[narag]

Today, we've run low on the scope of reasonably easy to invent things that are actually valuable. All the obvious "wish we could X" things have been done or are nigh impossible for any one person or small team to figure out

I disagree. There are a lot of small inventions that are happening every day. I've had independently ideas that are now massive sites or products.

If you want to know why things have taken so long, have a look to usual flamewars here. There are many in which half of usually smart people can't simply understand what's the others' position about.

The pattern is that one side considers current practice tedious, steep learning curve for professionals only, while the other side finds it "good enough". If it's good enough for you, you'll never invent something easier and faster to understand.

[ci5er]

> There are many in which half of usually smart people can't simply understand what's the others' position about.

> The pattern is that one side considers current practice tedious, steep learning curve for professionals only, while the other side finds it "good enough". If it's good enough for you, you'll never invent something easier and faster to understand.

This is a bit baffling to me -- the phenomena to which you refer. And it seems to be more general than the pattern you outline.

It appears to have something to do with both pre-suppositions and different orderings of personal values [0]. But I'm not sure.

Do you think it is possible to generalize the structure of the process via which reasonably educated and smart people can be presented with the same facts and come to different conclusions -- that they will defend against each other in pretty feisty debates?

[0] By this I mean, for example, that some people might put individual freedom higher than equality across large populations and vice-versa.

[narag]

I believe it's called projection: you "project" that other persons' minds work the same as yours. If you've tried to solve some computer problem over the phone, you have experienced it. People thinks that you can magically view their screens.

In this case, very smart people is unable to figure out how does an average user thinks.

I do believe that there's something about mindset. Some people lives under the delusion that things work the way they work because that's the way they should work. Actually there are a lot of randomness in the way things work, specially in areas where new territories are being unconvered all the time.

[ahartman00]

Perception bias: is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs.

Confirmation bias: is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

"It appears to have something to do with both pre-suppositions and different orderings of personal values"

I believe the two cognitive biases above explain this. If negative numbers are "ignore", and positive are "use in conclusion": conclusion = -0.1 * fact1 + 0.9 * fact2 + -0.4 * fact3. Your past experiences determine the weights.

edit: I also think sibling comment by narag plays a part.