Jack Risko of Dinocrat.com puts together a lot of pieces when he looks at some stunning patent data and asks the Big Question:

"How does the modern world look when you have done nothing to help create it, and innovation is a threat to cherished beliefs?"

We are all accustomed to American (and Western) innovation in just about everything. From Benjamin Franklin and electricity to Al Gore and the Internet, from the I—beam to the iPod, Americans have been messing around and creating things throughout the history of the nation. We take it for granted that people are fiddling around in their garages inventing oscilloscopes or wonder drugs or extreme sports. But what would it be like to live in a land where people invented nothing, where technology came to you as though from Mars? More than this: what if that constant progress and tinkering represented a threat to the sufficiency of the founding documents of your culture and religion? Judging by the numbers, that is apparently the current state of thought in some major Islamic countries. Take Saudi Arabia, which recently went six years without granting a patent.

This is a must—read. Read it and learn. As usual, Jack digs up fascinating data and weaves together a complelling data—based set of insights.

Thomas Lifson  2 19 06