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From MIT Inventor To Tea Party Leader
An anonymous reader writes "In the midst of Congressional races around the country, one stands out to techies. Thomas Massie, an MIT whiz kid who pioneered touch-based interfaces and founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s, is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in his Kentucky district next week. SensAble was recently sold on the cheap, but in a new exclusive, Massie explains why he left the haptics firm years ago to lead a simpler life of farming, family, and guns — lots of guns. Along the way he built a solar-powered, off-the-grid house and became a local hero of the Tea Party. Now Massie is leading the charge to get more engineers into politics, and if he wins, he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC."
Now known as 'MITea'.
!!!!!!! aw crap...
WTF is someone who is intelligent enough to graduate from college (MIT no less) doing associating themselves with the Tea Party. It's got to be some kind of paid publicity stunt.
Whenever someone finds a right wing engineer? It's not really all that rare.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah, I went there. Mod away. I have no regrets about speaking the truth.
You cannot shake the truth that the tebaggers are dangerous nuts with no grip on reality.
*In b4 streams of truthy teabag buzzwords and catch phrases. Soundbites and good feelings do not an ideology make.
You mean those tea partiers arent a bunch of hayseed nutjobs? That does not compute... I thought they were all bible thumping luddites with no brains at all He obviously took a wrong turn on the way to teh Occupy Wall Street violent demonstration
Gimme the TL;DR version. Motorcycle accident? Brain cancer? Aneurysm?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Engineer tea-billies? That's like gay Republicans, or poor Republicans. It makes no sense, whatsoever. I'm guessing that being such a supposed wunderkind, he never did anything outside of the labs and libraries, and as such, didn't get a well rounded education that enabled him to think on his own.
I don't respond to AC's.
...wasn't disappointed.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC."
No, no he wont.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and preparation for unpleasantness in general, but I have no taste for right-wing politics or christianity. Fortunately, preparation for the unexpected (i.e. EMPs, social unrest, the spanish inquisition...) does not require a right wing belief system, only a healthy paranoia and distrust of all institutions, over-complexified fragile, interdependent, energy-dependent supply chain ecologies and anything that comes over the mass media.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I was doing research on touch interfaces three years before that. Not to develop the underlying technology, not even to build them, but how to improve them for practical applications, i.e. I was building on the basics that had been done long before that.
He's a lying cunt.
Speaking as a right wing, family oriented, gun loving engineer myself. Why would he ever want to go into politics?
Sounds like a Thomas Edison type of guy to me (Whiz kid? What, is he some kind of Tony Stark for "inventing" some interface device?). I'm intensely suspicious of anyone who supports religious beliefs. It demonstrates an error in logical thinking faculties.
Never trust an engineer that thinks the world is 6000 years old. And for the record, Edison was a douche bag.
Sheldon: 'cept Tom, he is just an engineer
*laughter follows*
Maybe one day you will realize that not everyone you disagree with is stupid or disingenuous.
But, well, not gun-crazy maniacs. We've got enough of those in the government.
Not a force to be reckoned with; just another crazy politician on the hill.
...sure it would make no sense to see an educated person associating themselves with what the major media outlets associate with them. After all, all tea party people are nazis and all democrats are communist sympathizers, right? right?
If, on the other hand, you intelligently realize that most American's are actually fairly close in terms of political view and the cartoons presented to you are false on their face, you might see that both sides have rational points that should be listened to, even fought for.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Everyone knows the Tea Party is secretly run by rich corporate elites like Carter Pewterschmidt who just want to reduce government regulation so they can rape the environment!
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
Forgive me if I don't just for joy, just because he's a fellow engineer.
There are MIT kids with "Glenn Beck Fan" buttons on their doors. There are fourth-year Course 6 CS students who don't know what an integer overflow is. There are fourth year chemical engineering students who can't remember the first law of thermodynamics. Most of these people are annoying and at MIT we rightly consider them stupid. Being an MIT student doesn't mean a damned thing. Being an MIT grad means a little more considering the higher attrition rate, but doesn't mean much either, particularly when it comes to areas outside of your competence. One of those people with the Glenn Beck buttons is one of the smarter EEs I've met, but it doesn't mean his politics are on this planet.
Why is anyone surprised?
Time to start kicking the living shit out of these tax happy politicians.
