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I don't know about that. People have been discussing how does an innovation hub (like Silicon Valley) appear and how one might create one -- that is a difficult problem, partially because starting a virtuous circle is hard.
But general innovation in a society? Lemme throw in some factors off the top of my mind:
That's a partial list. It also takes good universities, a culture that produces a willingness to take risks, a sufficient market for good products, and I suspect a litany of other things.
I think once you've got a society that genuinely innovates started, it can be hard to kill that off, but it can be and has been done. The problem is, as you mentioned, very few societies have ever been particularly innovative.
It's easy to use established technology to build a very prosperous first world society. For example: Australia, Canada, Sweden. But it's much harder ... (read more)