church-sized Pill

Wonder Headaches pulse without end – how was it possible for a news organization to send me their newsletter. How did they find me? Then it hits me: i use one of their services, just like the other 159,904,332, minus a couple hundred, people out there.

(Wow! i just inadvertently dated this.)

There are 159,904,332 or so people just like me working tenaciously or unbeknownst for the Common Goal; spilling egos through the expression of WebPages on a specific social networking site; one i’d like to refrain from naming because it will carbon date me & that kind of publicity costs money. Hence, the cheap layout. So, this isn’t about them; it’s about creating diluted mirrors, if you will, that somehow were intended to show a culture, but along the way through its creation, altruism got A.D.D. & the definition was born deformed & presently unappreciated & what were we talking about? Oh, right, “self-expression.” So, from one angle we’d say that through this digital cloning of our identities, through these cloudy reflections, we toss away soul-fragments to decay along the side of the road. Pieces of you & me flitter like litter on the Information Superhighway.

Passer-by: Please Reap & Sow in Return.

Why? The next-generation needs to eat from the previous generation's labors.

Why? There's a chronic multiple-choice test, a.k.a. "life," in progress.

And i'll be damned if i get another D+!!

From another angle (shared by the same structure of the previous angle; in another frame we could begin to see the makings of an architecture or even dimension within the confounds of hyper-reality [bawanggggggg] quantum [zzzzzztchkkack]) we'd say that that form of expression, with all its knots & ravels of collected psychic debris is exactly the same form of expression required to make a religion; a code of beliefs affirmed by action. Who threw a who out the driver’s window? Biodegradable is not a legal excuse. So i ask & share the question: what if these bunches of Zeros, Ones & Oats, are the same form of expression required to make a God or the spiritual prerequisite of religion? Dimensions!! Must not forget the spiritual dimension! Like Voltron!!

"The deafness of many philosophers, social scientists and historians to the spiritual dimension can be remarkable," Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor said in a statement given at a reward ceremony at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York. There, he also said this dimensional-lack was damaging because it "affects the culture of the media and educated public opinion in general." (Well, to say it was a reward ceremony implies that the prize had already been given when, i’m led to presume, in actuality he won then & there the $1.5 million Templeton Prize for advancement and research of spiritual matters. “The prize was established in 1973 by the investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton and exceeds the monetary value of the Nobel Prize because of Sir Templeton's belief that advances in the spiritual realm can reap greater benefits than those in the secular.” So they give $$$ because the spiritual realm is worth more, a voice behind the Moon asks.)

The New York Times article i got this from said Professor Taylor “has written extensively on the sense of self and how it is defined by morals and what one considers good. People operate in the register of spiritual issues, he said, and to separate those from the humanities and social sciences leads to flawed conclusions.” Pretend i believe everything i read, & this guy’s statements mean that much more.


After showing my good friend NESTORtheAPE the article he said, “I think I'm becoming deaf in the way Taylor has stated... I sometimes use a hearing aid.”


(Uhm, i hope no one was hurt when that explosion when off. ("Explosion," figuratively used to describe Senators’ trust on whether or not North Korea has any nukes, given their (the Senators’) lack of faith in U.S. intelligence. (Bush Jr.-Era) Let’s not mention the dollar-sign motives seen eye to eye with "intelligence." Vision based largely on trust…)) Give me some Intelligence & we'll dance a good one!

SsssslaPaaanaaahp!!! Focus. We were talking about angles.

Angles, and there’s a, a, a third. Out of the sky like a baby elephant crying, "Expression? Expression! What about the forces of expression!?" Please correct me if i'm wrong – something i encourage for mutual learning – but isn't an expression an actualization of an Ego? For instance, we see an instance & describe it. Am i rambling, i ask myself to describe the instance. Is this guy/gal wonderin’ if he’s rambling, you ask yourself to describe the instance. You describe “for instance” differently than i did because we have different expressive energies behind the instance. Call it character, humors, attitude or temperament. You would have yours & i would have mine.

“The fundamental tenet of the Vedânta school consisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms.” – Sir William Jones

Deep, deeeeep, deeeeeeeeeep. Maybe too deep. My ears popped from the pressure and i’d really like to tell you as convincingly as possible that they actually did because i was, well, transported. My eyes were open but i was not there. Or here. i had been zoned out in a daydream.