Keep your guns close because that's what politicians are afraid of, it's the armed populace who are mad as hell and aren't going to put up with it anymore.
Time to start putting these welfare leaches to work. There is an entire road and bridge infrastructure that needs to be repaired.
The self-righteous comments make it hard to discern.
FTFA - "Massie has been targeting waste, fraud, and abuse, starting with questioning electric bills, phone bills, contracts, and fees for things that don’t apply anymore. Like the county being charged rental fees for property that had long been sold, paying for phone lines that had been disconnected for years, or buying stuff from a magistrate’s store."
Eliminating bills for services that no longer apply seems like a no-brainer. It sounds to me like the county government was corrupt, and based on the location (Lewis County KY) and demographics (98.2% white) he probably unseated a conservative when he was elected to county office.
Interesting to note that Lewis County KY gets 42.9% of it's income from the government (US national average is 17.6%). Seems like he should keep focusing on his home county before aiming higher.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Massie says. “You know it’s pretty bad when the people who have to deal with the FDA say, ‘Why can’t you be more like the Patent Office?’”
"But things have not gone smoothly for Massie in office—and that’s just how he wants it. “When you’re stalking waste within a government office, it’s like every rock that you turn over has a snake under it,” he says. Massie has been targeting waste, fraud, and abuse, starting with questioning electric bills, phone bills, contracts, and fees for things that don’t apply anymore. Like the county being charged rental fees for property that had long been sold, paying for phone lines that had been disconnected for years, or buying stuff from a magistrate’s store. He has upset a lot of entrenched powers, but has gained support from the masses for it. And he says that in his first nine months in office, he cut enough waste to pay his own salary for three years."
Why does this sort of stuff just plain piss the left leaning person off? I mean, even if you are a dedicated communist shouldn't you still wish to find corruption, overspending, and waste, and squash it? Shouldn't that be something anyone from any party would rally behind?
But no, unfortunately when someone says limited government they immediately get called a right wing racist teabagger.
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/House/Kentucky/Thomas_Massie/Views/Debt,_Deficit,_Spending,_and_the_Size_of_Government/
"Thomas is opposed to ObamaCare, the Patriot Act, any new firearms restrictions, the intrusive actions of the Transportation Security Administration, indefinite detention of American citizens without trial, internet censorship, and all other infringements on our liberties by the federal government. "
Ok.. but then it gets sketchy.... "American families".. I bet he isn't talking about the wealthy 1%
"Every child born in this country owes $200,000 toward the national debt.... cuts the federal budget by 1% each year until the budget is balanced. American families must live within their means,"
Oh, but then.... ...supports a fairer, flatter tax plan that distributes the burden more fairly without increasing overall revenues for the federal government.
You can't just say "Oh, he's a geek type! Let's vote for him" because in the end all that matters is who he's really working for. The people, or the corporate douchebags.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
An educated fool.
And Kentucky, which is chock full of fools both educated and otherwise,
is a good place for him.
This just proves that being intelligent does not mean you are smart.
Doesn't make him smart. Despite what we've all been told about rocket scientists there is no correlation.
Still I wish the nut-case well and hope he and his sycophants and cronies have fun in the Kentucky legislature. If any state deserves him it's the one that allows bourbon to be made in a dry county.
Here we have proof that attending MIT does not make one immune from ignorance and stupidity.
Stick Men
Lewis County KY is a Republican/Conservative county. Massie is in a Tea Party versus Republican battle.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Massie recalls Sununu saying, "We need more engineers and fewer lawyers" in politics. As Massie explains, "Lawyers are taught to take a position, whether it's right or wrong ideologically, and defend it—to go collect facts to support it. Whereas engineers are taught the inverse of that, they're taught to collect facts and then come up with an answer based on the facts. He said, 'That's the kind of thought process we need more of in government.' On the stump, that's what I'm trying to convey, that we need more problem solvers in Washington, DC."
I wholeheartedly approve of this idea.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
He lives in a county where the population gets over 42% of their income from government sources, including food stamps, medicare, welfare, and other social programs. Sure, he can point his finger at "big government" in Washington because that will get him elected. Pointing out to his fellow Lewis County residents how much they get from the government will probably piss them off.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
And, I say that in all seriousness. The logical or obvious "Occam's Razor" solution to problems often don't apply to us illogical human beings. We do lots of stupid things, not out of anything more sinister than our overwhelming biological drives. That includes reproducing before we might be financially stable, getting fat, our drive to socialize and find mates, etc. When you start assuming that humans will be logical, you start assuming wrong. Ask a sociologist how well some "obvious" solution to a social ailment that's been public policy (and failing) for decades is working out.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Stephen Chu, the whiz kid who's now being named as a "person of interest" in the mis-management of the Dept. of Energy loans to so-called "green" companies.
