#but in the real world everyone’s first example of a genius is Einstein

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Smart Characters

Since I started this blog, one of the most common questions I’ve received has to do with the portrayal of intelligent characters.  This is also one of the most difficult to answer -- excluding questions about characters with specialized knowledge sets, which are fairly easy to answer with source compilations.  Most of the questions have to do with:  how do you portray a smart character believably?  How do you make the audience relate to them?  Can I still make them likable?  How do I avoid the pitfalls of popular media?

Well, I’m finally here to answer, utilizing examples from some of my favorite (and occasionally, not-so-favorite) media.  Let’s jump in to the dos and don’ts of smart characters!

1.  Do let the audience follow the character’s thought process.  

As demonstrated by:  Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders

Albert Einstein allegedly once said, “If you can’t explain it to a five-year-old, you don’t truly understand it.”  And the sentiment rings true:  true genius doesn’t need to dazzle with big words and technobabble.  Instead, it makes the complex appear simple.

The same rings true for brilliant characters.  BBC’s Sherlock (more on that later) ceased to satisfy in its later seasons because it began to rely too heavily on visual glitz to avoid actually explaining its mysteries and how they were solved.  Similarly, the biggest complaints with block buster franchises -- Star Wars, The Avengers, Game of Thrones -- is that they became obsessed with “subverting expectations” cleverly instead of leading the audiences to their most logical and satisfying conclusions.

Meanwhile, the smartest and most satisfying media dazzles not by staying over the audience’s head, but by illustrating how simplistic the solutions can be.

Let’s start with my boy Tommy Shelby, the charismatic, swaggering protagonist of the charismatic, swaggering crime drama Peaky Blinders.  Using only his intelligence (and complete disregard for his own life/suicidal tendencies, but that’s not the point here), Tommy claws his way up from the near-bottom of the social ladder (an impoverished Romani in early 20th century Birmingham) to being a decorated war hero, to being the leader of a feared razor gang, to dominating the race track business, to becoming a business mogul, to becoming a member of parliament and trying to assassinate the leader of the fascist party. He’s also one of the paramount reasons why I’m bisexual.

So how can such a drastic social climb be conveyed believably?  Because Tommy -- as the viewpoint character -- is placed in seemingly inescapable situations, and then proceeds to demonstrate that the solutions to those situations have been there the whole time.  I recently watched a brilliant video on how this is done, which can be viewed here.

Early in season one, for example, he responds to aggressive new methods by the police by organizing a mass-burning of paintings of the king, and uses the press this garners to publicly shame the methods of the chief inspector who’s been antagonizing him.  In the next season, he talks his way into a deal by bluffing that he planted a grenade in his rival’s distillery.  My personal favorite is in season four, when he responds to being outgunned by a larger, American gang by contacting their rival -- none other than an Alphonse Capone.

All of Tommy’s victories are satisfying, because they don’t come out of nowhere -- we have access to the same information he does, each victory is carefully foreshadowed, and we are reminded at every turn that failure is a very real possibility (more on that later.)  So when he wins, we’re cheering with him.

Other examples:  Mark Watney from The Martian, who explains science in its most simplistic terms and with infectious enthusiasm.  He would make every character on The Big Bang Theory cry.  

Also, Miss Fisher from the AMAZING Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  The dazzling, 1920s, female Sherlock Holmes of your dreams.  I cannot recommend it enough.

To apply this to your own writing:  Remember you won’t dazzle anyone if you smack them in the face with a “brilliant” plot twist.  They want to take a journey with your character, not be left in the dust.  

Also, for everyone in my askbox concerned that they’re not smart enough to write intelligent characters, just remember how simple the problems confronting smart characters can be.  Put them in a difficult situation, and provide them with a means of getting out.  Then, just let them find it. 

2.  Don’t assume the audience is too stupid to keep up (or try to make them feel too stupid to keep up.)

As demonstrated by:  Sherlock Holmes from BBC’s Sherlock.

Say what you will:  there were reasons why everyone was so captivated by this show during its first two seasons.  It felt fresh.  People had yet to become frustrated with the inescapable thirst for Benedict Cumberbatch.  The writing was sharp, and the editing clever.  And it wove a tantalizing web of mysteries that demanded solution.  The problem was, there weren’t any.

The most frustrating for many was how Sherlock faked his death at the end of season two, after which devoted fans spent two years creating intricate theories on how he might have pulled this off.  The creators responded by mocking this dedication in the opening episode of season three, by showing a fan club spinning outlandish theories (one of which included Sherlock and Moriarty kissing.)  This might have been laughed off -- at the time, many seemed to consider it quite funny -- if the creators had bothered to offer their own explanation of how Sherlock survived.  They didn’t.  And so began a seemingly endless loop of huge cliffhangers that promised -- and consistently failed to deliver -- satisfying answers.

The most egregious examples occur in season four, which provided answers to questions no one asked, and withheld answers for things everyone wanted to know.  For example, did you know that the real reason Moriarty engaged Sherlock is because he was hypnotized by Sherlock’s secret evil sister?  The same one who killed Sherlock’s best friend, whom Sherlock convinced himself was a dog?  Yes, that was a real plot point, in the climax of the series.  It’s an effort to befuddle the audience with brilliant and unexpected writing, but instead pulled them out of a story they were already invested in and made them far more critical of its pre-existing faults. 

It’s pointed out in the brilliant (if bluntly named) Sherlock Is Garbage, And Here’s Why that Moffat can be a great writer, but is a consistently terrible show runner, because he’s more interested in dazzling the audience with cleverness than actually telling a satisfying story.  The video also points out that the show often implied Sherlock’s brilliance, without ever letting the audience follow along with his actions or thought-process in a way that DEMONSTRATED his brilliance.  

I highly recommend giving the aforementioned video a watch, because it is not only a great explanation of how Sherlock Holmes can be best utilized, but about how writing itself can be best utilized.

Other examples:  The Big Bang Theory.  As Wisecrack points out in their wonderful video on the subject, the punchline of every joke is “oh look, these characters are smart nerds!” which is repetitious at best and downright insulting at worst.

How to avoid this in your writing:  Treat the audience as your equal.  You’re not trying to bedazzle them, you’re trying to take them on a journey with you.  Let them be delighted when you are.  Don’t constantly try to mislead them or hold intelligence over their head, and they will love you for it.  Also, cheap tricks do not yield a satisfying story:  readers will know when you went into a narrative without a plan, and they won’t appreciate it.

3.  Do remember that smart people can be kind and optimistic!

As demonstrated by:  Shuri from Black Panther.

Yes, brilliant people can be unhappy and isolated by their intelligence, or rejected by society.  But remember that intelligence isn’t synonymous with a cantankerous attitude, or an excuse to be a pugnacious ass to those around you!  

Part of the reason why Shuri of 2018′s Black Panther was such a breath of fresh air was the fact that she subverted almost all preconceptions about how a genius looks, acts, and regards the world.  And it’s not just the fact that she isn’t a sullen, middle-aged white man that makes her stand out:  Shuri has an effervescent attitude, and genuinely loves contributing to her country and family.  She referred to sound-proof boots as “sneakers” (and then explained the pun when her brother didn’t get it.)  She’s fashionable.  She teases her older brother, and cries when he is apparently killed.  She’s up on meme culture.  This makes her unlike pretty much every other genius portrayed in the MCU.

Except maybe the Hulk.  He can dab now.

Shuri is also allowed to take pride in her genius, and can be a bit insufferable about it, which makes her more enjoyable and rounded.  But she is an excellent example of how genius can be explored and portrayed in fiction, and I will forever be embittered that she was underutilized in Infinity War and Endgame.

Why, for example, are all geniuses portrayed as arrogant misanthropes?  Albert Einstein battled depression, but he is also said to have enjoyed blowing bubbles and watching puppet shows.  He was kind to those who knew him.  Similarly, Alan Turing behaved little like his fictional counterpart, described as “shy but outgoing,” with a love of being outdoors.  Nikola Tesla fell in love with a pigeon.  Why do we have to portray these people so damn gravely?

Other examples:  Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.  Also an excellent portrayal of an intelligent person on the autism spectrum, as he struggles to interface socially but cares profusely for his fellow human beings.  He is brilliant, and completely precious.

Also, Sherlock Holmes -- the original version, and all faithful adaptations thereof.  Anyone who thinks Sherlock is an austere, antisocial jerk isn’t familiar with the original canon.  He blushed when Watson complimented his intelligence, for God’s sake. 

Then there’s Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and Marge from Fargo.  Brilliant, upbeat, optimistic geniuses.

To apply this to your own writing:  If you have a smart character who hates everyone around them for no identifiable reason, ask yourself why this is necessary and what this adds to the plot.  Are they angry about injustice, towards themselves or others?  Are they frustrated with an inability to relate to people?  Do they want to protect themselves or their family at all costs, including politeness?  If not, question why your brilliant character can’t also be kind to those around them.

4.  Don’t make your character perfect at everything they do.

As demonstrated by:  Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Ah, Wesley.  Some call him the original Mary Sue, and it’s one of the only times I’ve seen the term applied with some accuracy.  He is somehow the most gifted and least qualified person on The Enterprise.  He’s Hermione Granger without the charm, jumping in to answer questions before any of the trained officers in the room have the chance to, always in the right.  His only obstacle?  Why, the boorish adults he’s surrounded with simply don’t understand his brilliance!

As early as the series’ very second episode, Wesley -- inebriated by an alien illness -- forcibly takes over the ship from Captain Picard, only to later save it from a threat with a reverse tractor beam of his own design.  

Wesley was obviously inserted as a means of attracting younger viewers, but failed egregiously, because he was too annoyingly perfect for kids to relate too, and not cool enough for them to be invested in.  I binge-watched the various Star Trek series in my youth for Spock, Data, and my wife Seven of Nine, not to watch seasoned military and scientific officers get lectured by an adolescent.  Even Wil Wheaton, who had the misfortune of portraying this character, expressed a dislike for him.  

Precocious children are great, if you get them right.  But get them wrong, and they can easily become your most annoying character, marring the face of otherwise great media.  The most important thing you can do for a brilliant character is endow them with weaknesses and flaws -- even something as small as Shuri’s fondness for teasing her older brother made her enjoyable, as anyone with siblings could relate to their dynamic.  

But, what if you want a supernaturally talented character who not only fails to be a ray of sunshine, but is something of an arrogant, antisocial jerk?  Can they still work, especially if they also happen to be a child? 

Yes, under one extremely important condition:

5.  Do keep your characters out of their depth!

As demonstrated by:  Number Five from Umbrella Academy.

Okay, he’s not exactly a child.  He’s a fifty-eight-year-old trapped in a child’s body, who’s traveled back in time from a post-apocalyptic future to warn his siblings of an incoming Armageddon.  In other news, Umbrella Academy is a weird show.  Unlike the comics, however, the apes don’t engage in prostitution. 

 The effect, however, remains the same:  a preternaturally talented child who talks down to everyone around him, including his (apparently) older siblings.  So why does he work while Wesley fails so egregiously?

For one thing, it’s demonstrated early on that Five has the skills to back up his sanctimonious attitude, with the delightfully ultraviolent Istanbul (Not Constantinople) sequence.  It also helps that he lacks Wesley’s squeaky-clean moral code, to the point at which he can get drunk in public or kill without remorse.  

But:  the element most vital to his success as a character is the fact that he’s kept completely, and consistently, out of his depth.  He knows the world will end in eight days, but he doesn’t know how this will transpire or how to stop it.  Ultimately, he fails again to stop the apocalypse, and must travel back in time with his siblings for another chance.  

Most authors have the impulse to demonstrate a character’s brilliance by allowing them to succeed against insurmountable odds, but the Umbrella Academy writers show tremendous wisdom in allowing Five to fail.  This allows the audience to empathize with him, and countermands the effects of his arrogant attitude.

This advice isn’t just true for pint-sized prodigies.  Look back over this list, and take notes of how often the most successful characters are allowed to fail, to have flaws, and to ascend past their comfort zone.  

Other examples:  Virtually every successful example on this list.

Tommy Shelby, a character of limitless ambition, conducts a new, perilous climb outside of his social rank each season, which almost always puts him in positions of mortal danger.  He faces threats both external (rival gangs, evil priests, and rising fascists) and internal (hello PTSD, suicidal tendencies, and crippling addiction) but either way, we understand that his fast-paced climb is not for the weak-willed or faint-hearted.  

Mark Watney is a brilliant scientist who has been stranded in an utterly impossible situation for which absolutely no one could be adequately prepared (spoilers:  it’s on Mars.)  We are drawn in by his plight, and how he could possibly escape from it, and there we come to admire him for his courage, optimism, and humor.

Shuri, though not the main character of Black Panther, is allowed to show off both tremendous gifts and vulnerability, as she is powerless to stop the apparent death of her beloved older brother.  She watches Wakanda’s takeover both as an innovator and a young woman, and a large reason for her success is that she is allowed to be both.  

How to apply this to your writing:  When portraying intelligent characters, take stock of how often they fail, their level of control over their surroundings, their vulnerability, and their flaws.  We don’t want to read about flawless deities.  We want to read about characters who embody and personify our humanity.  So remember they need to fall down in order to pull themselves up.

Happy writing, everybody! 

[fizzingwizard]

Ok so episode 42 is really fun! I was trying to decide if it’s a big improvement on episode 41, which had higher stakes but didn’t make me feel much for Yamato or Takeru.

This episode - I feel like I ought to be less thrilled with it because, in spite of taking Taichi along, he’s just support and doesn’t have much to do say or do. Which is a pet peeve of mine - when there’s a lot of characters I get that not everyone can have equal screen time in every episode, but when there’s only two they need to either interact with each other a fair bit or have separate tasks that matter equally. I think it’s just lazy writing to do otherwise.

However, I’m not feeling that way as much as usual with this episode, because it just did such a good job with Koushirou and the Digimon guest star. in terms of emotional impact, episode 41 with its story of brotherly bonding seems like it should be a sure winner, but I think the way Koushirou connects with Garbagemon this episode was surprisingly more compelling.

There’s also the animation as well - episode 41 had better animation quality overall, but episode 42 had wonderful background art, wonderful storyboarding, great lighting, and great music accompaniment. It’s the same music as always but I felt that they laid it in better than usual. So while the character art was a bit choppy, the rest more than made up for it.

My one complaint WOULD be that - yeah, Taichi didn’t need to be there. In fact, the episode might have been better without him, because it would have set up Koushirou and Garbagemon even more up closely. I was hoping to see Taishiro friendship strengthen this episode (we do see them working together at least). I don’t mind that it was Koushirou’s episode instead, but I do think they needed to get rid of Taichi somehow.

I’ve yammered on longer than usual above the cut so let’s get to the actual review!

^A kid who was an absolute star this episode

More below!

So the episode is set in a junkyard. Smelly? Sure. Great ambience? Absolutely xD

Taichi and Koushirou are on their scouting mission from last week... though just what they’re scouting for is kind of vague. Personally I think they’re both just curious explorer types and can’t help themselves, they have to go on adventures, they hate just sitting around lol

They meet Garbagemon, who in spite of being gross is a lot more palatable than his 99 incarnation. Garbagemon explains that he’s a scientist who analyzes the garbage that falls from the human world into the digital world. There’s a cute running joke in which he insists it’s not garbage, but “materials,” and then the instant Taichi points to something Garbagemon says “Oh, that one is garbage though” lol.

Taichi: *gasp* Cup ramen!

Agumon: *drooling* Can we eat it can we can we??

