Innovation: A Modern Day Hydra

In Ancient Greek mythology, Eurystheus sends Heracles to kill a terrible monster with many heads, that when removed, would grow another in its place.  What is not important is how this monster, the hydra was defeated, but that each generation has its own hydra.  The serpent-headed mythical beast lives on today in the form of innovation and ingenuity.  As Koolhaas notes with the elevator, “each technical invention is pregnant with a double image: the spectre of its possible failure.  The way to avert that phantom disaster is as important as the original invention itself.” 

Humankind seems to be moving at breakneck speed towards disaster; environmental, societal, economic and existential. For every advance, there is an effort to mitigate an unforeseen effect that the innovation precipitates.  In the last century, atomic energy ended the bloodiest war the world has ever seen and provided power for millions, yet propagated an equally unprecedented ability and seeming eagerness to extinguish humanity forever.  Exponential increases in technology have mutually assured destruction and salvation.

Yet the speed at which disaster looms is only slightly exceeded by the “still more astronomical increase in the potential to avert disaster.” Innovation necessitates this.  When solving a problem creates one (or more) anew, the pedestrian enters into a footrace of finding solutions, striving endlessly to stay ahead of ingenuity.