Who is modding up these stupid comments, masquerading as tolerant acceptance of other people's politics? It is not, as these mods would suggest, open-minded and intelligent to accept the TEA Party movement as a valid political movement. It is not, and anyone who has looked at it knows that it is a movement that rejects science and rational thought in favor of nationalistic provincialism. That an otherwise intelligent person can identify himself with a movement that rejects climate change--to take just one example--is amazing. It is no more close minded to reject the TEA Party than it was to reject the rise of fascism in Europe. This is not hyperbole. A close look at the TEA Party finds amazing similarities to every other fascist movement in modern history.
Reduce the number of political positions to fit our vocabulary. Your solution of expanding the labels just leads to madness.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's pretty sad how people will sell out their country so cheaply, for a few extra bucks for their state.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
I like this guy . An Engineer applying the principle he learnt in his trade to his life.
This must be some new weird American thing, but what is with this latest fetish with tea parties?
Isnt that a stereotypically British thing to do with friends?
And why would you bring guns...lots of guns...to a tea party? Wouldnt it scare the (non-US) children?
If, on the other hand, you intelligently realize that most American's are actually fairly close in terms of political view
Do you think so? I personally know Americans who think the US should be run under Old Testament of the Bible law -- including stoning adulterers -- and people who think that churches should be outlawed. I know people who own 100,000 rounds of ammunition and people who think guns should be banned. People who think sick people who can't pay medical bills should be dumped out on the street to die and people who think the government should provide free unlimited healthcare. People who think the Federal government should do nothing more than fund and run the military, and people who would like to see the government nationalize many large corporations and run them. I don't actually know anyone who argues that women shouldn't have the right to vote, but I've seen them talk. I do know people who think anyone who doesn't believe in the christian god should not be allowed to hold public office. That's a pretty wide spectrum of ideas, spanning from Saudi Arabian to Maoist to anarcholibertarian. I'm sure other countries have as broad a swath of ideas: I'm not claiming american exceptionalism as regards political leanings. However, I haven't seen much evidence of other countries having much broader political views.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
An engineer, let alone a smart one, has no future in a political career.
The right kind of nerd to succeed in politics has to have a hunger for power that far exceeds his distaste for every aspect of politics and all of the surrounding personalities he will come into contact with.
Not to mention what he himself has to become.
Engineering is based on truth. You don't say that the bridge will support a 25,000 kg vehicle if you aren't sure.
Politics is based on straight-faced lying.
two extremely, extremely intelligent engineers i work with think the earth is ~4000 years old. yes, they are brilliant when it comes to circuits and fab process and rtl, but they are young-earth creationists.
why does this announcement surprise anyone other than fox news, who will now use this guy as street cred for the teabaggers? /shakes head/
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Massie says that more engineers should be in politics. That idea that there are people who are "smart" enough to lead has been done before when the Bolsheviks took over after the 1917 October Revolution.
Lenin had to gain the support of the populace by using anarchist ideals and slogans ("Power to the Soviets (worker's councils)!"). But once he seized power, he reiterated that the Bolshevik Party is the rightful party to make the decisions because the populace was "too ignorant" to do things for themselves. While he thought it was bad for capitalists too exploit people for profit, he didn't think it was bad to use the same capitalist ways and means of organizing people; all because he thought people were too unsophisticated to do things on their own. On another note, the proletariart (industrial workers) were a minority in Russia, so even the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat was elitist because it excluded the peasant and artisan society that made up most of Russia.
There was a recent Slashdot story that mentioned that China typically elects/chooses engineers into positions of power. That hasn't worked out too well for the people controlled by the engineers.
Problably it's just me,
but I don't get the engineer - politician analogy
Mr Beck, I didn't suggest removal of the First and Second amendments from your "list of freedoms". I suggested that their original intent, as clearly expressed by the guys who wrote those amendments, have been perverted by nasty little shits like you, who would happily piss in a public swimming pool and say, "Hey, it's a free country! So that means I get to piss and shit in the public pool. You betcha!"