Koushirou, aka Party Pooper: Guys, it’s expired (duh)

Taichi and Agumon: Awww...... :’<

I love little moments like these. Taichi... maybe it’s worth him being in this episode just to see him get all excited over the idea of eating expired cup ramen... xD

Garbagemon then tries to take Koushirou’s tablet computer to “analyze” but Koushirou stops him. Garbagemon then invites them to come see his lab.

Koushirou: Lab?? A real scientist’s real lab?? Really real scientist’s really real lab really go see for real????

Garbagemon: Cool your jets weirdo...

Yeah, Koushirou’s excited. IT’S AWESOME. He instantly bonds with Garbagemon over their mutual love for scientific analysis lol. He found a kindred spirit. Koushirou is always at his best when he’s overflowing with the joy of discovery. Garbagemon as well seems happy to talk to someone who gets it, even if he’s less exuberant lol.

Taichi has not a lot to say, but if he were to talk, it’d probably just be jokes and poking fun so I guess nothing was really lost there.

Meanwhile, tunneling his way through the heaps of trash... MY DARLING RAREMON

Seriously this is one of my all-time favorite Digimon. I love him. He’s so gross. I remember being 8 and seeing Grimer and Muk in Pokemon and not feeling a thing. Then a while later I saw Raremon in Digimon Adventure and was like WHOOOOA COOOOOOOOL!!! Yeah, Digimon turned me off Pokemon lightning fast xD (I still liked Pokemon but I pretty much ceased to pay attention to it.) The episode in 99 where Koushirou fights Raremon was one of my favorite episodes of that series, so I was super happy to see a nod to that in the reboot.

Garbagemon makes Taichi and Koushirou drive his cart back to his lab like the pack mules they are lol.

Koushirou finds this flash drive amid the garbage in the cart and Garbagemon says he can have it. We don’t deal with it again in the episode (unless... I missed it...?) so maybe it’ll come up again soon.

Their journey is stalled by the appearance of Raremon The Beautiful! Just look at that gorgeous face.

Raremon: Grarrrr?

Taichi and Koushirou quickly get to work. Their partners evolve and fight back and it’s pretty disgusting. I loved this little moment where Garbagemon is all impressed by the way the humans help the Digimon to evolve. Taichi’s focused on the battle, but Koushirou notices and appreciates Garbagemon’s interest. Of course, later he has to stop him from trying to “analyze” his digivice as well lol

WHAT IS IT WITH THIS SHOW AND ATTACKING DIGIMON IN THE MOUTH??? It’s officially A Thing! XD It happens aaaaall the time! Lmao I’m sure it’s probably meant to be connected to how Digimon gain energy by eating other Digimon in this season... something like that but in reverse... it’s just so weird haha

So here’s an example of a scene with storyboarding I really liked. This bit in Garbagemon’s lab uses so unusual angles and I can’t really put into words why it changes how I feel but it does... perhaps it’s just that I enjoy seeing things done a bit differently.

But I think there’s something more too - in the scene, Garbagemon explains that he used to have a whole team of Chuumon who helped him with his research, but Raremon ate them all except for the one who’s left. It’s a pretty tragic story. Garbagemon is an interesting character: if he were human, he’d definitely be some wizened, Einstein-haired, bent over old man whose cares and troubles are worn into his face. Idk how I get that impression from a garbage Digimon but that’s what good writing and voice acting can do!

So, for Koushirou and Taichi, they’re being let into Garbagemon’s world and it’s not one they can entirely related to, yet their hearts go out to him. I feel like the unusual angles reflect both that attempt to connect and the distance between them.

This was my absolutely favorite: this peek through the shelves at their little huddle as they talk about the weapon Garbagemon’s been making to defeat Raremon. We are kept distant, yet our focus is zeroed in on the group. THIS IS SOME AWESOMESAUCE CINEMATIC GENIUS Y’ALL lol

The group goes to find Raremon and we get a REALLY EPIC moment from Koushirou: as they’re flying into battle, he reflects on why Garbagemon is fighting, and this is what he thinks:

“Revenge... It's not a good thing, but there's surely a pain there that only the one left behind can understand. For humans and Digimon...”

It’s such a grown up bit of reflection that we just haven’t had much of this season. I think the character who’s connected the most with other Digimon is Mimi, but thinking isn’t her style - she’s all emotion and action. Koushirou is probably the only one we’ve seen so far really reach out with both heart and mind like this. And it’s absolutely intentional and important - at least I believe so. This is Koushirou, who other kids may have a hard time understanding, because he’s always caught up in his own thoughts. It may be easy to think of him as someone who doesn’t value emotions, but that’s not true: he is introspective and doesn’t put his every thought out into the world. He’s also probably the type who values privacy, his own and others.

I think there’s very likely something here that’s meant to hint at Koushirou’s own personal pain as well. We don’t know what it is yet, but the last time it was mentioned was in the human world, from which we can pretty much assume it’s something to do with his home life. It may or may not be the same situation as in 99 Adventure. We’ll have to see. But I think it played a part in Koushirou’s ability to empathize with Garbagemon in this episode.

And what’s more - thinking about revenge, at ten years old, and not taking a black and white position, in a show about kids for kids - I mean, that kind of not talking down to kids style was one reason I loved 99 Adventure, and this is the same sort of thing. It’s a grown up thought. It’s Koushirou understanding the world more fully. And we really have not seen much of that this season, so it’s encouraging that we’re even getting this bit now. The show has been black and white good vs evil in a lot of ways, but only on the surface: first Taichi connected with Ogremon, then we were pretty much told that Devimon’s actions were not entirely his own sane decision, and then SkullKnightmon turned out to be a part of Tailmon in some way.

So the show is definitely trying to be more interesting than good vs evil. I really don’t know why it took so long to get here, but I’m glad it has at last.

Then Garbagemon jumps into a borderline suicidal attempt to shoot his bazooka at Raremon, and succeeds at freezing him into an ice sculpture. But the black lightning starts to shoot into Raremon, making his eyes glow red... very creepy... buhahaha...

That is one hell of an evolution scene, lol

Taichi: I don’t think even YOU look that cool when you evolve

Greymon: Sorry for not having the charm of a MUCK monster

Raremon evolve to... Rareraremon!!!

XD That name cracks me up buhahahah

Rareraremon is a gross as you might expect - reminds me somewhat of beast form Envy in Full Metal Alchemist actually. Not as scary though.

From this point, the episode does go down a predictable path. Inspired by Garbagemon’s resourecfulness and still very much empathizing with him, Koushirou concocts a plan that takes advantage of the oil in Rareraremon.

He gathers some garbage, er, materials - namely this product for hardening oil (like on frying pans etc) so you can scrape it off and put in the garbage, since oil should never be poured down the drain. These packets were also shown earlier in the episode so it’s basically a “eureka” moment for Koushirou

He gives them to Taichi who goes around throwing the packets into Rareraremon’s body, which instantly absorbs them. Idk why he carries his Digivice in the basket too?? that was odd??

Glug glug glug... in 2021 we beat baddies using SCIENCE!!!!

From here I’m not 100% sure about everything in the plan because the audio cut in and out. But AtlurKabuterimon spins Rareraremon around and meanwhile Koushirou has created some device to channel MetalGreymon’s power... I don’t really understand why that was necessary but maybe it was explained in a part where I didn’t have audio.

Taichi: Uh, Koushirou, you sure it’s safe to be sitting there?

Koushirou: What about you? You always ride MetalGreymon while he fights

Taichi: yeah but I don’t sit on HIS GUN

Obligatory best boy pic even if you were very much the third wheel in this episode dear hahahahaha

He attac!!

This causes the heated oil in Rareraremon to freeze fast and he turns into a hardened mass of oil... very ugly... bad way to die lol

For some reason every reboot episode ends with a sunset *shrug* it pretty I guess

While thanking them for their help, Garbagemon’s friend Chuumon suddenly evolves into Searchmon. That was pretty cool. It happens right after Koushirou shakes Garbagemon’s hand so it seems like it was his influence that helped it along.

I’m really surprised by how much I ended up liking freaking Garbagemon lmao

Ugggghhh Taichi you may have been a pointless addition but I’m still always happy just to see your face

So in sum - in case you can’t tell, I really liked this episode! I still hope for actual Taichi & Koushirou interactions in the future... but I just can’t care about that lack this time because it was such a good Koushirou episode. I’ve droned on a lot now and y’all are probably bored to tears so I’m gonna wrap it up. 8/10!!!

Next week:

freaking Etemon loooool

Looks like it’ll be an amusing episode for the most part. As much as I’m enjoying these lighter, character-building moments - I hope we don’t ignore the main plot for too long. The pacing of this season has been WEIRD AF so I just never feel safe :P But I absolutely do not want to go back to the kind of episodes we were getting in the past that were “plot” episodes but mainly just battles with nobody characters and no character moments... no thank you! I will happily watch the kids make fun of Etemon, thank you very much.

posted unedited as always

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Comes First, Theory or Reality?

In the history of natural philosophy and in fact all philosophy and much academic work besides, there has been a strong tendency to create theory, whether this is Aristotle's Physics or even a topic like modern critical theory. In fact every university subject today is brimming with theory, and a churn of half baked theories continues; it is what drives academic careers. One can question this: Should there be theories for everything? Also, can we know if there is a valid theory for all topics? Can we even justify turning all this theorising into syllabus, and of course dogma, that is taught, read, and absorbed into our beliefs as part of the creative greater self?

There have been philosophers like Sir Karl Popper who held that knowledge wasn't proven, but theorised, and these theories were tested, if not falsified, then held as provisional pragmatic truths. But given that there is almost an infinity of theory and likely only one true minimal and complete description, it doesn't seem to me that Popper's approach would be very successful in finding a true description of the universe unless there was a pre-selection, a seeing of what is going on in order to select/build a theory. However, empirical observation relies on a theory of logical consistency, a theory of how the domain works, an analysis of objects in the field, the mindset of the observer, and a number of factors local to the experiment. So it becomes clear that most theorising is the process of adding layers of philosophical speculation to other philosophical speculation. Is all this theory a load of rubbish?

* * *

With empirical results there is often a repeatable observation, however with theory there is just the adding of layers, one on top of the other. If a single flaw exists then the tower is unsound. There is also a difference between the mathematical descriptions of physics and economics and the analysis of critical theory in literature studies or psychoanalysis. The mathematical sciences are more highly defined, with problems fitting to the world as described in blog 15, 'What Does It All Mean?', but interpretations are less of an issue. Other subjects have greater interpretation issues, for example finding it inexact when offering theories about theory about descriptions about interpretations. As a result, the theories morph according to things like political interest. An example of disagreement is a Marxist interpretation of counter revolutionary facts, like believing the CIA can drive history and economics single handed. This is less of a problem in physics, but still dogmas persist like the millenium long reign of Aristotle's physics, only punctured by the heroic efforts and experiments of free thinking giants like Galileo, Newton, and Einstein who rejected more theory than they created.

In the analytical philosophy tradition of the 20th Century there was a rejection of some theorising, particularly metaphysics, as it was argued it was meaningless because it had become detached from its empirical foundations. An aggressive form of empiricism became dominant in the UK. I see this historical debate as flawed on both sides (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'), however it has asked some questions which are still important like:

1) How can we justify theories and theorising;

2) Does everything need theories;

3) Are more abstract theories like cultural theories valid like scientific ones, or are they pseudo-intellectual and meaningless;

4) Is it possible to create grand narratives from systematizing theory or are they all just local and observable?

I have previously touched on a number of these themes, but we will briefly try to answer these questions here with reference to the previous blogs as a conclusion to our endeavours that will help you understand and argue with people who want to inflict a grand narrative on you, or their value judgements, as is often the case in education, religion, politics, debate, or even just the marketing of products promoting a way of doing things.

The first question, how can we justify theories, is another way of asking about justifying generalisations that we discussed in blog 5: 'Were You or Your Big Data Given to Generalising...?'. If we are making a generalisation, we are creating a simple theory that the world works in a particular way. The problem becomes a new problem when we extend the theory so that it changes from becoming a local theory, for example Napoleon was erratic, to becoming so wide and far from the evidence; for example Napoleon was an agent of the spirit of history that had manifested itself since creation (to slightly abuse Hegel). This proceeds to our second question, does everything need theories. For example, has Hegel's view of history been a positive influence, is it valid, is it false, can we tell the difference?

These questions lie within the last blog on religion, (blog 17: 'What Good Is Religion after the Lies?'); for if a theory is not a local scientific theory, given at the correct level of non-reduction (as mentioned in blog 8: 'Is AI & Science Stuck in an Unhelpful Reductionist Paradigm...?'), then the role of the theory must be religious. We have accepted that although grand narrative theories (or religious theories) may not or can not be proven or even correct, we need religion. So we need religious theory to provide us with a framework for our worldview, lives, and judgements.

This answers our third question, are abstract theories like religious ones meaningless. The answer to this is they define people, so even if you think square circles lay eggs on Tuesdays, this is still meaningful even though it doesn't apply to anything. Many theories may be pseudo-intellectual as, like religion, they can't be falsified, and this is the definition of pseudo-scientific provided by the Vienna Circle group of philosophers. Unlike the Vienna Circle, we can see this lack of falsifiability does not make the theory meaningless, but religious.

Religious or grand narrative theories can certainly be produced, in fact they are impossible to get rid of, but I would disagree with the claim they are scientific as part of the answer to the third question. Many theorists mistake their religious beliefs for scientific ones. particularly when they apply inappropriate scientific thought to areas out of scope in sphere confusions (as discussed in blog 1: 'A Little Understanding Has Big Implications'). I would define the opposite of Post-Atheism (discussed in the previous blog) to be Moral Totalitarianism, and this term applies equally to extreme religion as extreme politics like marxism, fascism, or absolute rule. There is a framework that defies justification in scientific terms, but still controls the narrative in participants through a grand narrative of a religious order.

So answering the fourth question, you can create positive impact grand narratives, although attempts to do so usually have a less good conclusion. There are some clear examples of dodgy narratives having positive effects: For example the US constitution making everyone equal before God and the law, when it is not clear that there is any true equality; but at least this helps rather than hinders justice, even if the laws themselves are sometimes highly prejudiced like the war on drugs. However, I do not think claiming equality before 'God' is a valid scientific claim. So while, like Hegel, it is possible to make grand claims, and for them to be meaningful, I don't think they are likely to be correct or justified in absolute terms.

* * *

We have an important branch of thought that is not scientific, but is rational and hyper real (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'). It sits between mathematics, religion, science, and empirical description. I claim this whole archipelago, this whole continent, in the name of philosophy. You as philosophers shall find your kingdom here, and your hyper reality. You shall rule academies with your exciting theorising, your refining, analysing, and defining. Thinkers of all types will hang on your every word as you define their deepest prejudices.

* * *

The conclusion is passed, now we are in the post-note, the health warning; and we shall discuss the pratfalls of theory and philosophy that you need to avoid. There is the naive view that philosophers can be wrong, but we know this is usually not the biggest problem for theory. More dangerous is being confused; however the biggest existential threat is being illogical; but if you deny, defy, mould, and redefine your theory, selling it as you go, then you may hold onto it for generations until it becomes a permanent religious feature.

Being logical is not that hard, a simple guide to logic may help if it is unclear, but anyone with exposure to truth tables, computer code, electronics gates, will already be familiar with most of the useful content. To be useful with logic, you need a knack for good definitions; this comes with practice. An eye for synthesising arguments is a creative skill, like writing verse, but even your garbled thoughts can be clarified and will probably be seen as genius where there is a gap in the theory.

