20141123
20141121
US government planes collecting phone data, report claims
US government planes collecting phone data, report claims
Devices that gather data from millions of mobile phones are being flown over the US by the government, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The "dirtbox" devices mimic mobile phone tower transmissions, and handsets transmit back their location and unique identity data, the report claims.
While they are used to track specific suspects, all mobile devices in the area will respond to the signal.
The US Justice Department refused to confirm or deny the report.
The Wall Street Journal said it had spoken to "sources familiar with the programme" who said Cessna aircraft fitted with dirtboxes were flying from at least five US airports.
The department said that it operated within federal law.
Off the shelf
A dirtbox mimics the signals transmitted by mobile phone providers which handsets look to latch on to. When they do, they send their individual registration information and location.
While they are intended to be used to track an individual or small group, all phones within the area where they are operating will also be swept up in the surveillance.
They operate in the same way as Stingray, a more commonly known mobile phone surveillance tool, security expert Prof Alan Woodward told the BBC.
"The governments have access to Stingray which is available off the shelf to spy on mobile phones but governments aren't the only ones. For £2,000 you can build your own," he said.
Tools like Stingray and Dirtbox are known as IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) catchers because they collect the unique identification data sent by each individual device to its network.
"In essence, you spoof networks by pretending to be a cell tower. You turn off encryption, and then you can extract all sorts of info such as calls made, where, when etc etc.
"'I'm not surprised to hear that it is going on," Prof Woodward added.
"It's easily done. Doing it from the air is the obvious place to do it, but the question is under what legislation they are doing it and what are they doing with the data."
20141119
WARNING Bank Deposits Will Soon No Longer Be Considered Money But Paper Investments
WARNING Bank Deposits Will Soon No Longer Be Considered Money But Paper Investments
This weekend the G20 nations will convene in Brisbane, Australia to conclude a week of Asian festivities that began in Beijing for the developed countries and major economies. And on Sunday, the biggest deal of the week will be made as the G20 will formally announce new banking rules that are expected to send shock waves to anyone holding a checking, savings, or money market account in a financial institution.
On Nov. 16, the G20 will implement a new policy that makes bank deposits on par with paper investments, subjecting account holders to declines that one might experience from holding a stock or other security when the next financial banking crisis occurs. Additionally, all member nations of the G20 will immediately submit and pass legislation that will fulfill this program, creating a new paradigm where banks no longer recognize your deposits as money, but as liabilities and securitized capital owned and controlled by the bank or institution.
In essence, the Cyprus template of 2011 will be fully implemented in every major economy, and place bank depositors as the primary instrument of the next bailouts when the next crisis occurs...
For most Americans with savings or checking accounts in federally insured banks, normal FDIC rules on deposit insurance are still in play, but anyone with over $250,000 in any one account, or held offshore, will have their money automatically subject to bankruptcy dispursements from the courts based on a much lower rank of priority, and a much lower percentage of return.
This also includes business accounts, money market accounts, and any depository investments such as a certificate of deposit (CD)...
after Sunday at the G20 meeting, the risks of holding any cash in a bank or financial institution will have to be weighed as heavily and with as much determination of risk as if you were holding a stock or municipal bond, which could decline in an instant should the financial environment bring a crisis even remotely similar to that of 2008.
From a technical perspective, this is moving in line with Murray Rothbard's perspective on "bank deposit insurance," which he saw as a scam:
[F]ractional reserve banking proved shaky, and so the New Deal, in 1933, added the lie of "bank deposit insurance," using the benign word "insurance" to mask an arrant hoax. When the savings and loan system went down the tubes in the late 1980s, the "deposit insurance" of the federal FSLIC [Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation] was unmasked as sheer fraud. The "insurance" was simply the smoke-and-mirrors term for the unbacked name of the federal government. The poor taxpayers finally bailed out the S&Ls, but now we are left with the formerly sainted FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], for commercial banks, which is now increasingly seen to be shaky, since the FDIC itself has less than one percent of the huge number of deposits it "insures."
