On American Inventor, from an Inventor
by Michael F Dickey
Being an inventor I feel I must comment on the show on ABC yesterday “American Inventor” This ‘reality’ show follows nearly the exact same formula as American Idol does, and was produced by the same team. I have mixed feelings on this show, I knew once I heard about it they would focus on the many stupid inventions alleged ‘inventors’ have, and there were plenty of those. We got to see a body bag that you would put over yourself so you could relieve yourself in private, a combination toilet paper / lotion dispenser, and designer ‘suits’ for your car. While these were terrible ideas and hard to even consider ‘inventions’ in many ways, there were a few decent ideas that would have some intrinsic value of marketed on their own. However as the goal of the show is to discover the ultimate American Inventor (or invention?) these things would hardly classify. This brings up my first complaint; the judges should have encouraged individuals who had decent ideas, but not great ideas, to pursue them on their own. But perhaps they did, and it was just not aired.
My mixed feelings for this show come from the fact that it simultaneously encourages ambition and persistence, but at the same time promulgates terrible stereotypes about inventing (which many of these ridiculous inventors perpetuate as well). At the turn of the century inventors were the foundation of everything that propelled the human standard of living through the equivalent of eons of progress, people knew this, and inventors of that time were respected and admired. Edison, Tesla, Marconi, Westinghouse, etc. These are names many people recognize (even if they confuse their contributions) but during the middle part of the 20th century attitudes toward inventors changed, and admirers of Rand would be hard pressed to not find the association between the change in morality and attitudes on capitalism with the outcasting and mocking of independent motivated ambitious inventors. Today, if I tell people I am an ‘inventor’ they are likely to react with mockery or disapproval. Now I don’t particular care what people think of what I am doing unless they are intelligent and can make rational constructive criticisms and help me in my goals, but what I do care about is undermining the source of progress, promulgating the distaste and mockery that is directed at independent innovators, since this destroys the foundation of all future progress and robs me of the benefits I might enjoy from the minds of other ambitious productive intelligent innovative people. Will American Inventor help with mitigate that reaction or will it make it worse? It remains to be seen.
Because of this predominant cultural attitude toward inventing, the people who are inventors now tend to be over the top; without a rational foundation in logic and skepticism, so deterred by this cultural attitude that they over compensate for it, and become overly independent for it’s own sake. They tend to blame their failures not on poor business or poor implementation, but on conspiracy and paranoia. American Inventor flaunts these inventors, such as the beetle utopia guy dressed in silver (weren’t those Madagascar giant roaches? guess that wouldn’t have sold as well) and the smoke gun inventor with the magnifying lens headset. If their flamboyance was only an act put on for the show, it nevertheless was an accurate portrayal of the many ‘crazed lone inventors’ out there, as these are the only people who tend to survive the crushing smothering of individuality.
A favorite culprit of the lack of success for an inventor is to blame the ignorance of everyone else because they are simply unable to see the inventors glorious vision. While there is often truth to this, it is the fault of the inventors who placed the validation of a lifetime of struggle on a two minute chance to wow strangers, who couldn’t possible know and understand the things that inventor has without living the inventors life. Far from encouraging an intransigent devotion to the product of one’s own rational thought, American Inventor pins a lifetime of hopes onto the response of an authority with no greater chance of success than a lottery ticket (as one participant, a 14 year old, compares his shot on American Inventor to).
Of course any mainstream media portrayal of intelligent rational people devoted to an idea they *know* to be good and right is a good thing for the hope of humanity. While American Inventor had plenty of mocking of crazed lone inventors and hyped up appeals to authority, it had plenty of spirited and passionate moments inspirational to those out there that do have good ideas and that might have been too lazy or reluctant or scared to pursue them.
The scale and importance of many of these inventions is questionable, and I wonder if the show will reveal any real progressive inventions. Most inventions with any significant impact undergo years of development intellectual property protection, and until all those things are secured partaking in a broadcast to 20 million people of your invention could invalidate the very patent application that will protect your intellectual property rights. In the end, American Inventor does celebrate invention and innovation, and I think the positive effects of this will outweigh the enforcement of negative stereotypes and disingenuous rejections, but the promulgation of these misconceptions of independent innovative people could end up being more harmful.
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