Now we will consider a topic of philosophy that was open to confusion in the past and even rejected from some of the philosophy canon, 'ontology' the way of existence. The aim of this exercise is for you to criticise the arguments and come up with your own bits of ontology.  There will be some clues after this stack argument:

1) Properties are real

2) Causation is the actualisation of properties

3) Emergence is caused

4) The hyper real is emergent

5) Language is hyper real

6) Description is language

7) The impossible are descriptions

Therefore: 8) The impossible are real

So perhaps you like this argument? This argument is a good example of religious thinking as it takes arguments from across the blogs, but probably this is a distraction from how you define what is real. The argument is somewhat consistent (or circular as you might otherwise call it), especially if you leave out steps 2-6.

Of course every argument benefits from follow up arguments. So if you rejected the first step ('premise 1'), consider this:

1) Unused properties do not exist in the real

2) Scientific laws are mostly about unused properties

Therefore 3) Scientific laws mostly do not exist in reality

4) Properties are a thing's nature

5) A thing's nature exists

6) Scientific laws express a thing's properties

Therefore 7) Scientific laws exist

8) If a thing is contradictory, then it is impossible

Therefore 9) The existence of scientific laws is contradictory being both true and false

Therefore 10) Scientific laws are impossible

I think this argument is interesting and is a bit like that popular meme:

Cheese has holes

More cheese = more holes

More holes = less cheese

So more cheese = less cheese

So the reason ontology is not as popular as it was two centuries ago is that there are probably multiple definitions of real, and probably even no grand narratives to realness. So ontology is a muddle that is mostly semantic; it is also highly religious and so it is difficult to be definitive; for example, does Hegel's world spirit of history exist when you can't really prove empirically that it doesn't? Accordingly, this is just one example where you can freely make up your own philosophy and add it to any theory you are interested in, so following a rich tradition of thinkers of all types, left, right, ancient, modern, scientific, or religious; examples include Plato's forms, Newton's universal time, Marx's march of history, Aristotle's forces, various theisms, the free market, mathematical objects, etc.

Based on what I said about identity in blog 6: 'Is Cause and Effect the Wonderwall of Everything?', you can also add that while properties like motion exist, the objects in motion do not persist, and this applies to all properties over time. Further factor in emergent properties and latent properties. Thus to make claims about the things existing in the world is to be open to a massive confusion of identity and the real, lending itself to much interpretation. This should keep you in theory for a while.

Before anyone decides it is clear the impossible works better than science, I will dig you out of the stack argument the way I see best: This is to say that scientific laws only exist as descriptions, like the impossible. A real description is not the same as being real unless you are talking about a theory like mathematics; so scientific laws are only descriptions of the possible. But whether you think latent properties are real, I leave to you. Perhaps they are just part of the impossible, also described like the possible, when considered in absolute terms like whether they have causal existence, which they don't. When they do have that causal existence, their identities will have changed; so that what exists in the latent category is the cause of a cause or the cause of an ability to interact to create an emergent property. This would unwrap the problem for you so you may redefine everything to your taste.

* * *

I shall now end with some final words. Philosophy is sometimes ignored, but it can be a battleground. There is something to the cliche that philosophy can alienate people, however this is much less likely if you take a post-atheist approach as described in the last blog. Although the possibility remains that people will alienate you, normally this will be based on something you now understand and can feel empowered to reason with. Philosophy is a many sided coin; one side is the power of theory to interpret meaning and change lives.

Our final conclusion to this blog question of what comes first, theory or reality, is that they live together in our minds' eye. So although much theory is a waste of time, it will define our thinking and concepts.

[nepheloma]

inspired by this post that i reblogged yesterday, i really wanted to share a few of the thoughts i've been having recently regarding intelligence.

tl:dr;

intelligence is only judged by performance, which ignores how this performance is immediately dependent on socioeconomic status.

meritocracy as well as the concept of "geniuses" is a scam that perpetuates the status quo.

nobody should have to perform in a certain way in order for their life to have value.

to start with a disclaimer, i'm speaking only from experience -i'm not a psychologist, i'm not an expert on human behaviour. just a person who's been in the educational system for a long time, and who is mostly planning to stay inside of it.

i have always been a very good student, someone who would get extremely high grades and exceed most expectations around me. this labelled me as intelligent. and yes, i do believe that i'm a book smart person. at this point, in the past, i would have said something along the lines of "every person has a different kind of intelligence, it's not just being book smart that matters". but that mentality is bs: let me explain why.

in this system that we live in, quantifying intelligence, of any sort, has to do with performance. subconsciously, when we tell someone that, for example, their intelligence might have to do with art, we expect this to be judged by their artistic performance. if someone doesn't have something to show for their brains, we only tell them that they must have the potential to show something, and that they should work harder. while self-improvement is always a good thing -by all means, we should strive to be who we want to be- it shouldn't be considered necessary.

here's where intelligence goes wrong. first of all, living our lives performatively is the worst way to live them. it makes them devoid of any meaning, hanging on to other's opinions. and being intelligent is definitely judged by others, first and foremost. but most importantly, in order to perform adequately -be a good artist, a well-published scientist, an innovative engineer- is immediately dependent on socioeconomic status. I personally have been lucky enough to be born in a family that cared about me and was also able to financially support my education. I'm also high functioning -even at the times of my life when I was mentally unwell.

It's extremely sad how many people don't have that, but what's even sadder is that our society deems them responsible for this. one goes to university, and professors -who, most of them, as it has been shown, come mostly from academic backgrounds already- degrade them for having gaps in their knowledge, which couldn't possibly be filled if one has only been exposed to the public school system. people with access to capital start their own companies and buy their own houses at their early 20s and then call people who can't do that lazy. All these people perpetuate a myth of meritocracy to justify why they should have the wealth that they didn't earn themselves, and that most of the time is earned on the backs of other, less fortunate people, just like kings used to claim they were of godly ancestry to justify why they deserve to rule.

the concept of genius is another hoax that perpetuates the very same status quo. most people who get their info from the news will have been conditioned to think of current billionaires like elon musk, jeff bezos and bill gates as geniuses. they've learnt, since their first school years, that geniuses are almost like magicians, extremely smart people who were powerful enough to do amazing things. they're told that Albert Einstein discovered his theories of relativity because he was a genius, that Newton was divinely inspired to discover his theory of gravitation when an apple fell on his head, that all those people who made history had access to mental powers we, laypeople, don't -so, one is conditioned to regard current powerful people as something akin to a god. Of course, the scientists I mentioned didn't compile their theories due to divine intervention, but due to years of hard work, which they were financially able to spend devoted to research and education instead of, say, an everyday kind of job, and the work of previous scientists, their students etc etc. Every discovery with one name plugged on it has countless people behind it. But this is what people like Elon Musk capitalize on: nobody remembers the workers, only the celebrity -that's why his cars and rockets are considered to be "his", even though he has probably devoted nothing but money to them.

But if the layperson believes that their "kings" are geniuses, naturally more intelligent than themselves, they are conditioned to accept this power on them as natural, as a law of the jungle, even though it's a literal scam. We're putting side to side people with immensely different lives, ignoring every factor that contributes to their position at the moment and judge only on performance. We dare call this meritocracy and we dare call this "giving everyone what their work deserves". Because yes, judging on intelligence is inherently tied to work. It's inherently tied to how well you do on tasks, how efficient your skills are. It's also why intelligence is tied to very specific kinds of jobs -being in STEM implies mathematical and scientific intelligence, a "left brain" kind of person, one who can be used for technological and financial advancement. Artists who comply with the demands of the art market, a highly corrupted space serving as a a tax evasion and money laundering haven for rich people, are the ones praised and revered. The latest trend is self-made businessmen who are deemed to be geniuses for starting their own company, regardless of how they found the capital for it, or how much they actually serve their communities -but we are pushed to have them as our idols, to want to be like them, even though our finances would never allow this -our failure is turnt into our responsibility, a personal failure, not a difference in fortunes. These concepts are conditioning us to be ideal workers, striving to get more "intelligent" all the time, feeling inadequate in front of the myth some people have created to justify their power.

No, we all matter inherently. We are born and we deserve to live. This life is all we've got -how can others possibly decide if we deserve happiness, love and survival depending on how pleasing to their interests our performance is? We're living in a world where we need to prove ourselves all the time and where people are becoming products to be bought and consumed (which is amplified by social media). That's just not true. We don't need to prove anything. We hate mary sues in media because they're not real, but we've been made to believe that we need to be one in order to be adequate. I'm sure that you have people who love you just for who you are. And that's all you need to be. You are not your performance. Being alive is all you need to be.

This was a chaotic bunch of thoughts that I definitely didn't structure well, but I've been thinking of this for a long time and of how judging myself by my performance has affected me. I have always been on a rollercoaster of self worth depending on how my grades compared to my peers, because I thought this somehow would define my worth as a person, even if I didn't want to admit it. But I've spent now 7 months out of education -basically doing nothing- and I've realised that when you strip a person out of the numbers they define themselves by, there's still so much to see, so much that's important. And I refuse to live my life hanging on the external, of arbitrary judgement systems created by those with their own self-interest in mind. All I can hope for is better part of the world of education and research than my own professors were.

Thanks to anyone who read all of that.

[trickandmxgic]

RULES:  List at least five tropes applicable to your character, then tag others to do the same.(Tropes Wiki)  REPOST! DO NOT REBLOG.

Tagged by: MYSELF i mean ive done it on all my other blogs so Tagging: u sure y not

Magnificent Bastard: If there was ever a character that deserved to be called “Magnificent”, that character is the Magnificent Bastard. The Magnificent Bastard is what happens when you combine The Chessmaster, The Trickster, and the Manipulative Bastard: bold, charismatic, independent, audacious and genius. Capturing the audience with their charisma, incredible intellect, mastery of manipulation, and boldness of action, this character is a show-stealer, demanding your reverence at every turn.  While usually an antagonist, especially if they’re the Big Bad, the Magnificent Bastard can be aligned on either side of a conflict. Hell, they’re so amazing they tend to forgo the idea of good and evil altogether, instead following their own agenda, choosing to help whichever side will further their goals. However, it’s true that their penchant for manipulation at the expense of others means it’s common for them to be a Villain, Villain Protagonist, or at least an Anti-Hero, but purely heroic examples exist. Either way, they’re usually in charge of whatever organization they’re involved with, or might as well be.

“ Outsmarts everyone and looks stylish while doing it. “

The Strategist: A character whose primary job is to think up intricate and ingenious ways to defeat the enemy. The Strategist is often in a supporting role, but may be the hero as well. In a supporting role, the Strategist is basically The Smart Guy on turbo, although he or she will—as a general rule—be less likely to physically partake in any of the plans they think up. The Strategist might come across as an unmitigated disaster, should the heroes come to rely on his or her advice too much. The Strategist may also take center stage. As a hero, The Strategist’s clever tactical tricks drive the story. A main character Strategist will face overwhelming odds, again and again. The enemy may have difficulty believing The Strategist can possibly win, but by bending the rules a little, dusting off their knowledge of military history, and maybe pulling a few dirty tricks, The Strategist comes out on top, or at least alive.

“It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.”

Reality Warper: Ever heard of the Superpower Lottery? Well, kid, you just won the grand prize. You know those pesky laws of physics? Or that annoying thing called causality? Einstein's theory of relativity? Quantum physics? You can laugh and say, "screw you" to them now. Reality is officially out to lunch, and you've picked the restaurant and menu it gets to "choose". This means you can create things out of nothing, change already existing things, erase things from existence, and generally force reality to obey your will just by thinking about it. The key issue here is how far one can take this, and in Guo Jia’s case, he can take it far, but not too crazily far. With his transfiguration magic, his mastery over it, Guo Jia can bend matter and energy pretty much to his will-- he can take hold of the matter around him in it’s various forms, turn it into energy, and then turn that energy into  just about anything he wants, assuming the object or item he has in mind is something he’s seen in person at least once. This can allow Guo Jia to do some pretty wild things, but he is unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for everyone else) limited by his illness, meaning that his magic will take too far a toll on him and kill him before he’s able to do anything truly crazy like tearing the time-space continuum apart or something on that scale. Using any of his magic too much stands a chance of making him seriously ill or killing him, actually, but his transfiguration magic especially. So sure he’s dangerous, very dangerous, but not on any crazy cosmic level, not on his own.

"Can change the way the world is put together.“

The Hedonist: This character is strongly motivated by a desire to be happy and experience various kinds of pleasure. They seldom consider or care for the long term effects their actions may have on them, let alone the short term effects they may bring upon others. Guo Jia’s lack of consideration for his long term well being and the effects his actions have on others when it comes to seeking his various pleasures (flirting, drinking, partying, warfare, etc) come from the knowledge that he will probably die young, and therefore the ‘here and now’ is all that is important. He has to enjoy every day like it could be his last, because it very well could be.

“ Someone motivated by desires for sensual pleasures.”

Number Two: Throughout all his timelines, Guo Jia inevitably ends up as the right hand man to whoever it is he is working for or serves, simply by way of how useful he is, how effective his advice and strategies can be, and how unflinchingly loyal he can be. Guo Jia’s dynamic with Cao Cao in his original timeline is a good example of this, where Cao Cao came to consult Guo Jia first on everything, and as a result, ended up conquering northern China against odd’s that would have otherwise seemed impossible. Cao Cao had many, many talented individuals in their employ of course, some who excelled past Guo Jia in certain areas, but even so Guo Jia literally became the most instrumental person Cao Cao had in his ranks. (if he’s serving a more boss Guo Jia probably becomes more akin to The Dragon, but same thing just about just different alignments lmao).

“ The Leader's right-hand man or second-in-command. ”

Incurable Cough of Death: A cough that is usually accompanied by nasty amounts of blood from the mouth, that may also involve collapsing. The character afflicted with this ailment will probably try to hide it and will usually succeed until they actually pass out and/or die. Thematically, the unnamed disease tends to act like pneumonia or tuberculosis, even in futuristic settings where those real diseases might be cured. Other times it’s a hyped up version of unfortunately very real symptoms of chronically overworked people. For Guo Jia, its not an actual sickness as much as it is an incompatibility between his soul and body, but it functions like an illness and he, and just about everyone else, believes it to be one. It causes him to get very sick, cough up blood, etc-- illness-like enough for this trope.

“Who coughs, dies.”

Honorable mentions:  Alchemy Is Magic, Awesomeness by Analysis, The Alcoholic, Heroic Sacrifice, Improbable Weapon User, Divine Parentage, Anti Magic, Sadistic Choice, Glass Cannon, Meaningful Name, Undying Loyalty, Necessarily Evil

[paulriedelposts]

A real stable genius Thomas Mann

Society struggles to recognize a genius like Thomas Mann. Prejudice, politics and the human fear in front of the unknown. Phenomenal people with great minds and new ideas come in all generations. Thomas Mann is surely one of that kind. German's past generations count many famous writers, storytellers, and novelists. Friedrich Schiller, E.T.A Hoffman, Gunter Grass, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe are just some of them. Their works are unforgettable. Where I am, there is Germany. I carry my German culture in meThomas Mann answers to reporters in New York in February 1938 Thomas Mann, a German short story writer, essayist, philanthropist, and novelist too. His influence survived the oppression of the Nazi-regime. He never truly stopped living among the German nation, wherever he was.