The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution (fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart whenever the public finally understands the swindle? Suppose that, tomorrow, the American public suddenly became aware of the banking swindle, and went to the banks tomorrow morning, and, in unison, demanded cash. What would happen? The banks would be instantly insolvent, since they could only muster 10 percent of the cash they owe their befuddled customers. Neither would the enormous tax increase needed to bail everyone out be at all palatable. No: the only thing the Fed could do, and this would be in their power, would be to print enough money to pay off all the bank depositors. Unfortunately, in the present state of the banking system, the result would be an immediate plunge into the horrors of hyperinflation.
Thus, the removal of protection for large depositors is eliminating the scam at this tier. It is, in other words, cutting down on moral hazard.
However, I do not suspect that the world's governments have suddenly found Jesus/Rothbard. I suspect what is going on here is that the government is fully aware that this change will create a separation between bank deposits and government securities. Government securities, especially short-term paper, will become a safer investment than large banks deposits. This will drive funds away from banks and private sector lending and push funds into the direction of government sponsored debt (where there will be continued back up for such debt of the money printing presses).
HT to William Bergman who emails:
About 15 years ago I got the "Best Manuscript" award at an academic accounting conference for a paper titled "Accounting for Money." I made the argument that fair value accounting principles were being introduced inconsistently, in that cash and cash equivalents were escaping unscathed.
This weekend the G20 nations will convene in Brisbane, Australia to conclude a week of Asian festivities that began in Beijing for the developed countries and major economies. And on Sunday, the biggest deal of the week will be made as the G20 will formally announce new banking rules that are expected to send shock waves to anyone holding a checking, savings, or money market account in a financial institution.
On Nov. 16, the G20 will implement a new policy that makes bank deposits on par with paper investments, subjecting account holders to declines that one might experience from holding a stock or other security when the next financial banking crisis occurs. Additionally, all member nations of the G20 will immediately submit and pass legislation that will fulfill this program, creating a new paradigm where banks no longer recognize your deposits as money, but as liabilities and securitized capital owned and controlled by the bank or institution.
In essence, the Cyprus template of 2011 will be fully implemented in every major economy, and place bank depositors as the primary instrument of the next bailouts when the next crisis occurs...
For most Americans with savings or checking accounts in federally insured banks, normal FDIC rules on deposit insurance are still in play, but anyone with over $250,000 in any one account, or held offshore, will have their money automatically subject to bankruptcy dispursements from the courts based on a much lower rank of priority, and a much lower percentage of return.
This also includes business accounts, money market accounts, and any depository investments such as a certificate of deposit (CD)...
after Sunday at the G20 meeting, the risks of holding any cash in a bank or financial institution will have to be weighed as heavily and with as much determination of risk as if you were holding a stock or municipal bond, which could decline in an instant should the financial environment bring a crisis even remotely similar to that of 2008.
From a technical perspective, this is moving in line with Murray Rothbard's perspective on "bank deposit insurance," which he saw as a scam:
[F]ractional reserve banking proved shaky, and so the New Deal, in 1933, added the lie of "bank deposit insurance," using the benign word "insurance" to mask an arrant hoax. When the savings and loan system went down the tubes in the late 1980s, the "deposit insurance" of the federal FSLIC [Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation] was unmasked as sheer fraud. The "insurance" was simply the smoke-and-mirrors term for the unbacked name of the federal government. The poor taxpayers finally bailed out the S&Ls, but now we are left with the formerly sainted FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], for commercial banks, which is now increasingly seen to be shaky, since the FDIC itself has less than one percent of the huge number of deposits it "insures."
