O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;

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sábado, 1 de junho de 2019

A inovação e seus descontentes: livro sobre a resistência às inovações - Calestous Juma

Este livro trata de um fenômeno muito comum nas sociedades, e não apenas em relação às inovações tecnológicas. Existem dezenas, senão centenas, de luddistas intelectuais, pessoas que resistem aos novos processos e inovações em outras áreas que não as inovações tecnológicas.
Conheço alguém que é contra o climatismo, o comercialismo, o globalismo, e que estaria melhor na Idade Média, com os templários e cruzados, lutando depois contra o Iluminismo e outras ideias que perturbaram aquele mundinho de subserviência teológica.
Uma frase do psicólogo suíço Jung, transcrita em sua introdução, amplia o caso, justamente:
"New ideas are not only the enemy of old ones; they also appear often in an extremely unacceptable form."
Carl Gustav Jung
Parece que a resistência intelectual a novas ideias é ainda pior do que a resistência a novos produtos e serviços, que vão contra protecionismos estabelecidos. O Brasil é campeão nessa esfera, nas duas...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Innovation and its Enemies: Why people resist new technologies
Calestous Juma
  • Hardcover: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (July 7, 2016)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0190467037
  • ISBN-13: 978-0190467036

The rise of artificial intelligence has rekindled a long-standing debate regarding the impact of technology on employment. This is just one of many areas where exponential advances in technology signal both hope and fear, leading to public controversy. This book shows that many debates over new technologies are framed in the context of risks to moral values, human health, and environmental safety. But it argues that behind these legitimate concerns often lie deeper, but unacknowledged, socioeconomic considerations. Technological tensions are often heightened by perceptions that the benefits of new technologies will accrue only to small sections of society while the risks will be more widely distributed. Similarly, innovations that threaten to alter cultural identities tend to generate intense social concern. As such, societies that exhibit great economic and political inequities are likely to experience heightened technological controversies.

Drawing from nearly 600 years of technology history, Innovation and Its Enemies identifies the tension between the need for innovation and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability as one of today's biggest policy challenges. It reveals the extent to which modern technological controversies grow out of distrust in public and private institutions. Using detailed case studies of coffee, the printing press, margarine, farm mechanization, electricity, mechanical refrigeration, recorded music, transgenic crops, and transgenic animals, it shows how new technologies emerge, take root, and create new institutional ecologies that favor their establishment in the marketplace. The book uses these lessons from history to contextualize contemporary debates surrounding technologies such as artificial intelligence, online learning, 3D printing, gene editing, robotics, drones, and renewable energy. It ultimately makes the case for shifting greater responsibility to public leaders to work with scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to manage technological change, make associated institutional adjustments, and expand public engagement on scientific and technological matters.

About the Author

Calestous Juma, a national of Kenya, is an internationally-recognized authority on the role of science, technology and innovation in economic development. He is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard Kennedy School. He directs the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and serves as Faculty Chair of Harvard's Innovation for Economic Development executive program. Juma is a former Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and Founding Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi. He was Chancellor of the University of Guyana and has been elected to several scientific academies including the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and the African Academy of Sciences.

Editorial Reviews
Review

"A leading scholar of innovation, Juma looks at the past 600 years of economic history to explain how and why incumbents, and society more broadly, resist technological disruption The book enriches an often one-sided debate in which innovation is seen as the ultimate source of prosperity: something to promote and accept no matter what."
-- Foreign Affairs 

"Not many academic books could credibly be called good nightstand reading. Harvard professor Calestous Juma's Innovation and Its Enemies can, in part because of its use of entertaining stories and anecdotes to illustrate ideas concerning innovation. These stories will prompt many readers to reflect on what they think they know about how innovation occurs and how the resulting advances are accepted."
-- Regulation Magazine


"Fittingly titled Innovation and Its Enemies, the book charts a fascinating new history of emerging technologies and the social opposition they ignite."
-- Issues in Science and Technology


"Timely and insightful."
-- Joel Mokyr, EH.Net


"It takes one of the leading lights on innovation - Calestous Juma - to truly understand the forces that oppose it. Just as technologic change is reaching peak velocity, this extraordinary work provides a systematic, scholarly, and surgical dissection of what can hold us back."
-- Eric Topol, author of The Patient Will See You Now


"An insightful book that addresses one of the paradoxes of our time, namely why generations that have benefited so much from innovation are so resistant to it. Drawing on a fascinating diversity of historical examples - coffee, electricity, refrigeration, farm mechanization, genetic modification - Professor Juma discusses how innovation occurs, the role of experts and why skepticism and confusion are often inevitable. A must-read for everyone involved in technology development and policy."
-- Louise O. Fresco, President of Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands


