Special to The Bee
Published: Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 13A
Last Modified: Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 – 10:00 am
“Success comes in cans, failure comes in can’ts.”
This saying is emblazoned on a wall of a great American institution – my local barbershop. It echoes my own values and experiences. However, America andCalifornia gradually morphed from the successful can-do, forward-looking country of my youth to be frequently failing, can’t-do and backward-looking in 2012.
Why the change? A major mantra, “It costs too much,” explains a lot. All too often this view is shortsighted. Conventional wisdom has become increasingly blind to the difference between short-term cost and investment for long-term gains.
Here’s a past investment example: streaming audio and video on the Internet. In March 1974, our group at the USC Information Sciences Institute, connecting with another at MIT Lincoln Labs, demonstrated the first live speech transmission on a computer network. This marked the birth of network protocol technology that survives with startlingly little change as Real Time Protocol on the Internet.
Our computer science research was publicly funded byDARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – not by business. The public literally owns what its taxes pay for, so our technology went into the public domain. Its use is now widespread, including service to all businesses. In 2012 the political climate would call for it to be developed by a private company, which would then patent it and collect royalties from all users.
Now let’s consider high-speed rail. The Bee’s Dan Walters and many detractors in the public say, “No, we can’t.” The Bee’s editorial board has said calmly that we can and should build it. I think the editorial board is right.
One recent clue is that this last year both Morocco and Uzbekistan began construction of their first high-speed rail lines. High-speed rail is operational in 14 countries. China has more than 6,000 kilometers of track in service and more than 14,000 kilometers under construction. China has invested heavily in infrastructure, including high-speed rail, to support its private sector in what is now its booming economic success.
Yes, initial outlay for high-speed rail is enormous. However, the earliest lines in Japan and France have paid back that investment, as it tends to operate profitably. Even Amtrak’s “slightly faster rail” Acela trains have been producing operating surpluses of about 40 percent, subsidizing slower rail on the Northeast corridor.
Does anyone else think the rest of the world knows something we don’t? Is our public “we can’t do it” bandwagon the new American way? Decades ago I could never have imagined that America and California would be lagging well behind Morocco and Uzbekistan in deploying significant new technology, with Japan half a century ahead.
Can we restore our former forward-looking, can-do culture?