The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution (fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart whenever the public finally understands the swindle? Suppose that, tomorrow, the American public suddenly became aware of the banking swindle, and went to the banks tomorrow morning, and, in unison, demanded cash. What would happen? The banks would be instantly insolvent, since they could only muster 10 percent of the cash they owe their befuddled customers. Neither would the enormous tax increase needed to bail everyone out be at all palatable. No: the only thing the Fed could do, and this would be in their power, would be to print enough money to pay off all the bank depositors. Unfortunately, in the present state of the banking system, the result would be an immediate plunge into the horrors of hyperinflation.
Thus, the removal of protection for large depositors is eliminating the scam at this tier. It is, in other words, cutting down on moral hazard.
However, I do not suspect that the world's governments have suddenly found Jesus/Rothbard. I suspect what is going on here is that the government is fully aware that this change will create a separation between bank deposits and government securities. Government securities, especially short-term paper, will become a safer investment than large banks deposits. This will drive funds away from banks and private sector lending and push funds into the direction of government sponsored debt (where there will be continued back up for such debt of the money printing presses).
HT to William Bergman who emails:
About 15 years ago I got the "Best Manuscript" award at an academic accounting conference for a paper titled "Accounting for Money." I made the argument that fair value accounting principles were being introduced inconsistently, in that cash and cash equivalents were escaping unscathed.
20141115
20141111
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
"I decide life wasn’t so bad after all"..
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
Went to Mexico to buy barbiturates for a humane and peaceful death.
Decided that if I was gonna die anyway I might as well fuck a prostitute before it was all over. After that a cab driver offered to sell me cocaine. One thing lead to another, and I got a room above a whore house equipped with a heart shaped bed, a stripper pole, and a hot tub.
Spent a full week snorting coke off tits, popping pain meds, drinking tequila, eating handfuls of Viagra to fight the whiskey/coke dick, and had three FFM threesomes.
Somewhere in the midst of my coke-fueled orgy I decide life wasn’t so bad after all.
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
Went to Mexico to buy barbiturates for a humane and peaceful death.
Decided that if I was gonna die anyway I might as well fuck a prostitute before it was all over. After that a cab driver offered to sell me cocaine. One thing lead to another, and I got a room above a whore house equipped with a heart shaped bed, a stripper pole, and a hot tub.
Spent a full week snorting coke off tits, popping pain meds, drinking tequila, eating handfuls of Viagra to fight the whiskey/coke dick, and had three FFM threesomes.
Somewhere in the midst of my coke-fueled orgy I decide life wasn’t so bad after all.
20141109
Government Has "Trampled On Us Too Much"; Over 1 Million Catalans Vote In Symbolic Referendum For Independence
Government Has "Trampled On Us Too Much"; Over 1 Million Catalans Vote In Symbolic Referendum For Independence
With well over 1 million Catalonians already voted by the middle of the day, Catalonia's 'illegal-in-the-eyes-of-the-Spanish-government' vote for secession appears to have garnered more relative public support than Americans who voted for real this week. As threats from Rajoy and the Spanish government grow louder, the Catalan president Artur Mas rather sarcastically noted "we're running a high-quality democracy here," adding that "it has been difficult to get to this point... which is incredible in a democracy." The government has decried the use of public buildings for the vote, but Mas exclaims, "if they want to know who’s responsible for opening up the schools, they should look at me. I’m responsible. My government and me." Results are not due until Monday morning but opinion polls show at least 80% support an official vote and 50% in favor of full independence for the region that represents over 20% of Spain's GDP. As yet no signs of any military presence, other than vehicles moved into the region last week.
As AP reports,
Catalonia's government said more than a million voters participated Sunday in an informal vote on whether the wealthy northeastern region should secede from the rest of Spain.Catalan President Artur Mas spoke to reporters, as Bloomberg notes, after he cast his vote...
The regional Catalan government pushed forward with the vote despite Spain's Constitutional Court ordering its suspension on Tuesday after it agreed to hear the Spanish government's challenge that the poll is unconstitutional.