Thomas Mann's beginning and family

The father, Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann was a senator and a grain merchant. His mother, Julia da Silva-Bruhns, was Brazilian women of Portuguese and German provenance. He was born in Lubeck, Germany, a traditionally protestant region. His mother was a Roman Catholic. Although he was baptized into his father's Lutheran religion. What will bring Thomas to Munich? Unfortunately, the death of his father in 1891 is one of the main reasons why that happened. His father's trading company came to its end after this tragic event. And because of that, a whole family moved to Munich. Destiny is a nonwritten path and maybe this was something necessary on his road becoming a writer. This extravagant man's works caught the interests even in the world of psychology and the human intellect. This noticeable since his day one as a writer. His novellas and epic novels with an ironic tone are well-known among actual writers and academic careers. His heritage will accompany literature for many generations. Part of this heritage is surely his analyzes and critiques about the German and European souls in general. Typical for his late works are the dogmatical and mythological subjects. He is famous for his position about the ideas of popular writers. Some of them are Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Artur Schopenhauer. His first novel Buddenbrooks portrays his class and family. What I must not forget to mention is that he was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family. The family Mann had truly notorious as writers. His older brother, for example, called Heinrich Mann is also well-known as a writer. One interesting aspect is that Thomas Mann was the father of 6 children. Three of them, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann, and Golo Mann became significant German writers too.

Thomas Mann's school days

Thomas Mann started his school days in Lübeck. Like Einstein, his teachers misinterpreted his geniality. He declared many times how he disliked the school years. His eclectic interests after school inspired him to new areas of interest. After that, he managed to attend the Ludwig Maximillian's University of Munich. His presence at the Technical University of Munich prepared him for his journalism career. He was studying economics, history, art history, and literature here. Later on, Thomas has been working at the South German Fire Insurance Company in 1894-95. And soon after, his first short book will get to its shining. In the year of 1898, he publishes 'Little Mr. Friedemann'. Seven years later, Thomas Mann married Katia Pringsheim. He had a major personal conflict with the raise from Hitler to power. He fleed to Switzerland for many reasons. One of these was the family his wife, who was partially jews. After that, he moved to the USA because World Warr II started but returned to Switzerland in 1952.

A value of the Buddenbrooks novel

This first novel by Thomas Mann had a big significance in German and international literature. Thomas Mann publishes this book in 1901 when he was twenty-six years old. This book is being marked as a success after its second edition publication two years after. For English language readers, it became available in 1924 when the book got translated by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter. Thomas Mann started to write it in 1897 and published in 1901. In this book, he describes his point of view from society and conflicts in a new environment. Partially can be understood as the conflicts between the artist's worlds and businessman. The biggest success of this book is not its two editions, of course. With this book, Thomas Mann will be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. This is the highest-ranked award that can be given to any writer. Buddenbrooks is certainly Thomas Mann's most popular novel and it will remain that forever. In Germany, it is valued for its intimate portrait of 19th-century German bourgeois life.

Thomas Mann's homosexuality

One of his central concerns was to accept and live with is his homosexuality. Although he concluded a marriage and got children, that couldn't cover his true nature. We can find the first signs of his homosexuality in Anthony Heilbut's biography. He uncovered his nature and his feelings about the same gender. Sources in his works There is an anecdote about Thomas reacting to the angelic figure of the Polish ten years boy.  Also, his personal diary can give us some conclusions too. Based on the affirmations in those, is easy to understand his attraction for his own son. Especially when Klaus Mann was thirteen years old. He will keep writing about his attraction to his son in his diary though. It will not be the rare case when Thomas write some erotic compliments on his son's looking. In addition, there is a letter where Thomas Mann wrote to Carl Maria Weber about his feeling. He was constantly focused on Klaus's body and his appearance. It is known that Thomas Mann in younger years had feelings for his friend Paul Ehrenberg. This case will have an impact on his potential marriage with an English woman, Mary Smith, in 1901. It happened again to him in 1950. He met the nineteen years old waiter in Grand Hotel Dolder, Franz Westermeier. This young man brought him to some depressive moments. Thomas Mann compared himself to Michelangelo in the Renaissance in the poetry about Tomasso Cavalieri. He denied that his novels ever had autobiographical components but he unsealing of his diaries speaks for itself. That will be enough to convince everyone in his true nature.

Style of his writing

Every classic writer has a recognizable style of writing. Like the singers that are recognizable for their tone of the voice. Thomas Mann's writing style contains a remarkable amount of irony and satire, but humor too. His style will gain its final form after the completion of his work 'Buddenbrooks'. On one level there is a deep and meaningful approach. On the other are even deeper levels of representation. That's how the author will write throughout his whole career. His writing is honored all around the world. Not only in Germany. And that can be convincing enough about his writing style. He will remain acknowledged as one of the most renowned and greatest writers of the 20th century. His life ended in a tragic way. He fought with tuberculosis was long and predictable. He died on the 12th of August in 1955 in Zurich. Kilchberg is the place where he got buried.

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[theuglywordsmith-blog]

Day 1 of 1000 words (a thought experiment)

Today, at around 3 or 4 am I set a task for myself. That task however unreachable on the first day was to write a 1000 word page document. Now I consider myself a writer, but I have never been very good at it — or maybe I was just never consistent enough to be good. I see that pattern a lot in my life, and with a lot of things, I seem to be passionate about. There seems to be this gap, an undesirable leap of faith that I must take. The leap signifies a blind trust in the age-old adage that whatever done, consistently, repeatedly, with discipline over an extended time frame will show results. Be it sports, science, or writing. Einstein called it the definition of madness, this repetition of a task expecting different results each time. But aren’t all artists mad in one way or another? I know I was — or am for setting this target for myself to achieve and then coming out here and trying. I never thought I’d get past the first few sentences, that now seem like vomit that has decayed over a millennium and has produced its own vomit. These are the self-destructive patterns I’ve inhabited in my mind. But yet here I am still going, trying to see how far I can go before my hand cramps or I’m distracted by another bout of Football manager 2017. I seem to recognize all these destructive patterns in my life, everything that I plan to do — is countered by meticulous schemes to sabotage myself. For example this morning I didn’t sleep — which was an indication that I was already subconsciously preparing myself to fail before I had started. That’s the dangers of hating yourself and locking yourself in the mindset of a manic depressant. You think you are no better than scum but still feel that there’s something in you that sets you apart from everyone else. Only to lay traps for yourself to prove time and time again that the failed attempts at life are a justification that the former is truer than the latter. I don’t know how most people get out of a rut; I’ve always been in a rut. Stretch time far enough and you’ll see an irregularity, that irregularity would be me actually being productive and giving a shit about myself in a healthy manner. At most instances in life, I’d diagnose myself with a disease, romanticize it and try to make myself look special and feel special. That the only reason I seem to be held back is this disease that I never asked for. That mindset is just as venomous as the mindset that I am in right now, back then at least I had disguised my true self from my conscious self. Even now I am preventing myself from achieving this task because I am already disgusted with the words I’ve spewed because for some reason I feel that I will never be good enough, so how could something I create be a better version of me. It’s not clean, it’s a mess, there’s no form, no message, and it’s cluttered like the minds of a maniac. Like my mind. I think this was what George Orwell was referring to when he invented the word “doublethink” i-e a mind can entertain two opposite ideas simultaneously. At now halfway through this task, I’ve contemplating if I digressed so much that I lost the point of this exercise, or am I just doing this to heal some part of me that needed me to spit a few bars of Shakespearean nature to sooth some urge that I never knew existed. I don’t really know the point of writing 1000 words a day. Is it to be concise with my words? Deliver the message in a proper structure? Is there to be a greater output just because I am writing 1000 words a day; I will automatically be on the level of Stephen King? Or do I create this method on how to write and what to write, and master that form? All these questions are valid questions, and it’s strange that I am the one asking them to myself after the fact that I set myself up for this. Truth be told I wanted this exercise, in the long run, to help me develop a habit that pros have. That separates the pros from the artists. Right now at this point in my life, it is a very delicate position to have such an identity crisis of who I want to be and who I am inside. Am I the writer or the filmmaker or am I the utilitarian. I question my own purpose more often than searching for it. I do want to be a writer, a good one. But what defines good? The bestseller list, critics, mom? I guess not. I guess it is me who decides what I write is good and what I write is bad. Yet so far in my life, I find everything that I have written is cringe-y to the point I am ashamed of showing people my work yet I am always eager to hear what they think of it, some part of me still believes that the validation exists in the heart of another. Even though all the pros in the world will tell you that they created art for themselves that they wanted out in the world because that is the kind of art they always liked seeing and wanted to have more of in the world. Not to say they never took constructive criticism on board, but to say that the true validation, the real voice of acceptance lies deep inside me and if I am to ever succeed in this line of work or at life at all. I have to learn to be kind to myself, appreciate the efforts I make, especially at the stage I am — the baby steps should not be expected to be giant leaps of genius in one sitting. I need to give myself room to breathe before I should consider the possibility of being greater than the Saad of yesterday.  - TuW

[talabib]

How To Think Your Way To Success

The world’s most successful people have one thing in common: they aren’t afraid to think outside the box and carve out their own path.

But the journey along that road can be lonely. After all, we’re a sociable species by nature. We like fitting in, and the price of social acceptance is falling in with accepted ideas. Going against the grain, questioning common notions and striking out on your own isn’t likely to win you many friends.

Yet just think where we’d be if everyone had always kept their brilliant ideas to themselves! To claim, as Copernicus did, that the earth wasn’t at the center of the universe must have struck his contemporaries as some form of madness. But he was right, and we’re forever in his debt for having stuck to his guns.

That goes to show just how important creative thinking and tenacity are when it comes to success. But, This post shows, you don’t have to be an Einstein or Galileo to have great ideas. In fact, everyone can learn to think creatively – all it takes is knowing the right techniques and a bit of practice!

Big picture thinkers are constantly learning and know how to empathize with others.

General Electric CEO Jack Welch regularly tells his employees that existing relationships with clients are more important than individual sales. Why? Because he knows that, when it comes to being successful in the long run, it’s sometimes necessary to leave the nitty-gritty behind for a moment and consider the bigger picture.

But how can you start cultivating big picture thinking? By making sure you’re always learning.

Big picture thinkers are always looking for opportunities to learn. They’re constantly on the go, visiting new places, meeting new people and honing new skills.

Experts have a handy technique that puts them in the right mindset to do that: they start their day by looking at their schedule and ask what learning opportunities are likely to present themselves.

Once they noted down the activities that are most likely to teach something, they mentally prime themselves to be on high alert. That means they are much more likely to be receptive to what’s going on around them.

One time, John Maxwell was having dinner with National Football League (NFL) coach Dave Wannstedt, for instance, he was well prepared. He used the time to ask him all sorts of questions about teamwork and left the restaurant brimming with new insights.

That’s something you can take up too: spend a couple of minutes each morning looking over your itinerary and ask yourself what opportunities to learn new things you’re likely to encounter.

Making an effort to become a big picture thinker is important because it gives you a window into how other people see the world. In other words, it makes you more empathetic.

And that’s good for your relationships: whether it’s your clients, husband or wife, children or friends, empathizing with those around you will help you understand what they want and need.

Seeing the big picture ultimately helps you think beyond your own narrow interests and take those of others into account.

Set and achieve clear targets by thinking realistically and making sure you do your homework.

What is reality? Don’t worry, this isn’t a philosophy lecture! In fact, there’s a pretty simple answer: reality is the difference between your desires and how the world actually is.

If you want to succeed in the real world, you have to leave your daydreams behind and start thinking realistically. That means setting targets and drawing up a game plan that’ll put you in a position to hit them.

Consider a businessman who isn’t a realistic thinker: He’s positive and full of hope about the company’s future. That’s a great attitude to have, but there’s a problem – he doesn’t have a strategy. And without a strategy, his company’s likely to fail.

In the end, he’s a bad leader. Realistic thinking, by contrast, promotes excellent leadership. That’s because facing up to the way things really are forces you to clearly define your aims and formulate a plan of action that’ll get you there.

Realistic thinking also helps simplify things. Stripping away all the unnecessary details and vague hopes and dreams makes you more efficient.

But what if you’re an optimist, rather than a realist, by nature? Then you should start by doing your homework. That means getting to know the facts.

Say you’re a business leader mulling over your next move: ask yourself what you’d do if your revenue dried up, a customer didn’t pay or the bottom fell out of the market you’re in.

Spend time researching these scenarios – after all, your realistic thinking won’t amount to much if you’re basing it on insufficient information.

It’s important to clear your mind of all preconceptions, prejudices and second-hand opinions when you’re doing this kind of background work. Instead of making assumptions, get to know the facts yourself.

Chances are, you’re not the only person facing this particular situation. Your thinking needs to be solid, it doesn’t have to be original. You can learn a lot by looking at what other people have done in similar circumstances.

Increase your options and make yourself more attractive by embracing creative thinking.

Whatever line of work you’re in, creativity is pure professional gold. Einstein once said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” He was right. Your ideas are far more important than your role in a company or your job title.

That said, Einstein was a genius – creative thinking was second nature to him. That might not apply to everyone, but there are techniques you can use to jumpstart your creativity.

The first point to remember is that creativity doesn’t just mean having lots of original ideas – you can start thinking creatively by simply considering a greater number of options.

That’s one hallmark of creatives: they take as many possibilities into account as they can, which in turn gets the creative juices flowing and stimulates the imagination.

So if you’ve got a great idea, ask yourself what changes you could make to improve it. Think of it like a fishing net – the wider you cast it, the more fish you’re likely to catch.

The reason that’s so important is that the best thinkers aren’t looking for the only answer – they’re looking for the best answer out of many. The added bonus? It’ll help you craft a backup plan in case your preferred solution doesn’t work out.

Creative thinking also makes you and your ideas more attractive to other people. No wonder! Creativity is your intelligence having fun. People admire intelligence and are attracted to fun – it’s an irresistible combination.

Leonardo da Vinci is one example of someone who had fun with their brilliant mind. The diversity of his ideas and interests is truly breathtaking: painter, architect, musician, engineer – he was the very definition of the Renaissance man. That doesn’t mean you have to paint the Mona Lisa and design helicopters in your spare time, however.

Set your mind free and explore your creativity in your own field and you’ll find that people will be irresistibly drawn to you!

Think unselfishly and you’ll make yourself part of something bigger.

Adopting new modes of thinking boosts your chances of success, but there’s also a way of thinking about the world that can change your entire life: unselfish thinking.

Taking that up might just redefine your concept of success itself. That’s because helping others is hugely rewarding. In fact, few things are anywhere near as fulfilling. Spend a day serving others unselfishly and you’re pretty much guaranteed a sound night’s sleep.

Take it from Alfred Nobel, who learned that the hard way. As he was reading the newspaper one day, he was shocked to find his own obituary. It was a mistake, of course, but it was an illuminating experience.

So what did it say? The paper mainly talked about how the inventor’s most famous brainchild – dynamite – had been responsible for so many deaths.

Nobel was appalled at the idea that this was how people would regard his legacy. Wracked by guilt, he decided to make a more positive contribution to the world by supporting peace.

The idea of the Nobel prize – an award given in recognition of noteworthy achievements in various fields – was born in 1895. It just goes to show that even if you’ve pursued selfish ends your whole life, you can always turn things around!

But the best thing about unselfish thinking is that it lets you become part of something much bigger than yourself. That’s something the pharmaceutical corporation Merck and Company showed in the mid-1980s.

The company decided it wanted to achieve more than rack up ever-greater profits. After successfully developing a cure for river blindness – a disease afflicting millions in the developing world – the firm decided to give the drug away for free.

After all, those who needed it the most were the least able to afford it. It became the cornerstone of the company’s credo that people are more important than profits.

The lesson here is that it’s always better to be part of something fantastic than aiming to be fantastic yourself.

Popular thinking is often wrongheaded – disregard it if you want to get the best outcomes.

It’s easy to get caught up in the crowd and thoughtlessly accept other people’s ideas about the world. That applies as much to business leaders falling in line with a company’s traditions as it does to new parents acting on the old wives’ tales their parents told them.