And I certainly did not call for "censorship", you pathetic coward.
It's people like you that pervert the meaning of the Second Amendment. Let's break it down a little bit, shall we? "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The first part: "a well regulated militia". In this they are clearly calling for a militia that is controlled by the government. That cannot be argued. However, one must also look at the definition of a militia. Militia are historically made up of local citizens, generally of a town or group of towns, that will on occasion get together and drill and practice, so as to be available to be called up for local defense in case of a conflict. Militia played a huge role in the Revolutionary War, bolstering the ranks of the Continental Army for a battle. The key point of a militia is that it is not equipped by the government. Equipment is privately purchased or crafted, and weapons are supplied by each individual militiaman. In the case of the Revolutionary War, militiamen used their own muskets or rifles that they would use for hunting or protection (in the case of some frontier areas). These were privately owned weapons, not government issue. The government only supplied the regular troops with equipment and weapons.
Now the second part: "necessary to the security of a free state". This says that militia are necessary for security. Note that the 2nd Amendment never mentions an army (an army is specifically addressed outside the Bill of Rights). For them to leave out the word 'army", they are clearly saying that the ability of local citizens to arm themselves and defend their home (not their house, but their town, their state, their country), is vital to the security of a state.
The third and fourth parts are just as easy to understand: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". Look at the writings of the men that wrote the Constitution, the leading thinkers of that time. The phrase "the people" was always used as a stark contrast to the government. The phrase always meant the citizens, the common man, the farmer on his farm, and the merchant in the city. They are not talking about the governor, or the soldier, or elected representatives; these are all members or instruments of the government. Let's look at another famous phrase by these men for context: "a government of the people, by the people, for the people". This shows that the term "the people" is to be taken as distinct from "the government". And finally: "shall not be infringed". This means that this right, the right of the common man to possess and own firearms, should not be taken away without just cause (this right certainly can and at times should be forfeited, but that's another discussion).
Any logical, reasoned examination of the wording of the Second Amendment, especially when compared to contemporary writings of the writers of the Constitution and their peers, shows that they believed that gun ownership is extremely important. The fact that they chose to make it the second Amendment means that this right was held in their highest regards after the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and religion. There is no need to try and interpret intent. Their intent is clearly spelled out.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It's just that some self-important idiots have a strange belief in how much of an honor it is supposed to be to do all of the work for them. somthing you might expect in a four-year old, but not an adult.
by attending a massively subsidized university and achieving commercial success in an economy supported by the world's best public infrastructure and retired to play farmhand in kentucky and spout moronic theories of self reliance. big fn whoop.
the title says it.
... wasn't disappointed.
Can you somehow link it to Nazism ? Then, according to a powerful Law Of Mr Godwin, all discussion would cease.
..quite good. Lifted their country out of the shit in a matter of 30 years to #2. Weren't fucked by "freedom" Banker-Robbers. Building lots of nuclear reactors, which highly pisses BP, $hell, Exxon, Haliburton etc.
..the current political class of America is as capable as Mao. Yes, I think you nailed it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Excessive competition often results in shady practices. Getting bad service on a car stereo is a different realm than having your spleen F'd up by EnronCare & Associates....and not finding out about it until EC&A has mysteriously closed shop.
Table-ized A.I.
Do many of those people live within ~30 miles of one another? If so, I'd surely like to visit your district sometime. Must be interesting.
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/about/
Just thought I would inject a few facts into the smear campaign. I'm a Libertarian, and I haven't really understood exactly what the Tea Party stands for or what made them decide not to simply join the Libertarian Party, a pro-freedom political group that had already existed for many years.
1. They want lower taxes, but they aren't specific about how low. They also don't say anything specific about how they feel about borrowing money. So their position is kind of vague. Libertarians tend to believe in either no taxes at all or a very small, single digit flat tax or VAT and they don't try to substitute borrowed money for tax money.
2. They see the constitution as a document that limits the government and not the citizens. Presumably that means actually interpreting the 9th amendment literally. This sounds very close to the Libertarian position. The only difference may be that Libertarians tend to argue for the philosophy that lies behind the constitution and the bill of rights and tend to speak about things like "natural rights". Libertarians don't tend to rely on the constitution as if it were a kind of holy document, but instead will discuss people like John Locke or other Enlightenment philosophers who so strongly influenced the ideas of the men who wrote the constitution. It's not clear to me how comfortable Tea Partiers are discussing the philosophy behind their positions.
