against path dependence- it's time to bushwack!
i generally find brooks incredibly boring, and an milquetoast enabler of the crazies on the right, but today he was right on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/opinion/29brooks.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=davidbrooks&adxnnlx=1301508125-mpUh9itm4Mit/7Q7sB0u4A
path dependence is why we are stuck (right now) using internal combustion engines instead of (sustainable)electric- we have invested 100 years in building the infrastructure and innovation that surrounds our hotrod obsessed culture.
all the engineers, plutocrats, etc invested in this do not want to change , it means new degrees and new companies to replace exxonmobilGMfiatBP…
another example is photoshop- all of the cave people who have been using pshop since v.1 need their hot keys/obscure selection strategies to keep working, but there are newer and perhaps more logical ways of doing things, say in the interface of apples aperture, or adobe’s light room- but the behemoth of photoshop keeps expanding, crushing forward and blocking alternate paths…