CREATIVE DESTRUCTION---IS THERE TOO MUCH OF IT ? And is it a war on normal people ?

Here in the country of health care dystopia, this may give you new feelings about disruptive technologies.

One of the main features of humanity is the search for better. Humans also attempt to control their environment including finances, employment and their health.  The situation we find ourselves is not unique or new.

How many physicians have gone into non-clinical ventures or become serial entrepenurs either before  or after experiencing burnout, or depression?

In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he came to realize, there are thousands upon thousands of losers — a “war on normal people,” he calls it. Here’s what he plans to do about it.

Andrew Yang on SoundCloud

Andrew Yang is not famous. Not yet, at least — maybe he will be someday. But let me tell you his story. He’s 44 years old; he was born in Schenectady, N.Y., a city long dominated by General Electric, the sort of company that had long dominated the American economy. But which, as you likely know, doesn’t anymore. Yang’s parents had both immigrated from Taiwan, and met in grad school. His mother became a systems administrator and his father did research at I.B.M.; he got his name on 69 patents. Their son Andrew studied economics and political science at Brown, got a law degree at Columbia, and ultimately became a successful entrepreneur, with a focus on widespread job creation. In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But along the way, he came to see that for every winner, there were thousands upon thousands of losers.

While most physicians (along with myself, have been quick to state, health care is like no other) it has fallen prey to constant propaganda about efficiency, automation, cost containment and catalytic innovation.

Catalytic innovation takes place not only in health care, it also takes place in society as a whole, influencing developing countries and impoverished nations..

A great deal of innovation is profit. Investors are always searching for new ideas in which to invest their capital. Rather than investing in stable companies that have a solid long term history and plan, they are now seeking "startups", "incubators" and other training grounds for would be entrepenurs.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter famously described capitalism as an act of “creative destruction” — with new ideas and technologies replacing the old, with nimble startup firms replacing outmoded legacy firms, all in service of a blanket rise in prosperity. The notion of creative destruction has for many decades been part of the economic orthodoxy. And it’s undeniable that global prosperity has risen, and not just a little bit. But Yang — like many others — has stopped believing in the economic orthodoxy of creative destruction. As he sees it, there’s just too much destruction; and the blanket rise in prosperity isn’t covering enough people. We’re living through what Yang calls “a war on normal people” — a war that Yang fears is getting uglier all the time. And that’s why he has taken to saying this:

Andrew YANG: I’m Andrew Yang, and I’m running for president as a Democrat in 2020.

Stephen DUBNER: I can think of a million things that you personally, Andrew Yang — with your resources and abilities and so on — could have done other than running for president of the United States. And yet that’s the one you’ve chosen. So why?

YANG: So imagine if you were the guy getting medals and awards for creating jobs around the country and realizing that the jobs are about to disappear in an historic way. And all of the solutions involve really a much more intelligent, activated government than you currently have. And I went around and talked to various people being like, “Hey guys, anyone going to solve the biggest problem in the history of the world?” And I could not identify anyone who was going to run and take it on.

DUBNER: So you put your hand up and said, “I guess I will?”

YANG: Yeah. I’m a parent like you are. I’ve got kids who are going to grow up in this country, and to me just believing that we’re going to leave them this shit-show that I think is coming and not doing something about it struck me as really pathetic.

Ref:
https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/episodes/ce5f03c5-8f78-4842-a52e-abf40bf00d77/e43c5458255bb7327032d0800d1f11fd5267005f9c2321d2ff1ebc62f441b6faadad76694d82a64ca9d0260deb25f1c5403b54a569ba57dbe47d9b67054ba795/PC%20ANDREW%20YANG%20MIX%20190108.mp3