiveness of himself as a scout, then says that he wants to remake in the collective farm, then asks for money. For which he receives a resolution - "give". The man made the first collective farm-millionaire in Belarus. This is a classic "pitch" in the field of venture capital. First you show yourself, then traction (movement history), then you get money. It's just that in venture technology, if you lose money, you get a pat on the shoulder, dude, try again.proves the effectiveness of himself as a scout, then says that he wants to remake in the collective farm, then asks for money. For which he receives a resolution - "give". The man made the first collective farm-millionaire in Belarus. This is a classic "pitch" in the field of venture capital. First you show yourself, then traction (movement history), then you get money. It's just that in venture technology, if you lose money, you get a pat on the shoulder, dude, try again.try again.try again.
There is a rule - if you fail all the time, then go to the forest, no one will give more money. And Stalin shot - the technology, it seems to me, is ineffective in relation to the substrate. So you simply remove the person, he does not make any more company, he sits, walks or sweeps the streets, and so he simply disappears, or in front of the forest. In any case, the following thing works. And to calculate: this guy is so smart, they give him money, he can handle it - no, it doesn't work that way.
Question from the audience: I would like to clarify what we mean by the word system. There is the American Western system, there is the Russian system. Can we say that the word "system" is locked within the national framework?
Evgeny Kuznetsov: It is understood not as a political system, but as a physical system, a scientific system, a set of related objects with relationships, environment, accumulation of information, and so on. I am not using this in a political sense.
Question from the audience: There is a version that the disappearance of national borders throughout the world could give a fantastic impetus.
Yevgeny Kuznetsov: China successfully refutes this and proves another principle, that if a culture is 5 thousand years old, it can get back on its feet, even if it was simply destroyed. That is, the foundation of culture, genetics has such an important factor that it cannot be discounted at all. Arab culture, having lost the technological race at one time, fell and did not rise, while China stood up, and Iran is well worth it, although not everything is in order there either. How many thousands of years is culture? This is the accumulated mass. I am a big opponent of the story about the homogenization of the population in general, any systematic approach begins with the manifestation of the difference. It's like the law of thermodynamics - work goes on when there is immediately potential. Differences have to be created.