Apologies for the headaches. We are almost through.

Uh-huh & as we now see all three angles approximately at a distance from each other, a triangle takes shape. Note the distance of the angles is equal to the amount of length that is capable of propping it up or push it at away (we'll talk away from what shortly); the amount of distance between an angle & the other angles is like a good structure made out of titanium & diamonds (i'm sure there's stronger materials). Where may i get these metaphysical titanuum & diamonds? Are they just other materials changed into their brief state as something strong? & who invited A.D.D. What i was gettin' at was if the g’damn metaphor is goin t’ be Three-Dimensional, just like we picture, another angle needs to be added, right? We'll, wouldn't that angle, that component be Consciousness, the self kind, because in the end isn't it the only entity on the face of this wobbly earth capable of swallowing a church-sized pill.


Probably. & probably because of a lack of grains & distilled information, a.k.a. knowledge, i failed to realize that like everything else Religion has origins in parallel with the “knots & ravels of collected psychic debris” spoken about above. Uh, to rephrase it better, that aside from humanistic expression, there’s many another components to a Religion’s birth. Maybe it wasn’t a full-fledged failure on my behalf, but more like a simplified take of what is a multi-faceted subject.

Those religious origins, to the best of my current understanding, stem from Mystical experiences individuals have for one reason or another. Why they have them is not the point, as long as we learn from or are helped by them. Thank you, William James. Religion comes along when a system or code of law is made to reach the aforementioned Mystical experiences.

At least, that’s as far as i’ve been capable of seeing it. i wish i could promote a certain belief structure everyone can follow [systematically], but my humanity makes me unworthy of such a holy feat. Let us hold hands by keeping this quote afresh:

“Religion has always used art in one form or another, and must do so, for the reason that incestuous desires invariable construct their phantasies out of the material provided by the unconscious memory of infantile coprophilic interest; that is the inner meaning of the phrase, ‘Art is the handmaiden of Religion.’” – Ernest Jones

Merely Hyena wanderings on points older than Zeus. Just ask John Noble Wilford, when he published on February 5, 2008, an article titled & about “An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus”.

In the regions of Greece known as Archadia, sacrificial remains were found & were dated to be made as early as 3000 B.C., the archaeologists concluded, 900 years before Greek-speaking people arrived to the area.

The findings were made near Mount Lykaion, the same mythical birthplace of Zeus. "After reviewing the findings of pottery experts, geologists and other archaeologists, David Gilman Romano of the University of Pennsylvania concluded that material at the Lykaion altar ‘suggests that the tradition of devotion to some divinity on that spot is very ancient’ and ‘very likely predates the introduction of Zeus in the Greek world.’ As Dr. Romano remarked, quoting a quip by a friend, ‘We went from B.C. to B.Z., before Zeus.’"


Re-reading that got me high like Moses, & Moses was high on drugs. Don’t look at me, i didn’t say it, but it appears repeated here & elsewheres. Before going any further in presenting the repetition, it hurts me to be so narrow-minded by merely saying “Moses was high on drugs”; all drugs are not, NOT, created equal, nor was Moses equal for that matter… Have you heard the latest story of the Israeli researcher.

Way from Jerusalem we get a story about Benny Shanon who was quoted saying on radio that "as far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics." Remember the 10 Commandments. Let’s step back a second to what Shanon wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy to see what he’s getting at. He wrote about how such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times.

Back to the radio, back to March 4, 2008, Shanon suggested that “Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the ‘burning bush.’” He said, “The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon.” A classic phenomenon when compared to the religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used to induce people to, among other mind-manifesting things, “see music.” (Blogger’s note: i doubt Amazonian people get “induced” just to see music; "Hey, let's eat some bark of the acacia tree & go to the concert."; talk about shoddy reporting).

Shanon has “dabbled” with such substances (“dabbled” the word was dabbed by the dabbling article). “He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. ‘I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,’ Shanon said. He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.”


Type “science of religion” in the search & what will the internets give you? Type “what a science of religion would do & for whom” in the search & what will your intuitions give you? If all we were doing is reaching through a void & grabbing at what we can with our words – only the imaginable, please – then what would these words tell you? A tale of what church-sized pills are & what they can do? Or the tail of the human being reading this sentence? At this rate we can put down hammers & chisels and pick up atom smashers & lasers.