Thinking for yourself can be a risky business. Stray too far from the herd, and you’re unlikely to make many friends. If everybody accepts something as true, then it must be, right?

Well, no. Think of the belief that the earth was the center of the universe. Pretty much everyone thought you’d have to be mad to question that idea. Then along came the astronomer Copernicus in the sixteenth century and mathematically proved that our solar system revolves around the sun.

Conventional wisdom is often downright deadly too. Before Joseph Lister pioneered antiseptic procedures in the nineteenth century, surgeons were convinced that there wasn’t any point in washing medical instruments.

Humans often seek safety in numbers, but history shows that’s not the best way of determining what’s true.

But how do you break your habit of relying on others’ assumptions? A good place to start is cultivating the habit of thinking things through for yourself before following others.

Once you start considering what’s best rather than what’s popular, you’ll already be well on the way to success.

Take the weeks immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks: there was a widespread perception that it wasn’t safe to fly or visit New York.

Flights to the city were dirt cheap, security was at an all-time high and the price of hotels and theatre tickets had plummeted because of low demand. It was actually a fantastic time to take a city break!

Boost your thinking process by collaborating with others, whoever they are.

Say you need to pick up a new skill – how would you go about it? Spend some time figuring it out by yourself or ask someone already in the know to teach you the ins and outs? If you’re likely to go with the former, it might be time to reconsider.

Whether learning a new recipe, putting the finishing touches on that golf swing or mastering a new piece of software, you’ve got a much better chance of getting the hang of things if you learn from someone with experience.

Collaboration is the mother of innovation – shared thinking trumps solo thinking every time.

That might sound slightly counterintuitive. After all, brilliant thinkers are often depicted as brooding soloists going it alone. But that’s not the case – innovative breakthroughs rarely happen in a vacuum. More often than not, they’re the result of people working together.

Einstein often said that his achievements were founded in the labors of other men. Or think of the work of brilliant duos like scientists Pierre and Marie Curie or musical wunderkinds Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

When people combine their unique talents and ideas, the results can be incredible. But before you can start working with others, you need to adopt the right mindset.

Well, as the author of How to Become CEO Jeffrey J. Fox puts it, you have to be on constant high alert for good ideas, regardless of how likely or unlikely the source is.

That means dropping prejudices and really listening to people. The next great idea might come from your taxi driver or your children. The point is that you’ll never know unless you’re receptive.

Just as important is striving to adopt a mentality based on collaboration rather than competition. Cooperation happens when your aim is to complete the ideas of others, rather than one-up them.

So next time you’re in a meeting with colleagues, don’t focus on selfishly getting ahead – work toward achieving the team’s goals.

Success is all about attitude. You’ve probably heard about the benefits of positive thinking, but there’s more to it than that. Leading a happy, fulfilled life is about learning to think collaboratively and unselfishly. It’s about asking what you can do for and with others rather than simply trying to get ahead yourself. That means opening your mind to creativity and avoiding following the crowd. Once you start doing that, you’ll be mentally prepared for success.

[unixcommerce]

Creativity Quotes to Inspire You

Everyone has the power to increase their creativity skills. Whether you are a high tech entrepreneur or a barista, you can boost your creativity more than you might think. Like sharpening a saw, you can hone creativity into a razor-like edge.

Whatever your goal is — to uncover startup opportunities, create innovative products or boost sales — the more you work at being creative, the more creative you get.

But where do you start? You start by taking action. Break up your routine. Brainstorm with your team. Change a process without overthinking it. Don’t try to be perfect – just act! Use one of these creativity quotes to inspire you:

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. ~ Albert Einstein, Genius

Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. ~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder Apple

If you know too much before the start, then you will get overwhelmed. Come up with an original idea, and don’t copy because there will be no passion. You need that otherworldly passion. Just start. ~ Jeni Britton Bauer, Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams

If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop. ~ Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn

There is something artificial when everyone is agreeing with each other. It’s useful to indulge people who don’t agree, and see their viewpoint or force yourself to explain things better. ~ David Sack, Founder of Yammer

Being a woman in business doesn’t come without challenges. My advice? Surround yourself with other supportive women that encourage you, share ideas, and get you motivated. ~ Jessica Alba, Founder of The Honest Company

It’s very important for entrepreneurs to look for people in the company who are not afraid of failures, for example, ‘intrapreneurs’. They make a business more successful by thinking like an entrepreneur, but within a company. ~ Chirag Kulkarni, Founder of Taco

Creativity gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product, and differentiating your business from the competition. ~ Linda Naiman, Founder of Creativity at Work

Each of you, curious about creativity, want to make contact with that thing in yourself that is truly original. You want fame and fortune, yes, but only as rewards for work well and truly done. Notoriety and a fat bank balance must come after everything else is finished and done. That means that they cannot even be considered while you are at the typewriter. ~ Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction Author

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants. ~ Roger von Oech, Creative Toy-Maker and Author

Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it. ~ Salvador Dali

Creativity Quotes About Fun and Passion

Successful entrepreneurs see the connection between fun and creativity. Creativity explodes when you encourage others to be happily passionate about their jobs. Something about positive emotions gets our creative juices flowing in business and in life.

Play music. Draw on a whiteboard like an artist. Bring your child to the office. Say something funny in a meeting. In the words of singer Marija, dance like nobody’s watching! Pick a creativity quote to free yourself to have fun:

Creativity is intelligence having fun! ~ Albert Einstein, Genius

A business has to be evolving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative interests. ~ Richard Branson, Entrepreneur and Business Magnate

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. ~ John Cleese, Co-Founder of Monty Python

Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business. ~ Leo Burnett, The Leo Burnett Company

Play widens the halls. Work will always be with us, and many works are worthy. But the worthiest works of all often reflect an artful creativity that looks more like play than work. ~ James Ogilvy, British Landscape Designer

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. ~ John Updike , Novelist

Business isn’t some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine, a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But ‘enterprise�� (a lovely word) is about heart. About beauty. It’s about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It’s about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal. ~ Tom Peters, Business Management Author

Passion, creativity, and resilience are the most crucial skills in business. If you’ve got those, you’re ready to embark on the journey. ~ Jo Malone, Founder of Jo Malone Perfume and Scented Candles

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. ~ Charles Mingus, Jazz Composer and Musician

Great is the human who has not lost his child-like heart. ~ Mencius, Chinese Philosopher

Be a Rule Breaker for Creativity

Years ago, Apple created a famous advertisement called “Think Different” reinforcing the concept of creativity by being unique. The narrator started out “Here’s to the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers.” The ad is an ode to creative people who work and live differently. So get started breaking rules with one of these creativity quotes for inspiration:

Learn the rules like a pro, break them like an artist. ~ Pablo Picasso, World Famous Artist

Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. ~ Steve Jobs

Creativity takes courage. ~ Henri Matisse, Artist

Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. ~ Frank Tyger, Editorial Cartoonist and Humorist

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde, Author

All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new. ~ Charles Kettering, Inventor and Co-Founder of Delco

The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction. ~ Lawrence Miller, Management and Leadership Writer

It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy. ~ Steve Jobs

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye. ~ Dorothy Parker, Author

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ~ Wayne Walter Dyer, Self-Help Author and Motivational Speaker

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. ~ Steve Jobs

The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense. ~ Pablo Picasso

That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time. ~ John Stuart Mill, British Philosopher

Creativity Quotes for Problem Solving

Every business encounters problems along the road to success. Which businesses continue on down the road or get waylaid is determined by whether the people in them are good problem solvers. The following creativity quotes suggest that instead of striving for creativity, we should try to solve problems:

If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life. ~ Brian Chesky, Co-Founder of Airbnb

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. ~ Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist

Do not focus on numbers. Focus on doing what you do best. It’s about building a community who want to visit your site every day because you create value and offer expertise. ~ Cassey Ho, Founder of Blogilates

If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems. ~ Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. ~ George Lois, Art Director and Designer

Innovation – any new idea – by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience. ~ Warren Bennis, Scholar and Organizational Consultant

The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams. ~ W. Arthur Porter, Teacher and Businessman

Companies that recognize the need to be creative about their businesses are going to pursue this creative thinking with us or without us. It’s our collective responsibility, our collective future to make sure they choose to do it with us. ~ Bob Schmetterer, Business Executive and Former Chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide

Creativity and innovation are about finding unexpected solutions to obvious problems, or finding obvious solutions to unexpected problems. We should use our creativity to provide better businesses and solutions rather than constantly trying to disrupt what people are doing. ~ Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer of AKQA

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. ~ Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers Animator

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes, British Economist

Prematurely settle on an idea because of work overload or deadline pressure, and it is likely to resemble what already exists. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business at Harvard Business School

Creativity is an Attitude

How many times has someone said, “I’m not very creative”? You may have played that line in your own head countless times. In fact, something like that may be true only because you told yourself it is true. In the words of renowned poet Sylvia Plath, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Replace doubts with a positive attitude that being creative is good and you have untapped creativity. When you need to give your creativity a little inspiration, read or share these motivational and creative quotes:

Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized. ~ Ken Robinson, Educator

The thing we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity. ~ Meg Wheatley, Management Consultant and Writer

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions. ~ Anthony Jay, English Writer, Broadcaster and Director

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. ~ Albert Einstein

The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses. ~ Edith Södergran, Finnish Poet

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard, Salesman, Publisher and Founder of Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community

One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language. ~ Pierre Omidyar, Billionaire Entrepreneur and Founder of eBay

Ideas and creativity still matter a lot, but they need to be connected to technology, consumer insights, and analytics. ~ Christopher Vollmer, Managing Director of Medialink

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. ~ James Russell Lowell, Poet and Diplomat

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. ~ Jim Jarmusch, Film Director

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. ~ Edward de Bono, Maltese Business Consultant, Physician and Inventor

The Best Way to Have a Good Idea is…

Last but not least, brilliant minds and entrepreneurs often agree. People get more creative by exercising their creativity, as these creativity quotes highlight:

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. ~ Dr. Linus Pauling, Chemist and Educator

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou, Poet

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?” ~George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

Want more good quotes and sayings? Read: 

Hard Work Quotes

Success Quotes

Sales Quotes

All Motivational Quotes for Business

This article, “Creativity Quotes to Inspire You” was first published on Small Business Trends

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Creativity Quotes to Inspire You

Everyone has the power to increase their creativity skills. Whether you are a high tech entrepreneur or a barista, you can boost your creativity more than you might think. Like sharpening a saw, you can hone creativity into a razor-like edge.

Whatever your goal is — to uncover startup opportunities, create innovative products or boost sales — the more you work at being creative, the more creative you get.

But where do you start? You start by taking action. Break up your routine. Brainstorm with your team. Change a process without overthinking it. Don’t try to be perfect – just act! Use one of these creativity quotes to inspire you:

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. ~ Albert Einstein, Genius

Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. ~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder Apple

If you know too much before the start, then you will get overwhelmed. Come up with an original idea, and don’t copy because there will be no passion. You need that otherworldly passion. Just start. ~ Jeni Britton Bauer, Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams

If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop. ~ Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn

There is something artificial when everyone is agreeing with each other. It’s useful to indulge people who don’t agree, and see their viewpoint or force yourself to explain things better. ~ David Sack, Founder of Yammer

Being a woman in business doesn’t come without challenges. My advice? Surround yourself with other supportive women that encourage you, share ideas, and get you motivated. ~ Jessica Alba, Founder of The Honest Company

It’s very important for entrepreneurs to look for people in the company who are not afraid of failures, for example, ‘intrapreneurs’. They make a business more successful by thinking like an entrepreneur, but within a company. ~ Chirag Kulkarni, Founder of Taco

Creativity gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product, and differentiating your business from the competition. ~ Linda Naiman, Founder of Creativity at Work

Each of you, curious about creativity, want to make contact with that thing in yourself that is truly original. You want fame and fortune, yes, but only as rewards for work well and truly done. Notoriety and a fat bank balance must come after everything else is finished and done. That means that they cannot even be considered while you are at the typewriter. ~ Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction Author

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants. ~ Roger von Oech, Creative Toy-Maker and Author

Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it. ~ Salvador Dali

Creativity Quotes About Fun and Passion

Successful entrepreneurs see the connection between fun and creativity. Creativity explodes when you encourage others to be happily passionate about their jobs. Something about positive emotions gets our creative juices flowing in business and in life.

Play music. Draw on a whiteboard like an artist. Bring your child to the office. Say something funny in a meeting. In the words of singer Marija, dance like nobody’s watching! Pick a creativity quote to free yourself to have fun:

Creativity is intelligence having fun! ~ Albert Einstein, Genius

A business has to be evolving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative interests. ~ Richard Branson, Entrepreneur and Business Magnate

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. ~ John Cleese, Co-Founder of Monty Python

Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business. ~ Leo Burnett, The Leo Burnett Company

Play widens the halls. Work will always be with us, and many works are worthy. But the worthiest works of all often reflect an artful creativity that looks more like play than work. ~ James Ogilvy, British Landscape Designer

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. ~ John Updike , Novelist

Business isn’t some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine, a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But ‘enterprise’ (a lovely word) is about heart. About beauty. It’s about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It’s about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal. ~ Tom Peters, Business Management Author

Passion, creativity, and resilience are the most crucial skills in business. If you’ve got those, you’re ready to embark on the journey. ~ Jo Malone, Founder of Jo Malone Perfume and Scented Candles

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. ~ Charles Mingus, Jazz Composer and Musician

Great is the human who has not lost his child-like heart. ~ Mencius, Chinese Philosopher

Be a Rule Breaker for Creativity

Years ago, Apple created a famous advertisement called “Think Different” reinforcing the concept of creativity by being unique. The narrator started out “Here’s to the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers.” The ad is an ode to creative people who work and live differently. So get started breaking rules with one of these creativity quotes for inspiration:

Learn the rules like a pro, break them like an artist. ~ Pablo Picasso, World Famous Artist

Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. ~ Steve Jobs

Creativity takes courage. ~ Henri Matisse, Artist

Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. ~ Frank Tyger, Editorial Cartoonist and Humorist

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde, Author

All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new. ~ Charles Kettering, Inventor and Co-Founder of Delco

The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction. ~ Lawrence Miller, Management and Leadership Writer

It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy. ~ Steve Jobs

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye. ~ Dorothy Parker, Author

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ~ Wayne Walter Dyer, Self-Help Author and Motivational Speaker

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. ~ Steve Jobs

The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense. ~ Pablo Picasso

That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time. ~ John Stuart Mill, British Philosopher

Creativity Quotes for Problem Solving

Every business encounters problems along the road to success. Which businesses continue on down the road or get waylaid is determined by whether the people in them are good problem solvers. The following creativity quotes suggest that instead of striving for creativity, we should try to solve problems:

If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life. ~ Brian Chesky, Co-Founder of Airbnb

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. ~ Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist

Do not focus on numbers. Focus on doing what you do best. It’s about building a community who want to visit your site every day because you create value and offer expertise. ~ Cassey Ho, Founder of Blogilates

If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems. ~ Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. ~ George Lois, Art Director and Designer

Innovation – any new idea – by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience. ~ Warren Bennis, Scholar and Organizational Consultant

The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams. ~ W. Arthur Porter, Teacher and Businessman

Companies that recognize the need to be creative about their businesses are going to pursue this creative thinking with us or without us. It’s our collective responsibility, our collective future to make sure they choose to do it with us. ~ Bob Schmetterer, Business Executive and Former Chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide

Creativity and innovation are about finding unexpected solutions to obvious problems, or finding obvious solutions to unexpected problems. We should use our creativity to provide better businesses and solutions rather than constantly trying to disrupt what people are doing. ~ Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer of AKQA

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. ~ Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers Animator

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes, British Economist

Prematurely settle on an idea because of work overload or deadline pressure, and it is likely to resemble what already exists. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business at Harvard Business School

Creativity is an Attitude

How many times has someone said, “I’m not very creative”? You may have played that line in your own head countless times. In fact, something like that may be true only because you told yourself it is true. In the words of renowned poet Sylvia Plath, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Replace doubts with a positive attitude that being creative is good and you have untapped creativity. When you need to give your creativity a little inspiration, read or share these motivational and creative quotes:

Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized. ~ Ken Robinson, Educator

The thing we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity. ~ Meg Wheatley, Management Consultant and Writer

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions. ~ Anthony Jay, English Writer, Broadcaster and Director

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. ~ Albert Einstein

The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses. ~ Edith Södergran, Finnish Poet

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard, Salesman, Publisher and Founder of Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community

One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language. ~ Pierre Omidyar, Billionaire Entrepreneur and Founder of eBay

Ideas and creativity still matter a lot, but they need to be connected to technology, consumer insights, and analytics. ~ Christopher Vollmer, Managing Director of Medialink

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. ~ James Russell Lowell, Poet and Diplomat

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. ~ Jim Jarmusch, Film Director

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. ~ Edward de Bono, Maltese Business Consultant, Physician and Inventor

The Best Way to Have a Good Idea is…

Last but not least, brilliant minds and entrepreneurs often agree. People get more creative by exercising their creativity, as these creativity quotes highlight:

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. ~ Dr. Linus Pauling, Chemist and Educator

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou, Poet

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?” ~George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

Want more good quotes and sayings? Read: 

Hard Work Quotes

Success Quotes

Sales Quotes

All Motivational Quotes for Business

This article, “Creativity Quotes to Inspire You” was first published on Small Business Trends

source https://smallbiztrends.com/2020/04/creativity-quotes.html

from WordPress https://businessreviewguidenow.wordpress.com/2020/04/20/creativity-quotes-to-inspire-you/ via IFTTT

[shenzhenblog]

10 questions to find real meaning at work

First, let’s start with one over-arching question: what is a successful career?