"An outstanding treatise on how new technologies are created and why they are so often not initially accepted by society. lInnovation and Its Enemies is filled with wonderful stories that go through innovations ranging from cell phones to coffee to the light bulb. I loved reading it."
-- Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


"Calestous Juma's book provides a very enjoyable insight into the attitudes of society and individuals to innovation over the centuries. Its highly accessible style provides the reader with great historical nuggets arising from the introduction of coffee and printing through to reactions invoked when margarine and transgenic crops were launched. The conclusions are supported by amazing facts and details-I didn't want to put the book down because there were so many instances when I thought I knew the full story only to find new twists and turns."
-- Sir Christopher Snowden, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Southampton


"We all know how difficult it can be to accept truly revolutionary innovations. Professor Juma illustrates the difficulties faced by the innovators with a few case histories and provides some guidelines for avoiding many of the difficulties. One strong lesson is that engaging with the consumers, usually the general public, at an early stage is a very good idea. Another clear lesson is that different stakeholders react very differently to innovation, especially when it seems it might seriously disrupt existing businesses or traditional social structures. A must read for anyone who wishes to engage in such disruption themselves."
-- Richard J. Roberts, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs


"We live among so many innovations that we tend to forget that before their acceptance, there tends to be resistance among the public, or by people whose livelihoods are threatened by them. Coffee, printing and refrigeration are among the innovations which have become so widespread that we may be amazed to read about their troubled histories. Other newer innovations, including genetic modification of plants and animals are still in the midst of public scrutiny. Professor Juma's book is a very well-researched account of innovation and its enemies, not to be missed by scholars and the public, both for historical perspectives and readiness for future innovations."
-- Professor Yongyuth Yuthavong, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Technology, Thailand


"Knowledge is a continuum; thus Mendelian genetics has now given way to molecular genetics. Innovation and Its Enemies gives an excellent account of the continuity of innovation and the impediments faced in getting new ideas accepted. The author has given excellent examples of the conflict between the old and the new in scientific progress. A recent example is genetic modification. This book is a timely one since scientific knowledge is progressing at such a rate that often the new technologies are viewed with suspicion. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Calestous Juma for his labor of love for the progress of human wellbeing through scientific innovations."
-- M S Swaminathan, Founder Chairman, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation


"This is a good read and an invaluable reference work for those working on new technologies, especially those needed to meet the grand challenges of the 21st century. Calestous Juma's detailed analysis of how innovations have been accepted or resisted is complete and fascinating. Many view resistance to advances such as GM foods and mobile phones as a modern phenomenon related to recent advances in science. Calestous explains that innovations have in fact been resisted for centuries but goes on to explain how this resistance can, and has been, overcome."
-- Lord Alec Broers, British House of Lords and Former Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University


"Drawing from an insightful study of over 600 years of technological history, Innovation and Its Enemies is an excellent analysis of forces that oppose new innovative products and services like incumbent industries, fear of change and risk, and socioeconomic uncertainties resulting from the perception of benefiting only a few and costing the majority. A must read for entrepreneurs, policy framers and academicians."
-- N. R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys


"This stimulating history of innovation looks beyond just the obvious successes and failures. Between the high and lows lies a large territory where adoption might go either way and Juma's insight is to see how the appropriate deployment of political capital and a deeper understanding of how the average citizen can confuse hazard and risk can make crucial differences to outcomes. Scientific and political leaders need this book."
-- Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group


"Innovation and Its Enemies is the best book on technology policy of the past decade. Amazing work."
-- Adam Thierer, Georgetown University, and author of Permissionless Innovation


"Superb! Magnificent! A must-read to anyone holding public office. Having overcome obstacles as president of the Dominican Republic in building the metro system of Santo Domingo, I found in Professor Calestous Juma's book useful theoretical insights into the understanding of why resistance occurs when introducing innovation in the public sphere." -- Leonel Fernández, Former President of the Dominican Republic 


July 29, 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Juma's book will go down as one of the decade's most important works on innovation policy. Juma has written a book that is rich in history and insights about the social and economic forces and factors that have, again and again, lead various groups and individuals to oppose technological change. His extensive research documents how "technological controversies often arise from tensions between the need to innovate and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability" and how this tension is "one of today’s biggest policy challenges."