3. The free market = good. Here they do sound like Libertarians.
Unfortunately that summary mentions nothing about personal freedoms. Although if they do truly support a direct, literal interpretation of the constitution then that would at least somewhat take care of their position on the current encroachment of the police state. Republicans tend to be even more in favor of a police state than Democrats. If the Tea Party really is in favor of personal freedoms they should state that explicitly as that is a serious problem with Republicans.
Although I try to avoid wikipedia when it comes to controversial subjects because it often tends to have inaccurate information, the wikipedia entry seems rather interesting in this case. The wiki entry
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
My later father beat the IRS "tax court" sixteen times. Prior to obtaining a law degree he was a practicing Engineer however non-licensed. When the IRS sought funding to create a software package capable of being used by IRS agents for their use, his comment was essentially: they are fools to think that the politicians who gave the IRS the authority to write the code in the first place INTENDED it to be ANYTHING other than an excuse to do exactly what is in the US Declaration of Independence, namely - He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
REFUSAL to intellectually recognize that the purpose of the tax code is to harass, NOT to collect revenue, is a sign of both deliberate ignorance, and a weak understanding of the original intent of the formation of this nation to remove any authority of kingdoms and other forms of popery.
... are so misinformed as to make their political views and opinions invalid. Just looking at american slashdotters talk about 'the left' or 'the liberals' is informative at how effective american media has been at propaganda. If you don't think you are a victim of propaganda I would point you to this talk here:
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc
As someone who lives in canada, we know that THERE IS NO LEFT IN NORTH AMERICA anymore. Canada for a long time was a little left of center then america but that stopped 30 some years ago (around 1970's) and we've been on the same hard right path as america ever since. Our "liberals" are really conservatives in terms of ideology (pro corporate, anti public welfare). They've been making the same policy choices along american lines and now with harper and co, harper is stealth privatizing healthcare by making uninformed ideologically driven cuts to evidence based government policies and downloading federal deficit onto the provinces.
You can't talk politics in north america anymore with any kind of sanity at all. The human mind does not work like a rational machine and I think the more you understand about the limitations of your own mind, the less emotional investment you have in your own political views - because you know your response is based on flawed brain structures you inherited that force you to interpret the world in a particular way without your consent.
Massie explains why he left the haptics firm years ago
Because the guy whose ideas and work he'd been stealing and passing off as his got tired of that.
"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." --William F. Buckley, Jr.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
If they get enough people like Massie in the Tea Party, they might bring up the average IQ into triple digits.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I've been reading his blog for years, and I wouldn't call him a "gun-toting tea party survivalist". That's a meme-loaded caricature that honestly just doesn't fit the man.
Now, he's a devoted follower of Rand Paul, which tells me that I couldn't vote for him. The son is not the father! But Massie is neither a super-trustworthy ultra-genius nor a serial-killer-worshipping Ayn Rand clone, he's a fairly normal politically naive idiot just like the ones nearly every slashdotters see when they look in the mirror in the morning.
The only problem with that is that he's with the Tea Party, which kind of blows a hole in your argument.
Not necessarily. BTW, I used to be a former Tea Party sympatizer... at the very, very early stage up and until it got to bed with right-wing, homophobe creationist radicals bent on attacking Obama, the person (and to be honest, the whole thing has a racial component to it, which I obviously disaprove of.) I've been attacking the Tea Party in most issues everytime I get a chance ever since (or at least the radical right-wing faction that has been controlling the Tea Party.)
But there are a lot of former Tea Party sympathizers (read former) who wanted a dialog oriented on fiscal conservative views (not on messianic, apocalyptic socio-religious conservative views.)
That is the type of people conservatives and liberals need to reach and talk and have dialogs and compromise. It also goes without saying that there are, as well, independent-minded left-leaning individuals that need to be reached.
So it is important not to draw generalizations and guilt-by-association due to party affiliations. A party affiliation does not mean complete obedience to a particular ideology. It can also mean trying to be a reformer, or subscribing to some basic principles, or being a dissident within that movement.
That "blow a hole in the argument" kind of thing cannot be said just based on party affiliations. You can only say that when you take careful, objective measure of a man ( Mr. Massie in question), his personal views, his record of actions and current political agenda.
