The purpose of government is to reduce strife and keep the population under some form of control. This may sound draconian but is actually essential to prevent anarcy. How this control is achieved is essentially the metric through which we judge the modus operandi of any political system.

Well I would say that the purpose of the government is to allow its citizens to lead a fulfilling life(as they as an individual see fit), yet at the same time do provide them security. This is the balancing act
for most government.

Innovation is central to human ‘development’ as a society, unfortunately the article sort of proves that innovation can only flourish in a capital intensive, consumption driven society. In today’s context of rapid enviromnental degradation and exploding human populations (fed on industrially grown food) this mantra is probably not very sustainable. There has to be a less wasteful way. Silicon valley innovation relies on redundant capital expenditure to achieve ‘commercial goals’. This is not a good idea given our current position.

Innovation without consumption is innovation in what?
Innovations that lead to product and services being consumed are the only way to reward innovator.
Some can try to make innovative sculpture made of shit, but if no one is buying he just got his hand dirty in shit.
Alternatively if some one makes innovations in sewage disposal, colonoscopy, fecal analysis, for medical purpose, etc he has a better chance of being rewarded for playing with shit.

The only thing wrong with the article was its assumption innovation happens in Silicon Valley. It is being oversold.
Outside HW and web like technologies several centers exists. in certain fields eg signal processing and wireless communication almost all innovation happened outside the valley.
DSP in particular was almost an east coast phenomena.
Mechanical innovations rarely come out of the valley, same can be said about materials.

I don’t see what human population growth has to do with silicon valley.
If any thing the number of singles and childless couples is usually higher in technical centers silicon valley included.
The bulk of population growth in the world is not coming from industrial countries….
It is in industrial economies where people on average marry later and have fewer kids.

First you seem to suggest that there is something wrong with India taking any approach, which requires considering ‘commercial goals’.
I have mentioned capital and industrial production techniques in my last post.

Also whats wrong with industrially grown food?
Even organic farming is using benifits from industrial model, ie larger farms soil sensors, as well as harvest equipment.

In any economy, the major source of productive power is not machinery , equipment, buildings and other physical capital; it is the productive capacity of the human beings who compose the society. Yet what we call investment refers only to expenditures on physical capital; expenditures that improve the productive capacity of human beings are generally left entirely out of account.

Good Eg of this includes Post WWII germany,
Here is a country partitioned with its industries destroyed, top folks were flicked by US/USSR as well as many volunatarily
moved, yet it made an impressive recovery.