Juma provides many meticulously detailed case studies of how special interests have resisted new technologies and developments throughout the centuries. Those case studies include: coffee and coffeehouses, the printing press, margarine, farm machinery, electricity, mechanical refrigeration, recorded music, transgenic crops, and genetically engineered salmon.

He also explores issues related to the governance of emerging technologies in an era when "the pace of technological innovation is discernibly fast," and is accelerating in an exponential fashion. "The implications of exponential growth will continue to elude political leaders if they persist in operating with linear worldviews," he says. Juma stresses the general need for a flexible approach to policy and wants to see “entrepreneurialism exercised in the public arena” and for “decisive leaders to champion the application of new technologies."

Throughout the text, Juma stresses the symbiotic relationship between risk-taking and progress. "The biggest risk that society faces by adopting approaches that suppress innovation is that they amplify the activities of those who want to preserve the status quo by silencing those arguing for a more open future," he says.

He also points out that the enemies of change will often resort to fear-mongering and deceptive tactics to demonize new technologies. "Opponents of innovation hark back to traditions as if traditions themselves were not inventions at some point in the past." New products or methods of production were repeatedly but wrongly characterized as dangerous simply because they were not supposedly "natural" or "traditional" enough in character. Juma’s case studies powerfully illustrate why that dynamic continues to be a driving force in innovation policy debates and how it has delayed the diffusion of many important new goods and services throughout history.


I highly recommend Prof. Juma's book to all those interested in the study of technological history and innovation policy.

September 11, 2016
Very fun and fascinating read! Each chapter is an accessible history of a particular innovation, and how people fought against it. In showing how strong the opposition was against even mundane innovations like coffee or margarine, as well as major inventions like printing or GMO foods, the author demonstrates how new technology is not a no-brainer. Even in our own time and country, where all things science & technology seem practically worshiped, the author shows how difficult it is to innovate. This is valuable stuff for readers concerned about US competitiveness in science and technology. Or even just for those of us who love some interesting history.

October 1, 2016
A landmark book - revealing, enlightening and inspiring. In an age where political and business leaders are overly excited about the crucial role of innovation there is a lack of consideration of the man-made obstacles and barriers. In a big historical canvas Prof. Calestous Juma shows that innovation is not a question of technology and economics - but a societal challenge with regard to the vested interests of incumbents and the impact of important innovations on the social ecosystem. Grounded in Schumpeter's thinking he drills into amazing historical cases as well as recent and ongoing conflicts around transformative innovations. He tackles even red-hot subjects such as transgenic crops. The recent letter of 110 Nobel Prize Laureates to the Leaders of Greenpeace, the United Nations and Governments around the world (published after Juma's book) in support of life saving GMOs (Golden Rice) is a beacon of the tensions between scientific knowledge, entrenched ideological positions, incumbency interests and the inability of institutions to keep pace with rapid technology developments. It illustrates perfectly the point that Juma makes in his book. Yet he gives us hope with the concept of inclusive innovation and his recommendations in the field of education fostering a broader understanding of science based risk assessment for new technologies and the orchestration of the communication process accompanying it. He concludes with an appeal to the enemies of innovation: "Keeping the future open and experimenting in an inclusive and transparent way is more rewarding than imposing the dictum of old patters".


October 17, 2016
Just the thing for any aspiring technologists, innovators, entrepreneurs, policy advisers/makers or simply anyone who has an interest in innovation.
The book explores resistance to introduction of new technologies. It gives an engaging exploration of the profound historical relationship between science, technology, policy, business and culture, written in a lively style with clear scientific explanations, stories and anecdotes.
By telling the stories of nine innovations, namely, coffee, printing of the Koran, margarine, farm mechanisation, AC electricity, mechanical refrigeration, recorded sound, transgenic crops, and AquaAdvantage salmon, Prof Juma makes us understand 'Why People Resist New Technologies'. He explains that people don't oppose new ideas, rather they oppose the potential of loss, especially of socioeconomic nature.
Further, beyond the disruptive nature of many innovations, the author enlightens on new trends where business models allow for innovation to be more inclusive. This theme is of particular interest to many of us from Africa or of less privileged backgrounds.
By reading this great book, I strongly believe one will become better equipped and better prepared to respond to challenges and concerns that lead to resisting new technologies and innovation, thus, potential being more effective and efficient in affecting or getting things done though business, policies, and other initiatives.

O caso Trump: entrevista com Michael Wolff, autor de livro devastador

De certa forma, é inédito: uma grande democracia avançada de mercado ter um criminoso como presidente. Talvez existam outras..