I would disagree with Mr. Massie for campaigning for Rand Paul (I don't agree with the later's economic/political agenda.) But that seems one of the many items that need examination.
Also, it seems like this pro-guns/pro-tea-party associations are being blown out of proportion. The summary would make the impression Massin is a gun-totting survavilist living in a survalist underground compound, and that he is a Luddite for chosing a simpler life. Talking about character assasination if you ask me. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that is just pure bullshit.
From the article, it seems one of the main events leading to his political philosophy was
(1) starting a company
(2) making a $120k profit
(3) "forgetting" to pay taxes on that profit
(4) spending or investing the profit
(5) getting caught
Regardless of your opinions on business taxes, this doesn't look good on his resume for either business sense or honesty, or both.
There may be other reasons to like him for Congress. But not this.
Engineers tend to look to using the government to solve things, because that's the tool at hand. When all you have is a hammer, the world is full of nails. The problem with that approach is that it grows government and centralizes power. Engineers may be the least capable of legislators, but this gentleman may be an exception.
Since you're a fan of moranic loaded questions and all....
wow this has to be the least stimulating discussion I have ever witnessed. Let me break it down:
1. The problem with X group is they (and you by association) universally share some undesirable characteristic which makes you an enemy worthy of my poo.
No, i'd wager the main problem here is a majority of citizens, engineers included, seem to be poo flinging monkeys ripe for manipulation by their tribal leaders. We citizens have exactly the government and society we deserve. It all reflects on you. Every part of it.
.. because everybody's already beat me to it here, modding all the good one up to 5.. this may be my most favorite /. article in a while, especially with the early comments supporting the 'Engineer" idea for politicians as problem solvers.... which i had not considered before, but after reflection, *does* seem the way to go...
Moderates and Independents are a growing segments of American politics *AND* too many people vote strict party lines. These are not mutually exclusive.
For one to increase, the other has to shrink. An independent and a person who votes along party lines is an excellent example of something that is mutually exclusive.
Looks like someone needs to get tested for Toxoplasma Gondii.
Once you have a developed economy, it's hard to wring the same kind of growth out of it, because you're a lot closer to your potential.
No, it's easier for a developed economy to make productivity gains than it is for a subsistence economy, because by definition, the subsistence economy, after meeting the most basic needs of the population, has hardly anything left over to invest in R&D.
That is why human existence remained much the same for millennia -- a subsistence economy has little capacity to change itself -- but suddenly in the last 200 years there has been an explosion of technology and growth.
But the United States, we don't always make the best choices as to what to do with the fruits of our developed economy. Sometimes that's the fault of government (blowing money on lavish parties for GSA employees); sometimes it's the fault of individuals (blowing $150 on a ticket to watch grown men chase a ball around on a field).
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
just what the world was waiting for
A scientist sees the world and tries to understand how it currently works. An engineer sees the world and questions how he can make it work the way he thinks it should. That fundamental difference is critically important. They may be effective at "fixing" things, but that's only when their original assumptions were correct to begin with. Those assumptions don't necessarily go through ANY form of scientific rigor, and are just as prone to error as any other initial mindset.
Really brilliant people are used to being right when everyone else around them is wrong. They're hard to argue out of a wrong position, and when you get enough of them together that they can sort themselves into loony birds of a feather even reality can't make a dent in their opinions. And brilliance in one area doesn't translate into competence in every area. There are people I'd trust to design an aircraft I had to fly in or a sub I had to dive in, but that I wouldn't trust managing by checking account.
My coworker, an aero engineer, was mayor of his city for decades. One time I asked him how intelligent politicians typically are. He felt the norm was probably around a 100-ish IQ but the standard deviation was extremely high.
Unintellgent politicians can do extremely well with a good team supporting them. They can offer charisma, guts, know how to deal, and know when to listen and when to talk. The intellectual piece can be covered by their team, and they can serve as the public face and negotiator. And while the best ideas in the world won't overthrow a sufficiently stubborn opponent, charisma or a bribe might make short work of him.
Thinking from another angle, a clever political team can be extremely effective at getting results by rallying behind a convincing, argumentative, simpleton (puppet) lawyer who feels the team's ideas are worth arguing tooth and nail. He won't back down because he can't - he doesn't know where to go on his own, and that's part of the power in that political team structure.