Found relevant Dan Vergano article weathered yet in presentable shape within my archives about how “’Resistance to science’ has early roots”. So, sharing is caring & i care for you.

After reminding us how science has through known history been caged, belittled, quizzed in court, & given the silent treatment – because it gives the animals, a.k.a. people, the rabies – after these pesky reminders, we hear straight from the horses’ mouths:

"Scientists, educators and policymakers have long been concerned about American adults' resistance to certain scientific ideas," Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg were noted to have said in a review published in a 2007 Science magazine. "This resistance to science has important social implications because a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning." Those buzzing historical reminders need to leave & brave their own; historical birds need to fly coop…

"To be scientifically educated means you have to pick up a lot of counter-intuitive beliefs," says Bloom studies children & their mind-at-large capacity to grasp the world around them. But as Bloom is quoted as saying, “Life is too short” to have to go through all the hassle of doing what other people with more time have done already. And reliably for that matter. That’s why god created books!

"A lot of scientific ideas are fundamentally at odds with religious ones," Bloom says. "Every religion in existence adopts dualism," (Is that quite so, Bloom?) Dualism defined in the article is “a belief that draws a distinction between the mind (i.e. the soul) and the brain, he notes, a finding completely at odds with the basic evidence from neuroscience that the brain itself generates all our thoughts and feelings.” It’s a simple statement for a an old being… “The belief that thoughts and being arise from something besides a bunch of brain cells zapping one another explains much of the debate over the moral worth of stem cells, Bloom contends.” (Would “contends” dualism be like “nolo contendere”?)

One hymn played in the article, informally draws inspiration from "Songs of Innocence & of Experience": as children our lack of experience leaves us in a state where relying on those with experience, a.k.a. adults, is the best solution to…well, not dying. “But in adulthood, who we decide to trust has a powerful effect on how we view science, says Bloom. This goes both ways, he notes. Many people who accept that natural selection and evolution are reasonable explanations for where species come from, can't explain the concepts, polls show.”

A doughnut within a doughnut: here’s an example given within the article that was supposed to be an example. The “’scientifically credulous subpopulation accepts this information because they trust the people who say it is true,’ says the review. Similarly, when trusted religious or political leaders endorse an idea, people who view them as trustworthy will hew to their views, as demonstrated in a 2003 study in which, ‘participants were asked their opinion about a social welfare policy that was described as being endorsed by either Democrats or Republicans. Although the participants sincerely believed that their responses were based on the objective merits of the policy, the major determinant of what they thought of the policy was, in fact, whether or not their favored political party was said to endorse it.’”

For those of you who read the first sentence of every paragraph, here in it’s own words, because these are really not my words, is the nut of what has been said: “Resistance to science springs from a clash of experimental or observational evidence with childhood intuition about the world, coupled with what political or religious community we embrace. For scientists, the review suggests they need to show how they use evidence and observations to demonstrate their conclusions, in contrast to religious and political leaders. Scientists, who have struggled mightily to distrust childhood intuition, must understand that their way of seeing things - based on experimentation, observation and debate - is unnatural, Bloom adds. ‘We have to understand the idea that that supernatural or religious ideas are not the product of stupidity or malice, but are in fact, normal human nature.’”

Conforming to Nature

A milk-bottle shaped cow yesterday said, "You don't see me."

Convinced, i drank some freshly squeezed O.J.
The Wolves of Noon guarding the Orange Tree chased me into a corn maze.
Creeping on all fours, i pant & squish water from my dried eyes.

Drip drops splashy-splashed on the blue flowers i ignored.

Death?

More & more air i grasped while i kept my heart from jumping & running out.

Crows cawed, Flies buzzed & the Cornfields whispered lies.
For that they were cut down –

Stomp Clomp Smash those liar husks of corn down.

Nightfall grew a Strawberry out of my bellybutton, which seedily told me to do what you want.
After taking a sample of the Strawberry to latter clone, i sliced & placed it in a sugar bowl.

Morning sun thumbed up a jittery bird & spread the clouds like legs.