Entrevista com
Michael Wolff

Autor de livro sobre Trump lança uma continuação com base em velhas fontes e relatos de Steve Bannon

‘Bannon é quem mais sabe sobre Trump’

Michael M. Grynbaum / The New York Times 
O Estado de S.Paulo, 01 de junho de 2019

Autor de Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (“Fogo e Fúria: na Casa Branca de Trump”), sobre o início do mandato de Donald TrumpMichael Wolff ressurgiu esta semana com uma continuação – Siege: Trump Under Fire (“Cerco: Trump sob Fogo”). Seu primeiro livro, que retratou um presidente com tensas relações com a verdade, levantou também questões sobre a adesão do próprio Wolff aos fatos. Em entrevista em sua casa em Manhattan, Wolff, de 65 anos, defendeu sua confiança em Steve Bannon como fonte e explicou por que não leva muito em conta a checagem dos fatos.


Como o sr. conseguiu fontes? Após ‘Fire and Fury’ o sr. não se tornou persona non grata na Casa Branca?

Todos continuam falando comigo. Quando Fire and Fury saiu, achei que Steve Bannon nunca mais falaria comigo, mas na verdade ele jamais parou de conversar. Mas outro ponto – que considero chave – é que sou um cara de Nova York. Trump também é. Temos muitos conhecidos em comum. E essas pessoas falam entre elas de Trump. Tenho sorte de pertencer a esse meio. 

Quando escreveu ‘Fire and Fury’, o sr. teve acesso físico à Casa Branca. Teve desta vez?

Não estive na Casa Branca para escrever o novo livro. Mas muitas pessoas que falaram comigo para o primeiro livro continuaram a falar para o segundo. Acho que o quadro que descrevi no primeiro livro funcionou para elas. 

O sr. tentou entrevistar o presidente? 

Não. 

Por que não? 

Da última vez, ele tentou barrar a publicação. Seria um erro tentar ouvi-lo agora. Mas a ira de Trump bombou a venda do primeiro livro.
Foi o que se viu. Mas não gostaria de passar por isso de novo. 

O sr. ficou preocupado? 

Sim! Se o presidente dos EUA está contra você, é para se preocupar.  

O sr. diz que ‘Siege’ “é mais sobre um estado emocional do que sobre um estado político” da presidência. 

Já disse muitas vezes que não sou um repórter político de Washington. Esses repórteres fazem um grande trabalho, mas em minha abordagem o mais importante, além da política, são as palhaçadas, a psicopatologia, a crueldade aleatória ou dirigida. Para mim, esse governo pede um tipo diferente de escritor. 

O sr. tem um ponto de vista em ‘Siege’? 

O ponto de vista é que esse é um tipo totalmente diferente de presidente e de governo. Além disso, você tem uma figura estranhamente isolada, que é Trump. Não existe um governo funcionando aqui. Há um entendimento histórico de que a presidência muda o ocupante do cargo. Penso que aqui o reverso também seja verdadeiro – a Casa Branca transformou-se nas Organizações Trump.  

Bannon não trabalha mais na Casa Branca e está fora do círculo de Trump. Até onde devemos confiar no que ele diz?

É preciso considerar o conhecimento de Bannon sobre o governo e o presidente. Entre as centenas de pessoas com as quais conversei, ele é o que está mais por dentro sobre aquilo que faz Donald Trump ser o que é.  

Críticos de ‘Fire and Fury’ dizem que o sr. trata os fatos de modo superficial. O que o sr. responde a essas pessoas? 

Creio que avaliações apenas confirmaram o que está em Fire and Fury. Com frequência, meses ou anos depois. 

O sr. espera muitas críticas de outros jornalistas por ‘Siege’?

Sim. 

Tenho de pressioná-lo mais sobre checagem de fatos...

Há uma distinção entre jornalistas institucionais e os que não o são. Eu não sou. Você faz perguntas para se proteger e proteger a instituição que representa. Mas estou falando de quando você já sabe a resposta. Então, você fica numa posição de, potencialmente, ter de negociar o que sabe. De uma maneira curiosa, o jornalismo é, em grande parte, algo sobre uma verdade negociada. Como escritor de livro, eu não preciso fazer isso. / TRADUÇÃO DE ROBERTO MUNIZ

NOTÍCIAS RELACIONADAS
·       A fúria na era Trump

Que tal um criminoso como presidente? - o caso Trump; novo livro (The Guardian)