It’s time to move away from the idea of success defined by an organization or your supervisor, to significance defined by us. Relentlessly grasping after the next rung of the ladder doesn’t work, for the following three reasons.

First: If we only value those who have reached the top of the hierarchy, then by definition we’re writing off the other 99.99%. We create a cruel assembly line that produces myriad people who are frustrated and unhappy, who believe – often wrongly – that only those who arrived at the top truly triumphed.

Second: By seeing our careers as a race, we enter a state of constant struggle, pitting “us” against everyone else. Think, for example, about incentive systems: I have seen many and – mea culpa – designed some that are focused on individual performance results, but never based on sharing, cooperation or a sense of purpose.

I believe that stress is not linked solely to the amount of work we have, but rather on the poor quality of the relationships we develop with our colleagues. An organizational climate of “dog eats dog” downgrades our relationships, so they become only transactional and utilitarian, losing any trace of connection between people. This obsession with appearance over substance strips us of our humanity.

Third: we all end up taking part in a rat race. We became so self-absorbed and busy trying to win this race that we forget that even by winning it, we will still remain rats. And not just rats, but vulnerable rats: the chronic economic crisis, corporate restructuring and a whole slew of other circumstances beyond our control can all oust us from our jobs. If corporate success is the only way you define your identity, then that identity can be easily destroyed, with all the emotional and social consequences that result.

Albert Einstein is credited with writing, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. For if I knew the proper question, I could solve that problem in less than 5 minutes.”

Instead of endlessly rushing through our working lives, we need to stop and consider the questions that will help us truly get the best out of our careers. In my book, “La Bussola del Successo” (the Compass of Success), I have identified 10 powerful questions that, in my view, provide a means to guide yourself to a more meaningful career and will help you to totally redefine what real success means.

1. What is your purpose?

The author Mark Twain once wrote: “the two most important days of your life are the day in which you are born and the day in which you find out why.” You therefore need to ask yourself the following questions. What is your real purpose? Why are you here, doing what you’re doing right now?

A very common mistake is to confuse purpose with objectives or goals. Purpose is, for example, to become great at what you do, while a goal is to be promoted or to accomplish a task. Accomplishing many tasks cannot sum up to a meaningful purpose. Other people and external circumstances can all bulldoze their way through your goals and objectives; but they cannot destroy your purpose. We are all purpose seekers: what is yours? Here’s a hint: a meaningful purpose is one that is bigger than you are, and it is related to a cause and a mission that you deeply believe in. Think about it: do you want to be a missionary or a mercenary? Focus on sustainable impact, not short-terms results.

2. What are your strengths?

After 20 years as Head of Human Resources in several organizations and countries, I have learned that everyone has a talent, a true treasure inside waiting to be discovered. But discovering your talent it is not enough: you need to relentlessly use it and improve it. Talent is overrated; it plays only a minor part in our success.

Flavia Pennetta of Italy celebrates her victory

Image: USA Today Sports

Success means a constant effort to improve and a refusal to tolerate mediocrity. Your real strength is therefore your talent multiplied by the effort you have invested in developing it. As the saying goes, success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Think about the athletes at the Olympics: the few seconds or minutes of their performance are only the final reflection of years, if not decades, of efforts, sacrifice and small improvements.

When Flavia Pennetta won the US Tennis open at age 33, a journalist told her: “The last shot was a stroke of genius”. “Genius? I have worked 20 years on thatshot,” she replied. Michael Phelps has entered legend by winning 23 gold medals, a feat of astonishing perseverance that cannot be accomplished by raw talent alone.

3. Can you manage your ego, and build bridges not walls?

Ryan Holiday, the American author and entrepreneur, goes as far as to argue that “ego is the enemy”. So the question is: can you manage, and possibly even kill, your own ego? Can you suppress your pride, your propensity to take credit and your craving for the spotlight? Can you really listen to other views, not because it’s the done thing, but because you actually care? If you keep answering no, you’re afflicted by what the Ancient Greeks called “hubris”: the dangerous overconfidence of being right while everyone else is wrong.

So many political and economic downfalls were built on the faulty bedrock of hubris. If we return to the Greeks, then hubris always led to the unfortunate appearance of Nemesis, or divine retribution. Before disaster strikes in your career, you need to build bridges and destroy walls to constantly connect with other people, as you will never be alone on your journey.

4. What is the opposite of success?

If you answered “failure”, think again. Who is the basketball player who missed thousands of shots in his career? Michael Jordan, reputed as the greatest player of all times. Nelson Mandela once said: “I never lose. I either win or learn.” Re-read this beautiful phrase. I never lose. I either win or learn. Failure is not the opposite of success but rather a key component of it, providing that we learn from our mistakes. Failure is therefore defined in my book not as the absence of learning and reflection. As a Japanese proverb puts it: “Life is falling seven times, and standing up eight.”

5. How can you understand the complexity and the culture of your organization?

You don’t need to be an expert in organizational behavior, but you do need to fully understand the culture of the company we work for. You need to understand its important norms and rules, most of which are not written or explicit. If you do not understand them, you will be eaten by the locals. My book provides simple and practical tools to “decode” organizations. One example: look at the people at the top of your organization. How did they get there? Merit, competence, integrity, results? Or some other factor? You should look at the narrative which unfolds when you observe who gets to the top.

6. How can you build trust?

Building trust is a central theme among people, organizations and societies and it is something you construct with time and hard work. Your reputation is going to be a pillar of your career. So how do you build your reputation? Character, credibility, being there when you are needed, competence, reliability, results, integrity: all of these count. Arrogance and conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived, are both corrosive to trust. Remember: candidates may be recruited for their qualifications, but people are promoted mainly based on trust.

7. How do you handle difficult choices?

In your career, you will have difficult choices to make, what I call “courage of your convictions moments”, when technical skills will not be enough to help you find the right path or the best solution to a thorny problem. It will be therefore be a question of character. History shows us where blind obedience to authority, at its most extreme, can lead, while psychology shows us how hard it can be to say no. The Milgram experiments notoriously revealed that volunteers were prepared to give people electric shocks on command. Refusing to follow orders is a potent asset in your career. You should never lose sight of your convictions. Throughout your career, you will deal with many difficult circumstances: they may not change you, but they will reveal who you are.

8. How many lenses do you use?

I once went to a presentation given by a famous photographer. He showed us some pictures from a Caribbean Island: they were truly nice images but a little bit boring, kind of postcard-style and predictable. Then he showed us some other pictures: they were taken in the same place, but looked totally different: the light, the perspective, the colours, everything. He told us that, in the first set of pictures, he used the same lenses, while he used many different lenses and angles for the second set. This is what diversity means to me. You need different lenses to see reality from different viewpoints, and to avoid the tempting idea that only you have the right perspective, that only your ideology is correct.

Taking the idea of lenses and applying it to the workplace helps you to understand complexity, connect the dots and appreciate different perspectives. This has never been more important, at a time when we need to build bridges of tolerance and inclusion to counter those who seek to build walls between countries, ideas and people. Diversity is an immense wealth. While organisations like the World Bank are finding ways to measure diversity and foster it, countries like Canada see diversity as a crucial part of their culture and a pillar of their prosperity.

9. Are you a learning machine?

Learning never stops. In 1938, Ingeborg Rapoport had just finished writing her thesis in medicine and was about to become a doctor when, because of the odious racial laws passed by the Nazi regime, she was denied the qualification because of her Jewish heritage. She emigrated to the United States, where she continued her studies in medicine, working in many hospitals as a pediatrician and neonatologist before returning to East Germany in her fifties, where she founded the first clinic of neonatology in East Berlin. In 2015, the University of Hamburg decided to remedy the injustice and, after 77 years, she defended her dissertation of 1938, and obtained her degree at the age of 102 years. For her commitment to learning and fighting this injustice she is one of my heroes.

Become a learning machine, enjoy successful failures and don’t stop learning, even when you are 102. Let’s invent the future by investing in our learning. It will be – most of the time – a joyful journey to freedom, as whatever happens in the office, nobody can take away what you have learned.

10. Do you love what you are doing?

A little while ago I was in Antigua, Guatemala, one of my favorite places on the planet. I fell in love with the watercolors of a street artist called Gerardo, who was working around the clock to produce wonderful landscapes. I wanted to buy one of his works of art but he had none left, except the one he was working on, which was unfinished. As I was leaving the country, I could not wait, so I insisted on buying the watercolor and asked him for a discount, since it was not finished yet. Gerardo asked me for twice the price he normally charged. I was surprised and somewhat upset; and asked him why he was charging me double for something incomplete. Gerardo replied: “Because you’re taking away from me the joy of doing something I really love.” I paid him what he asked for, knowing that I got a priceless lesson in life. If someone has to pay you to stop doing something, you really love what you are doing.

I hope that my book will transform your understanding of a successful career, dismantling the idea that there can only be a few winners, and most will lose. A successful career is something profound, meaningful and relevant – for all of us, not just a select few. In the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in an age of radical transformation and technological upheaval, we need to anchor our working lives and our identity to our values. The Compass of Success helps us to pause and reflect about who we are, what we stand for and how we can have a successful career that is filled with purpose, integrity and passion.

Note : This article was originally published on https://www.weforum.org

  Paolo Gallo

Over the last 30 years, Paolo Gallo has been Chief Human Resources Officer at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; Chief Learning Officer at The World Bank in Washington DC; and Director of Human Resources at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development in London.

10 questions to find real meaning at work was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[makeitwithmike]

Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers

By Rob Mathison

Move over mobile apps, messenger bots are here to stay. The latest mobile tech trend is software that pretends to be a person you can message through your preferred instant messaging platform.

And businesses and brands are turning to Facebook Messenger bots in particular—attracted by Facebook’s enormous user base—to engage with and service their customers who use the platform.

In fact, more than 100,000 bots chat to and help out people through Facebook Messenger every day.

Let’s take a look at what bots are, what you can use them for, and how you can create a successful bot. We’ll also check out some of the most popular and notable Facebook Messenger bots.

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

What are Facebook messenger bots?

A messenger bot is a piece of software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks and converse with you. The more you chat with a bot, the more it will learn and the more useful it responses should get.

A bot is like an app, but the interface is a conversation rather than a menu. At least, that was the original intention when bots came onto the scene in 2016. Many bots today also use menus with preset phrases, such as “Tell me what’s new.”

Businesses in the travel, finance, media and entertainment, health, and retail sectors in particular have all found success with these pocket-sized personal assistants.

For example, you can open up Facebook Messenger at breakfast and ask your weather bot what Mother Nature has in store for you that day. Then you can ask your favorite newspaper bot for the latest sports or business headlines. Planning a trip? Message a travel bot for flights and hotel recommendations, to rent a car, and more.

Bots use AI technology to understand your question, find the right response, and deliver it in as conversational and “human” a way as possible.

Benefits of Facebook messenger bots for business

Bots represent the first large-scale appearance of AI technology in real life. Until then, AI was very much the realm of science fiction like 2001 a Space Odyssey, Bladerunner, and Westworld. There’s no doubt this gives bots that novelty factor that draws in many early adopters and generates publicity, which further increases adoption.

However, bots aren’t gimmicks—people genuinely find them useful. If you’re one of the 1.2 billion people who use Facebook messenger every month, it’s probably because it’s convenient and easy-to-use. And your Facebook friends use it.

Bots offer the same convenience and ease-of-use. Plus they let you perform tasks within Messenger that would otherwise require you to open an app, go online, or make a phone call. You can perform simple tasks like ordering a pizza or do something trickier like dispute a parking ticket.

Bots also deliver automated customer service in a more personal-feeling way. Type a simple “Hi” in the chat window, and most Facebook Messenger bots will respond immediately, answering questions conversationally and in real-time. It feels more like talking to a friend than a customer service agent.

From a business point of view, bots offer many benefits.

Not least is Facebook Messenger’s huge user-base. It makes sense to use a platform everyone is already using to enhance your customers’ user experience.

Customer service is a popular use of Facebook Messenger bots. It’s a way to help customers in a more personal way that incorporates your brand values and voice. It also helps you be seen as more available in the eyes of your customers.

For example, if you’re an insurance company you can enable customers to pull up policy information or even start a claim. Or a retailer can let people pull up their most recent orders, track a delivery, or find the return policy.

Businesses also use bots to help customers research their products, or to deliver content. For example, the Whole Foods bot focuses on helping people find recipes. Others provide specialized services and enable transactions.

Brands also use bots for awareness campaigns. For example, to promote their “Genius” series National Geographic used Facebook Messenger to allow people to chat to an Albert Einstein bot.

10 Facebook Messenger bot examples

Wondering how Facebook Messenger bots could fit into your Facebook marketing or customer service strategy? Here’s a roundup of brands that are good with bots.

1. SnapTravel

Finding a hotel can be a chore, especially at short notice. SnapTravel asks for your destination, dates, and budget, and messages you some deals you can book on their website.

2. 1-800-Flowers

The company that made it easy to order flowers by phone now lets you do it through Facebook Messenger. You can select the occasion, choose your flowers, add a delivery address, and place the order. The bot also lets you connect with a live customer service agent.

3. TfL TravelBot

If you’ve ever tried to get around London, you’ll appreciate this bot from the city’s transport organization. You can find out when the next bus arrives, check on London Tube disruptions, and generally try to navigate one of the world’s largest cities.

4. Trulia 

Real estate and bots are a good fit. Homebuyers often have a list of things they are looking for, and this bot lets you narrow down your options. The bot will also message you with new daily listings.