The Catalan government said that over 1.1 million of the 5.4 million eligible voters had voted by 1300 local time at polling stations manned with more than 40,000 volunteers. Results are expected Monday morning.
"Despite the enormous impediments, we have been able to get out the ballot boxes and vote," regional president Artur Mas said after depositing his ballot at a school in Barcelona.
The ballot asks voters two questions: should Catalonia be a state, and if so, should it be independent.
Polls show that the majority of Catalonia's 7.5 million inhabitants want an official vote on independence, while around half support breaking centuries-old ties with Spain.
“If they want to know who’s responsible for opening up the schools, they should look at me. I’m responsible. My government and me”But as Reuters reports, this vote says a lot more about the roiling tensions in Europe than anything else...
“We are running a high-quality democracy”
“The next step will be to try to convince Madrid that we need a real referendum with all the political consequences. If they don’t listen, then we will go ahead”
“It has been very difficult to get to this point. That’s incredible in a democracy”
A long-standing breakaway movement in Catalonia, which accounts for one-fifth of Spain's economic output and has its own distinct culture and language, grew in strength during the recent years of deep recession.* * *
Opinion polls show that as many as 80 percent of Catalans back voting on the issue of Catalonia's status, with about 50 percent in favor of full independence.
...
"If they don't understand us, they should respect us and each of us go on their separate way," said Angels Costa, a 52-year-old shopkeeper who voted in Barcelona.
"We would have liked to have been a federal state but that is no longer possible. They've trampled on us too much."
"It's clear that this consultation ... does not give us the democratic mandate we would have in an election, but what's important is that it is a fresh demonstration of the fact people want to vote, that they are keen to voice their opinion."
Some images of the turnout for the 'mock' independence vote...
Photo of the Year 2014 - Catalonia's independence vote. pic.twitter.com/bzagXVQTLO
— Otto Ozols (@OttoOzols) November 9, 2014
Here's what needs to happen for Catalonia to legally split from Spain http://t.co/drEQtrjei7 pic.twitter.com/UsUrkudxXt
— GlobalPost (@GlobalPost) November 9, 2014
La culpa de q no haya nadie votando es de la previsión del tiempo de tomas molina! pic.twitter.com/OibhKVidAP
— Maxwell (@Agentsecret086) November 9, 2014
#CataloniaVotes #indyref RIA Novosti's correspondent reports from polls in #Catalonia pic.twitter.com/DVMJLtW6Az
— RIA Novosti (@ria_novosti) November 9, 2014
* * *It would appear the Catalonians care more about a vote that, theoretically changes nothing, than Americans who turned out in un-droves to vote for real this week.
20141105
Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author:
In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received a contract with the acronym GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research) from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.”
When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that Isaac Asimov, who was a good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression. Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity.
ON CREATIVITY
How do people get new ideas?
Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.
One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.
Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.
That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.
Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in isolation?
My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself.
No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or even soon.
Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of A-B and another unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an answer.
It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object.
If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish.
If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is neutralizing the rest.
The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what they inspire in each other later on.)
For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps, at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is doing this even if no one finds out.
I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that; the payment being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session. The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that, too, would allow considerable relaxation.
I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit new understanding of it in his own eyes.
In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point is, his will not be an easy job.
As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to stimulate discussion.
Published with permission of Asimov Holdings.
In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received a contract with the acronym GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research) from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.”
When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that Isaac Asimov, who was a good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression. Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity.
ON CREATIVITY
How do people get new ideas?
Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.
One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.
Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.
That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.
Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in isolation?
My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself.
No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or even soon.
Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of A-B and another unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an answer.
It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object.
If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish.
If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is neutralizing the rest.
The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what they inspire in each other later on.)
For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps, at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is doing this even if no one finds out.
I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that; the payment being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session. The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that, too, would allow considerable relaxation.
I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit new understanding of it in his own eyes.
In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point is, his will not be an easy job.
As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to stimulate discussion.
Published with permission of Asimov Holdings.
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