Karen Dawisha, uma professora da Universidade de Ohio, escreveu um livro de excepcional qualidade chamado “Putin’s kleptocracy”, uma análise meticulosa de todas as jogadas financeiras feitas pelo ex-agente do KGB que o levaram ao controle da Rússia.
Este livro pode representar o início de uma investigação oficial sobre um outro cleptocrata e mentiroso compulsivo, que resultou ser o presidente da nação mais poderosa do planeta.
Outros presidentes criminosos podem aparecer, mas esta dupla — que estaria muito unida, não fossem as atitudes russofóbicas da maior parte do establishment americano, militares sobretudo — supera todas as demais gangues políticas na história contemporânea.
Este livro ainda vai causar muito ruído, pelo mesmo autor de Fire and Fury.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida


Bannon described Trump Organization as ‘criminal enterprise’, Michael Wolff book claims

Former White House adviser says financial investigations will take down president in sequel to Fire and Fury
The Guardian, Wed 29 May 2019 07.00 BST


The former White House adviser Steve Bannon has described the Trump Organization as a criminal entity and predicted that investigations into the president’s finances will lead to his political downfall, when he is revealed to be “not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag”.



The startling remarks are contained in Siege: Trump Under Fire, the author Michael Wolff’s forthcoming account of the second year of the Trump administration. The book, published on 4 June, is a sequel to Fire and Fury: Trump in the White House, which was a bestseller in 2018. The Guardian obtained a copy.

In a key passage, Bannon is reported as saying he believes investigations of Donald Trump’s financial history will provide proof of the underlying criminality of his eponymous company.
Assessing the president’s exposure to various investigations, many seeded by the special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation of Russian election interference, Wolff writes: “Trump was vulnerable because for 40 years he had run what increasingly seemed to resemble a semi-criminal enterprise.”
He then quotes Bannon as saying: “I think we can drop the ‘semi’ part.”
Bannon, a leading promoter of far-right populism, was a White House adviser until August 2017, when he was removed. He was a major source for Fire and Fury, also first reported by the Guardian. Among other claims in that book, he labelled as “treasonous” an infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer.
Amid publicity surrounding Fire and Fury, Bannon was ejected from circles close to Trump and his position at Breitbart News.
In Siege, Wolff pays close attention to Trump’s financial affairs. Investigations into Trump’s business dealings, spearheaded by the southern district of New York, have shuttered the president’s charity and seen the Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, receive immunity for testimony in investigations of Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney and fixer who is now in jail in New York.
This month, the New York Times obtained tax information that showed Trump’s businesses lost more than $1bn from 1985 to 1994.
The newspaper subsequently reported that in 2016 and 2017, Deutsche Bank employees flagged concerns over possible money laundering through transactions involving legal entities controlled by the president and Kushner. Some of the transactions involved individuals in Russia.
The bank did not act but Congress and New York state are now investigating its relationship with Trump and his family. Deutsche Bank has lent billions to Trump and Kushner companies. Trump has attempted to block House subpoenasfor his financial records sent to Deutsche Bank.

In Siege, Wolff quotes Bannon saying investigations into Trump’s finances will cut adrift even his most ardent supporters: “This is where it isn’t a witch hunt – even for the hard core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50m instead of $10bn.

“Not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag.”

Wolff also details a 2004 Palm Beach property deal involving the now disgraced financier Jeffrey Epsteinand the Putin-friendly oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev that, the author writes, earned Trump “$55m without putting up a dime”.
Epstein, he writes, invited Trump to see a $36m Palm Beach mansion he planned to buy. According to Wolff, Trump went behind Epstein’s back to buy the foreclosed property for around $40m, a sum Epstein had reason to believe Trump couldn’t raise in his own right, through an entity called Trump Properties LLC, which was entirely financed by Deutsche Bank.
Epstein, Wolff writes, knew Trump had been loaning out his name in real estate deals for a fee and suspected that in his case Trump was fronting for the property’s real owners. Epstein threatened to expose the deal. As the dispute increased, he found himself under investigation by the Palm Beach police.
According to Wolff, Trump made only minor improvements and put the house on the market for $125m. It was purchased for $96m by Rybolovlev, part of a circle of government-aligned industrialists in Russia, thereby earning Trump $55m without risking any of his own money.
Wolff presents two theories as to how the deal worked: first, perhaps “Trump merely earned a fee for hiding the real owner – a shadow owner quite possibly being funneled cash by Rybolovlev for other reasons beyond the value of the house”
Second, he suggests the real owner of the house and the real buyer were one and the same. “Rybolovlev might have, in effect, paid himself for the house, thereby cleansing the additional $55m for the second purchase of the house.”
This,” Wolff writes, “was Donald Trump’s world of real estate.”