5. TransferWise

Send cash to friends or family around the world, the TransferWise bot is an instant messaging version of the app that does the same thing. Accountholders can quickly send money overseas by answering a very short series of questions in Messenger.

6. AndChill

Indecisive movie-watchers rejoice (that’s all of us, right?)! The AndChill bot is a film buff in your Messenger contacts list. Tell the bot the type of movie you’d like to watch and it will send you a suggestion and link to the trailer.

7. TechCrunch

This tech-savvy chatbot talks with you about the latest in the tech sector. To tailor your conversations, subscribe to specific topics or authors and the bot will send you news from TechCrunch about what interests you the most.

8. HealthTap

Forget long waits at the clinic. With HealthTap, medical advice is right at your fingertips. The bot offers a wide range of health and wellness advice, drawing on knowledge from a network of over 100,000 doctors.

9. Sephora

The makeup company’s bot uses a quick quiz to deliver content and products tailored to individual tastes. These include how-to guides, lipstick colors, and contouring methods.

10. Skyscanner

Another travel bot, Skyscanner helps you find the right flight at the right price, and connects you to where you can make a booking. You can set a home airport to make trip-planning quicker, and can even just type “anywhere” as the destination to get some ideas.

To check out these and other bots, just open Messenger and search for a brand name. The bot will take it from there. Remember the bots use AI, so the more you chat, the more they learn and the more useful their responses should get.

5 tips for using Facebook Messenger bots

Like any new-to-you marketing tactic, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the dos and don’ts before jumping in. Here are a few important things to consider:

Have a strategy: Don’t just create a bot because other businesses have. Think about what your customers need and how they could benefit from one. Then design the bot around those specific needs.

Consider the customer journey: Think about where your bot could fit in on your typical customer buying journey. Do you need a different bot for different buying stages? A bot doesn’t have to be a sale stool—it can help with customer service and research as well.

Test what works: Be like a bot and learn from how your customers use it to provide a better experience. You should aim to constantly refine and improve the bot experience for your customers. For example you can test a conversation-focused interface against a more menu-driven interface.

Perfect the bot voice: Bots are meant to be conversational, but the voice and tone still needs to fit with your overall brand voice. And think about “manner” as well as voice and tone. That just means using a slightly different tone of voice for different situations. For example, a reassuring tone for someone looking for the return policy. Or a helpful and encouraging tone for someone researching products.

Write great scripts: Think about all of the possible questions a customer might ask and how they might ask them. Then create a variety of answers and interactions and test how they work. Use a tool like IBM’s Watson Tone Analyzer to check your tone of voice.

Tools for building Facebook Messenger bots

So, you’re intrigued enough to start thinking about creating a Facebook Messenger bot for your business? Here are some tools for building and managing a bots, including ones that don’t need any coding ability. Most of these tools have a free trial option.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel lets you build a Facebook bot without needing to know how to code. You can easily add and edit content through a WYSIWYG interface. Chatfuel’s impressive client list includes Adidas, British Airways, MTV, and BuzzFeed.

OnSequel

OnSequel is another tool that lets you easily create a bot with no coding required. Create any type of bot, including a storybot, personalbot, gamebot, and more.

Botsify

Botsify is another “no coding required” option. It’s also the only one from this list that appears to practice what they preach by welcoming you to the site with a customer service bot of their own.

Conversable

Conversable is for when you are getting really serious about bots. With a client list that includes Whole Foods, Pizza Hut, and Marvel, it offers a full-featured enterprise solution, including analytics, training, and conversation flow modelling.

Facebook Messenger Platform

The Facebook Messenger platform itself also lets you develop your own bot. It’s a little more complicated than the above options, but is well worth checking out. It offers a huge range of resources and documentation for developers.

Some ecommerce platforms even let businesses integrate Facebook Messenger bot functionality. Shopify, for example, lets users connect with customers through Facebook Messenger.

As bot technology matures, new services will appear and others will drop away. You can keep up to date with bot developments through online resources like Chatbots Magazine.

This should be more than enough to get you started with creating your first bot. Happy chatting!

The post Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

The post Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers appeared first on Make It With Michael.

from Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers

[bizmediaweb]

Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers

Move over mobile apps, messenger bots are here to stay. The latest mobile tech trend is software that pretends to be a person you can message through your preferred instant messaging platform.

And businesses and brands are turning to Facebook Messenger bots in particular—attracted by Facebook’s enormous user base—to engage with and service their customers who use the platform.

In fact, more than 100,000 bots chat to and help out people through Facebook Messenger every day.

Let’s take a look at what bots are, what you can use them for, and how you can create a successful bot. We’ll also check out some of the most popular and notable Facebook Messenger bots.

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

What are Facebook messenger bots?

A messenger bot is a piece of software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks and converse with you. The more you chat with a bot, the more it will learn and the more useful it responses should get.

A bot is like an app, but the interface is a conversation rather than a menu. At least, that was the original intention when bots came onto the scene in 2016. Many bots today also use menus with preset phrases, such as “Tell me what’s new.”

Businesses in the travel, finance, media and entertainment, health, and retail sectors in particular have all found success with these pocket-sized personal assistants.

For example, you can open up Facebook Messenger at breakfast and ask your weather bot what Mother Nature has in store for you that day. Then you can ask your favorite newspaper bot for the latest sports or business headlines. Planning a trip? Message a travel bot for flights and hotel recommendations, to rent a car, and more.

Bots use AI technology to understand your question, find the right response, and deliver it in as conversational and “human” a way as possible.

Benefits of Facebook messenger bots for business

Bots represent the first large-scale appearance of AI technology in real life. Until then, AI was very much the realm of science fiction like 2001 a Space Odyssey, Bladerunner, and Westworld. There’s no doubt this gives bots that novelty factor that draws in many early adopters and generates publicity, which further increases adoption.

However, bots aren’t gimmicks—people genuinely find them useful. If you’re one of the 1.2 billion people who use Facebook messenger every month, it’s probably because it’s convenient and easy-to-use. And your Facebook friends use it.

Bots offer the same convenience and ease-of-use. Plus they let you perform tasks within Messenger that would otherwise require you to open an app, go online, or make a phone call. You can perform simple tasks like ordering a pizza or do something trickier like dispute a parking ticket.

Bots also deliver automated customer service in a more personal-feeling way. Type a simple “Hi” in the chat window, and most Facebook Messenger bots will respond immediately, answering questions conversationally and in real-time. It feels more like talking to a friend than a customer service agent.

From a business point of view, bots offer many benefits.

Not least is Facebook Messenger’s huge user-base. It makes sense to use a platform everyone is already using to enhance your customers’ user experience.

Customer service is a popular use of Facebook Messenger bots. It’s a way to help customers in a more personal way that incorporates your brand values and voice. It also helps you be seen as more available in the eyes of your customers.

For example, if you’re an insurance company you can enable customers to pull up policy information or even start a claim. Or a retailer can let people pull up their most recent orders, track a delivery, or find the return policy.

Businesses also use bots to help customers research their products, or to deliver content. For example, the Whole Foods bot focuses on helping people find recipes. Others provide specialized services and enable transactions.

Brands also use bots for awareness campaigns. For example, to promote their “Genius” series National Geographic used Facebook Messenger to allow people to chat to an Albert Einstein bot.

10 Facebook Messenger bot examples

Wondering how Facebook Messenger bots could fit into your Facebook marketing or customer service strategy? Here’s a roundup of brands that are good with bots.

1. SnapTravel

Finding a hotel can be a chore, especially at short notice. SnapTravel asks for your destination, dates, and budget, and messages you some deals you can book on their website.

2. 1-800-Flowers

The company that made it easy to order flowers by phone now lets you do it through Facebook Messenger. You can select the occasion, choose your flowers, add a delivery address, and place the order. The bot also lets you connect with a live customer service agent.

3. TfL TravelBot

If you’ve ever tried to get around London, you’ll appreciate this bot from the city’s transport organization. You can find out when the next bus arrives, check on London Tube disruptions, and generally try to navigate one of the world’s largest cities.

4. Trulia 

Real estate and bots are a good fit. Homebuyers often have a list of things they are looking for, and this bot lets you narrow down your options. The bot will also message you with new daily listings.

5. TransferWise

Send cash to friends or family around the world, the TransferWise bot is an instant messaging version of the app that does the same thing. Accountholders can quickly send money overseas by answering a very short series of questions in Messenger.

6. AndChill

Indecisive movie-watchers rejoice (that’s all of us, right?)! The AndChill bot is a film buff in your Messenger contacts list. Tell the bot the type of movie you’d like to watch and it will send you a suggestion and link to the trailer.

7. TechCrunch

This tech-savvy chatbot talks with you about the latest in the tech sector. To tailor your conversations, subscribe to specific topics or authors and the bot will send you news from TechCrunch about what interests you the most.

8. HealthTap

Forget long waits at the clinic. With HealthTap, medical advice is right at your fingertips. The bot offers a wide range of health and wellness advice, drawing on knowledge from a network of over 100,000 doctors.

9. Sephora

The makeup company’s bot uses a quick quiz to deliver content and products tailored to individual tastes. These include how-to guides, lipstick colors, and contouring methods.

10. Skyscanner

Another travel bot, Skyscanner helps you find the right flight at the right price, and connects you to where you can make a booking. You can set a home airport to make trip-planning quicker, and can even just type “anywhere” as the destination to get some ideas.

To check out these and other bots, just open Messenger and search for a brand name. The bot will take it from there. Remember the bots use AI, so the more you chat, the more they learn and the more useful their responses should get.

5 tips for using Facebook Messenger bots

Like any new-to-you marketing tactic, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the dos and don’ts before jumping in. Here are a few important things to consider:

Have a strategy: Don’t just create a bot because other businesses have. Think about what your customers need and how they could benefit from one. Then design the bot around those specific needs.

Consider the customer journey: Think about where your bot could fit in on your typical customer buying journey. Do you need a different bot for different buying stages? A bot doesn’t have to be a sale stool—it can help with customer service and research as well.

Test what works: Be like a bot and learn from how your customers use it to provide a better experience. You should aim to constantly refine and improve the bot experience for your customers. For example you can test a conversation-focused interface against a more menu-driven interface.

Perfect the bot voice: Bots are meant to be conversational, but the voice and tone still needs to fit with your overall brand voice. And think about “manner” as well as voice and tone. That just means using a slightly different tone of voice for different situations. For example, a reassuring tone for someone looking for the return policy. Or a helpful and encouraging tone for someone researching products.

Write great scripts: Think about all of the possible questions a customer might ask and how they might ask them. Then create a variety of answers and interactions and test how they work. Use a tool like IBM’s Watson Tone Analyzer to check your tone of voice.

Tools for building Facebook Messenger bots

So, you’re intrigued enough to start thinking about creating a Facebook Messenger bot for your business? Here are some tools for building and managing a bots, including ones that don’t need any coding ability. Most of these tools have a free trial option.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel lets you build a Facebook bot without needing to know how to code. You can easily add and edit content through a WYSIWYG interface. Chatfuel’s impressive client list includes Adidas, British Airways, MTV, and BuzzFeed.

OnSequel

OnSequel is another tool that lets you easily create a bot with no coding required. Create any type of bot, including a storybot, personalbot, gamebot, and more.

Botsify

Botsify is another “no coding required” option. It’s also the only one from this list that appears to practice what they preach by welcoming you to the site with a customer service bot of their own.

Conversable

Conversable is for when you are getting really serious about bots. With a client list that includes Whole Foods, Pizza Hut, and Marvel, it offers a full-featured enterprise solution, including analytics, training, and conversation flow modelling.

Facebook Messenger Platform

The Facebook Messenger platform itself also lets you develop your own bot. It’s a little more complicated than the above options, but is well worth checking out. It offers a huge range of resources and documentation for developers.

Some ecommerce platforms even let businesses integrate Facebook Messenger bot functionality. Shopify, for example, lets users connect with customers through Facebook Messenger.

As bot technology matures, new services will appear and others will drop away. You can keep up to date with bot developments through online resources like Chatbots Magazine.

This should be more than enough to get you started with creating your first bot. Happy chatting!

The post Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers published first on http://ift.tt/2u73Z29

[unifiedsocialblog]

Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers

Move over mobile apps, messenger bots are here to stay. The latest mobile tech trend is software that pretends to be a person you can message through your preferred instant messaging platform.

And businesses and brands are turning to Facebook Messenger bots in particular—attracted by Facebook’s enormous user base—to engage with and service their customers who use the platform.

In fact, more than 100,000 bots chat to and help out people through Facebook Messenger every day.

Let’s take a look at what bots are, what you can use them for, and how you can create a successful bot. We’ll also check out some of the most popular and notable Facebook Messenger bots.

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

What are Facebook messenger bots?

A messenger bot is a piece of software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks and converse with you. The more you chat with a bot, the more it will learn and the more useful it responses should get.

A bot is like an app, but the interface is a conversation rather than a menu. At least, that was the original intention when bots came onto the scene in 2016. Many bots today also use menus with preset phrases, such as “Tell me what’s new.”

Businesses in the travel, finance, media and entertainment, health, and retail sectors in particular have all found success with these pocket-sized personal assistants.

For example, you can open up Facebook Messenger at breakfast and ask your weather bot what Mother Nature has in store for you that day. Then you can ask your favorite newspaper bot for the latest sports or business headlines. Planning a trip? Message a travel bot for flights and hotel recommendations, to rent a car, and more.

Bots use AI technology to understand your question, find the right response, and deliver it in as conversational and “human” a way as possible.

Benefits of Facebook messenger bots for business

Bots represent the first large-scale appearance of AI technology in real life. Until then, AI was very much the realm of science fiction like 2001 a Space Odyssey, Bladerunner, and Westworld. There’s no doubt this gives bots that novelty factor that draws in many early adopters and generates publicity, which further increases adoption.

However, bots aren’t gimmicks—people genuinely find them useful. If you’re one of the 1.2 billion people who use Facebook messenger every month, it’s probably because it’s convenient and easy-to-use. And your Facebook friends use it.

Bots offer the same convenience and ease-of-use. Plus they let you perform tasks within Messenger that would otherwise require you to open an app, go online, or make a phone call. You can perform simple tasks like ordering a pizza or do something trickier like dispute a parking ticket.

Bots also deliver automated customer service in a more personal-feeling way. Type a simple “Hi” in the chat window, and most Facebook Messenger bots will respond immediately, answering questions conversationally and in real-time. It feels more like talking to a friend than a customer service agent.

From a business point of view, bots offer many benefits.

Not least is Facebook Messenger’s huge user-base. It makes sense to use a platform everyone is already using to enhance your customers’ user experience.

Customer service is a popular use of Facebook Messenger bots. It’s a way to help customers in a more personal way that incorporates your brand values and voice. It also helps you be seen as more available in the eyes of your customers.

For example, if you’re an insurance company you can enable customers to pull up policy information or even start a claim. Or a retailer can let people pull up their most recent orders, track a delivery, or find the return policy.

Businesses also use bots to help customers research their products, or to deliver content. For example, the Whole Foods bot focuses on helping people find recipes. Others provide specialized services and enable transactions.

Brands also use bots for awareness campaigns. For example, to promote their “Genius” series National Geographic used Facebook Messenger to allow people to chat to an Albert Einstein bot.

10 Facebook Messenger bot examples

Wondering how Facebook Messenger bots could fit into your Facebook marketing or customer service strategy? Here’s a roundup of brands that are good with bots.

1. SnapTravel

Finding a hotel can be a chore, especially at short notice. SnapTravel asks for your destination, dates, and budget, and messages you some deals you can book on their website.

