The Business: Don't Champion Battleships In 1940

Carriers, and the ability to project air power at sea, was a technological breakthrough that changed naval warfare. This is underestimated by many now. A reminder.

The video above talks about one specific and concrete example of a paradigm shift and its consequences. There were others within the living memory of those that fought World War II (e.g. tanks), and since then there have been more (e.g. long-range anti-ship missiles). Failing to comprehend what changes in technology allow is how people get screwed by those very paradigm shifts.

Again, I point to the above video. The debate over carriers was not just confined to the Imperial Japanese Navy. American, British, French, German, and other powers also had their arguments over naval air power, carriers, etc. vs. battleships. You can tell who the winners at sea were by those that adopted carriers and made the effort to adapt to the new reality of the dominance of air power at sea; those that did not became also-rans and non-entities. (Notable exception: Germany, due to its massive submarine fleet and how that got used, but also fell off quick once said fleet got neutered.)

This is a necessary lesson to take in. Paradigms change, and not always for the better. Survival means seeing it coming and adapting to the changes so it, at the least, does no harm.

In the publishing world, we see with the collapse of the Bigs from Six to Five and now to Four as their old model focused on paper distribution is contracting hard while the digital technology takes off and eats their lunch- a change accelerated by other changes like the rise of Amazon.

The digital media shift has also impacted film, television, videogames, and other entertainment media such that corporations are shifting to a rent-seeking model where you only pay access and not to own a copy of the media.

This concept is itself often difficult for people to comprehend. "Things just happen" is the cope, and it leaves folks scrambling for cover because it doesn't help deal with it, which makes the next step--that there are folks who get it and use it to their advantage--a bridge too far and you can see the brains short-circuit if you try to explain it.

And we're in the middle of a big one now.

If you want to get in front it this, find out who benefits from the present trends, then decide if you want what they want or not.

More than that, I can't advise in this post.