2. 1-800-Flowers

The company that made it easy to order flowers by phone now lets you do it through Facebook Messenger. You can select the occasion, choose your flowers, add a delivery address, and place the order. The bot also lets you connect with a live customer service agent.

3. TfL TravelBot

If you’ve ever tried to get around London, you’ll appreciate this bot from the city’s transport organization. You can find out when the next bus arrives, check on London Tube disruptions, and generally try to navigate one of the world’s largest cities.

4. Trulia 

Real estate and bots are a good fit. Homebuyers often have a list of things they are looking for, and this bot lets you narrow down your options. The bot will also message you with new daily listings.

5. TransferWise

Send cash to friends or family around the world, the TransferWise bot is an instant messaging version of the app that does the same thing. Accountholders can quickly send money overseas by answering a very short series of questions in Messenger.

6. AndChill

Indecisive movie-watchers rejoice (that’s all of us, right?)! The AndChill bot is a film buff in your Messenger contacts list. Tell the bot the type of movie you’d like to watch and it will send you a suggestion and link to the trailer.

7. TechCrunch

This tech-savvy chatbot talks with you about the latest in the tech sector. To tailor your conversations, subscribe to specific topics or authors and the bot will send you news from TechCrunch about what interests you the most.

8. HealthTap

Forget long waits at the clinic. With HealthTap, medical advice is right at your fingertips. The bot offers a wide range of health and wellness advice, drawing on knowledge from a network of over 100,000 doctors.

9. Sephora

The makeup company’s bot uses a quick quiz to deliver content and products tailored to individual tastes. These include how-to guides, lipstick colors, and contouring methods.

10. Skyscanner

Another travel bot, Skyscanner helps you find the right flight at the right price, and connects you to where you can make a booking. You can set a home airport to make trip-planning quicker, and can even just type “anywhere” as the destination to get some ideas.

To check out these and other bots, just open Messenger and search for a brand name. The bot will take it from there. Remember the bots use AI, so the more you chat, the more they learn and the more useful their responses should get.

5 tips for using Facebook Messenger bots

Like any new-to-you marketing tactic, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the dos and don’ts before jumping in. Here are a few important things to consider:

Have a strategy: Don’t just create a bot because other businesses have. Think about what your customers need and how they could benefit from one. Then design the bot around those specific needs.

Consider the customer journey: Think about where your bot could fit in on your typical customer buying journey. Do you need a different bot for different buying stages? A bot doesn’t have to be a sale stool—it can help with customer service and research as well.

Test what works: Be like a bot and learn from how your customers use it to provide a better experience. You should aim to constantly refine and improve the bot experience for your customers. For example you can test a conversation-focused interface against a more menu-driven interface.

Perfect the bot voice: Bots are meant to be conversational, but the voice and tone still needs to fit with your overall brand voice. And think about “manner” as well as voice and tone. That just means using a slightly different tone of voice for different situations. For example, a reassuring tone for someone looking for the return policy. Or a helpful and encouraging tone for someone researching products.

Write great scripts: Think about all of the possible questions a customer might ask and how they might ask them. Then create a variety of answers and interactions and test how they work. Use a tool like IBM’s Watson Tone Analyzer to check your tone of voice.

Tools for building Facebook Messenger bots

So, you’re intrigued enough to start thinking about creating a Facebook Messenger bot for your business? Here are some tools for building and managing a bots, including ones that don’t need any coding ability. Most of these tools have a free trial option.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel lets you build a Facebook bot without needing to know how to code. You can easily add and edit content through a WYSIWYG interface. Chatfuel’s impressive client list includes Adidas, British Airways, MTV, and BuzzFeed.

OnSequel

OnSequel is another tool that lets you easily create a bot with no coding required. Create any type of bot, including a storybot, personalbot, gamebot, and more.

Botsify

Botsify is another “no coding required” option. It’s also the only one from this list that appears to practice what they preach by welcoming you to the site with a customer service bot of their own.

Conversable

Conversable is for when you are getting really serious about bots. With a client list that includes Whole Foods, Pizza Hut, and Marvel, it offers a full-featured enterprise solution, including analytics, training, and conversation flow modelling.

Facebook Messenger Platform

The Facebook Messenger platform itself also lets you develop your own bot. It’s a little more complicated than the above options, but is well worth checking out. It offers a huge range of resources and documentation for developers.

Some ecommerce platforms even let businesses integrate Facebook Messenger bot functionality. Shopify, for example, lets users connect with customers through Facebook Messenger.

As bot technology matures, new services will appear and others will drop away. You can keep up to date with bot developments through online resources like Chatbots Magazine.

This should be more than enough to get you started with creating your first bot. Happy chatting!

The post Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

Facebook Messenger Bots for Business: A Guide for Marketers published first on http://ift.tt/2rEvyAw

[christsbride]

The Fine Art of Blowing It

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

It happens to every one of us. Teachers as well as students. Cops as well as criminals. Bosses as well as secretaries. Parents as well as kids. The diligent as well as the lazy. Not even presidents are immune. Or corporation heads who earn six-figure salaries. The same is true of well-meaning architects and hard-working builders and clear-thinking engineers . . . not to mention pro ball players, politicians, and preachers.

What? Making mistakes, that's what. Doing the wrong thing, usually with the best of motives. And it happens with remarkable regularity.

Let's face it, success is overrated. All of us crave it despite daily proof that man's real genius lies in quite the opposite direction. It's really incompetence that we're all pros at. Which brings me to a basic question that has been burning inside me for months: How come we're so surprised when we see it in others and so devastated when it has occurred in ourselves?

Show me the guy who wrote the rules for perfectionism and I'll guarantee he's a nailbiter with a face full of tics . . . whose wife dreads to see him come home. Furthermore, he forfeits the right to be respected because he's either guilty of not admitting he blew it or he has become an expert at cover-up.

You can do that, you know. Stop and think of ways certain people can keep from coming out and confessing they blew it. Doctors can bury their mistakes. Lawyers' mistakes get shut up in prison—literally. Dentists' mistakes are pulled. Plumbers' mistakes are stopped. Carpenters turn theirs into sawdust. I like what I read in a magazine recently.

Just in case you find any mistakes in this magazine, please remember they were put there for a purpose. We try to offer something for everyone. Some people are always looking for mistakes and we didn't want to disappoint you!

Hey, there have been some real winners! Back in 1957, Ford bragged about "the car of the decade." The Edsel. Unless you lucked out, the Edsel you bought had a door that wouldn't close, a hood that wouldn't open, a horn that kept getting stuck, paint that peeled, and a transmission that wouldn't fulfill its mission. One business writer likened the Edsel's sales graph to an extremely dangerous ski slope. He added that so far as he knew, there was only one case on record of an Edsel ever being stolen.

And how about that famous tower in Italy? The "leaning tower," almost twenty feet out of perpendicular. The guy that planned that foundation to be only ten feet deep (for a building 179 feet tall) didn't possess the world's largest brain. How would you like to have listed in your resumé, "Designed the Leaning Tower of Pisa"?

A friend of mine, realizing how adept I am in this business of blowing it, passed on to me an amazing book (accurate, but funny) entitled The Incomplete Book of Failures, by Stephen Pile. Appropriately, the book itself had two missing pages when it was printed, so the first thing you read is an apology for the omission—and an erratum slip that provides the two pages.

Among the many wild and crazy reports are such things as the least successful weather report, the worst computer, the most boring lecture, the worst aircraft, the slowest selling book, the smallest ever audience, the ugliest building ever constructed, the most chaotic wedding ceremony, and some of the worst statements . . . proven wrong by posterity. Some of those statements, for example, were:

"Far too noisy, my dear Mozart. Far too many notes." —The Emperor Ferdinand after the first performance of The Marriage of Figaro

"If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse." —Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837

"Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted English artist Mr. Rippingille." —John Hunt (1775–1848)

"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant . . . utterly impossible." —Simon Newcomb (1835–1909)

"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out." —Decca Recording Company when turning down the Beatles in 1962

"You will never amount to very much." —A Munich schoolmaster to Albert Einstein, aged ten

And on and on it goes. The only thing we can be thankful for when it comes to blowing it is that nobody keeps a record of ours. Or do they? Or do you with others?

Come on, ease off. If our perfect Lord is gracious enough to take our worst, our ugliest, our most boring, our least successful, our leaning-tower failures, our Edsel flops, and forgive them, burying them in the depths of the sea, then it's high time we give each other a break.

In fact, He promises full acceptance along with full forgiveness in print for all to read . . . without an erratum sheet attached. Isn't that encouraging? Can't we be that type of encourager to one another? After all, imperfection is one of the few things we still have in common. It links us close together in the same family!

So then, whenever one of us blows it and we can't hide it, how about a little support from those who haven't been caught yet?

Oops, correction. How about a lot of support?

Excerpt taken from Come Before Winter and Share My Hope, copyright © 1985, 1988, 1994 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. For additional information and resources visit us at www.insight.org.

from Chuck Swindoll's Daily Devotional http://ift.tt/2t3wPQI via IFTTT

[seanmeverett]

Zero-Point Energy Makes Power Pervasive & Free

Why this space age science could disrupt society as we know it

I. Setting the Stage

What would happen if energy, electricity, and power were pervasive and free? When a bum all the way up to an entire country would no longer have to worry about wars over oil, flights running out of fuel, or having to build a giant rocket to carry a giant tub of rocket fuel in order to get it to escape velocity and keep it going to Mars.

When you combine those two concepts: available anywhere at zero cost, you’ve got something more valuable than when man discovered fire.

Note that humankind didn’t invent fire. We discovered it. Because it already existed.

Zero-point energy may already exist. If so, we would only need to invent the technology to harness it. But it would also mean that this technology may never see the light of day because it would entirely disrupt the power and wealth heirarchy of our world and societal culture.

II. Defining Zero-Point Energy

You might have heard of Richard Feynman. He was a Physicist that was well-known for his brilliance but also his ability to reduce complex topics down to freshman level understanding.

One of the things he described was Zero-Point Energy. He posited that it held an order of magnitude greater power than nuclear energy, with:

One teacup of empty space contains enough energy to boil all the world’s oceans.

In order to appropriately define zero-point energy, we need to go down to quantum states. The smallest of the very small. When we zoom in that far, everything becomes a vibration and a probability. Pay special attention to Tau.

It’s either here, or there. And no matter how cold absolute zero is in outer space, there still exists these vibrations. And heat is nothing more than energized particles moving around really fast. Microwaves do that. It just sends a wave into your food to excite the particles, they bump into each other, friction, heat and blammo, you’ve got a breakfast burrito.

But what happens in the cold reaches of outer space. There is no heat. There is no vibration, right?

Wrong. There is still movement. There’s still motion. It’s called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You may have heard of this in the new Einstein TV series called Genius currently playing on National Geographic.

As we said above, it means you don’t know where something is until you observe it. Until then it’s only a probability.

But what you’ll come to find out from the scientific community is that there’s a disagreement about all of this. Some believe in theory, others in practice, simply by measuring how much energy exists in an empty vacuum space.

Following this rabbit hole for the curious will take you to interesting places not just in physics, but into philosophy, and yes, even national security and the defense department.

Why does the universe expand instead of contract or remain constant? And why is that expasion accelerating? Motion requires energy, right? So therefore, there is some kind of “dark energy” pushing the universe apart in every spot, much like the classic visualization of raisin bread rising.

I call it God’s Drop of Chaos, but replace that G word with whatever definition you like. The truth remains that even the tiniest, most subtle vibration, when compounded across an infinite universe would add up to exploding stars, life, and an ever-increasing cosmos.

III. Are Aliens Real?

Are we the only life in the universe? It hasn’t been proven in public but there sure has been quite a variation in species over the millenia on this single rock next to a single sun.

But who cares anyways. The Great Filter doesn’t get passed by warring species who don’t develop elegant technologies. Isn’t this what Humanizing Tech is all about? More elegance, less combat?

Imagine for a moment that aliens do exist. And that they’ve existed far longer than us neanderthalic Homo sapiens. They look at us like cavemen. Still taking physical time to travel between point A and B instead of taking a shortcut by bending space in half. We burn physical objects to release their natural battery energy instead of just going straight to the source itself.

That’s what we’re talking about here.

Zoom all the way into matter. Put a small lever atop a vibrating whatchamajigger. Capture that energy in real-time from the quark level all the way up to a teacup of space. No need for energy storage (it can only be borrowed anyways). Add it together and use it for whatever you like.

Get access to the Energy API, if you will.

Plug it into an engine, a TV, heck even your cell phone. Because lets be honest. We’re all sick of cables. And we don’t want a bunch of man-made waves permeating our bodies like radiation and making us sick. Why not use what’s already there?

The real problem, of course, is finding a way to build that pico-scopic lever.

IV. Political Complications

And then you have to imagine what’s going to happen to the free world when you completely upend their economy. Saudi Arabia suddenly becomes the poorest country in the world. The Iraq war no longer matters.

Nuclear energy, utilities, solar, wind, and millions of peoples jobs are suddenly gone.

Energy is free. And energy is everywhere.

The universe would agree with that statement. The universe doesn’t charge us to drink water or eat plants or lay in the sun. The universe makes that free. It’s mankind who charges for it, wars over it, and holds it back from people who need it most.

Imagine threatening those in political and financial power with something as useful, pervasive, and non-profitable. Energy ripples all the way up. Everyone’s out of a job. It’s the biggest Depression in the history of mankind. It’s like ripping the entire bottom row of Jenga blocks out from under the other blocks.

Everything collapses. Because of the Cosmological Constant.

So there is incentive from the human race to prevent this new technology from emerging, even if it’s already been developed deep in R&D labs. You already don’t know about new technology that’s available today that will charge your cell phone or electric car from zero to full in 5 minutes. There are thousands of examples of this.

What makes zero point energy any different?

The real problem is we only fund what is on the public consiousness. Everyone uses Snapchat? Go fund that. Everyone uses Groupon? Go fund that. Everyone uses Uber? Go fund that.

So our technology industry follows the same power law as VC returns because human attention and media coverage follows the same power law.

Whatever is front of mind gets attention. Attention is value. And attention gets more attention, like a flywheel.

The only hope is to get out of the pervasive groupthink, and out of the flywheel. Find your own fascination and go, go, go. When I was younger, Good Willing Hunting said, “read whatever blows your hair back”. I didn’t understand it then because I thought it just applied to fiction.

But now, I get it. Read what blows your hair back. What flips your world upside down. What helps you understand the reality of the world and the levers you need to pull in order to change it.

The first rule of Fight Club:

Technology always changes. But humans never do.

V. Who’s Working On It

Normal people immediately dismiss things that seem crazy. Nobody is going to push a button to get a ride. Nobody is going to pay to sleep on someone’s couch. Nobody is going to fly in the air. Nobody’s going to land on the moon. Nobody can have all the world’s knowledge flying through the ether. Nobody can harness the intelligence of animals in software.

It’s all a hoax.

It sure is. Until it’s not. And then everyone is quick to forget their own failed groupthink.

But not one group, who has a patent and is actively working on this. They’re called Jovion started by a few highly intelligent academics from the University of Colorado. Give it a read, make your own conclusions.

There’s also that impossible NASA EMDrive engine where people are still trying to determine whether there’s any exhaust or it’s a true perpetual motion machine.

Your Recommended Reading

What Quantum Mechanics & Magic Have to do With Your Everyday Life

The Gravity of a New Perspective

What Dark Energy Has To Do With Your Soul

Understanding Battery Technology

Your Biohacked Personal Power Station

If you enjoyed reading this article, please recommend and share it to help others find it!

Zero-Point Energy Makes Power Pervasive & Free was originally published in The Mission on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Stories by Sean Everett on Medium http://ift.tt/2soStAi