It felt Awake, meanwhile i ate corn-flakes with sugared strawberries

& drank glasses of wolfy orange juice.

Raping of the Creative Mind

Gather Yourselves Together like the Voices from the Street. Outdated & marooned – now more than never, right? – like the Man in the High Castle and like the Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike and very much like the Man Who Japed, i have gathered my selves together a Pilgrim on a Hill, because i’ve be’n ruminating. And i concluded that you! dear reader, may enjoy a break from your studies to ruminate with me (because in the long run you too! will be affected).

i am apart of the Cosmic Puppets, just like the hordes of millions of people out there, engorged by visual stimulation. In particular, i am an automated-puppet watching dramatized, recycled super heroes in all their mythical beauty. Publicity strong enough to put Time Out of Join, crack-cocaine advertising to put the Crack in Space to shame, & the similarities in the story, ideas & character designs falling out of the pages of Philip K. Dick’s writings. (In a certain sense, it seems as if he would be proud of the Simulacra, if only to show its failings.)

Here are some examples, despite how ubiquitous – Ubik for short – the copies are. One character has pre-cog abilities – stated verbatim in the story as being just that. Another has a split, superhuman personality. While another has telepathic abilities that shape a “victim’s” perception of reality. It becomes a Counter-Clock World to be presented with such things that make me think, “Haven’t we already seen/heard this?” It’s almost as if we are being sold told by media executives, “Now Wait for Last Year.”

For one, it's somewhat of an overtly-polished, theatre production of Dick's work, ala Technologie Moderne, or to put it better, its Dick's ideas brought to mass-communicated life. We Can Build You.

Have you ever been forced to watch the commercials supporting it? Talk about expensive & desperate advertising. Or, would the P.C. term be "effective"?

Secondly, it's a sad reality check, A Maze of Death, to see from the great Eye in the Sky that ideas can be straight-up stolen, if not borrowed & given a weaker "habitat" to live in. Then later on, when an actual Dick production is made or is in the works, people think it's a cheap, lazy knock-off of what they saw first, i.e., this primetime network series. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

See my drift?

In terms of what is being word-slapped as "weaker" or as a "cheap, lazy knock-off," we owe it to ourselves to whip out a scale, The Zap Gun. Experience would either or in-between: slap payback in full force of the offence or it would be pink-cheeked of some counter-kind. In a grand sum, retribution would equal whatever feelings were tallied post facto.

I admit how time will tell whether or not the television show that shall not be named is a weaker or cheap, lazy knock-off of Dick, so what?

As a writer – now-a-days who isn't a writer – it's discouraging to know that our ideas can be conspicuously taken; for all i know, this blog is being read by some conspiring copyright infringer frantically in need of that next A+ fix for his/her academic malnourishment. The Penultimate Truth to this rant is more a reaction of how ideas can be stolen & incorporated into art, especially when wealthy media moguls are looking for a means to become wealthier. And i care as far as to apply & breed my innate hate for the Man and his friends for keeping the weaker, poorer people down.

Though i haven't read "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book," by Gerard Jones, from what i can tell it talks about the hardships the creators of Superman went through, and basically how they got fucked hard in the goat-ass by a stronger economic entity. Puttering About in a Small Land, In Milton Lumky Territory, the creators of Superman were pushing their luck in the Solar Lottery.

i would like to hear from a jukebox that i'm not familiar with how this is alright with both the viewers and the critics.

As a final note, clothed as Dr. Futurity, i neglect to say that maybe this raping of the creative mind is a necessary means to an end, for us to without-an-option accept because we are apart of this thing called "society," and basically the ideas we have, the kind we can truly call our own, would not exist without every other fatherfucker & motherfucker out there, both Good & Bad.

Am i being selfish,
ethically blind or crippled,
or just plain PMSing?

Two recently documented examples of the “Raping of the Creative Mind” are worth the bytes of reproduction.

1) “Dear God, Make Art Thievery Die. Amen.” found at Juxtapoz magazine online on Monday, 09 April 2007:

We got an email today about a recent, though (sadly) not isolated, case of artist-on-artist thievery. Today’s case involves Todd Goldman of David & Goliath clothing and accessories company. Goldman’s work is distributed worldwide through his company and art galleries. It is called “deceptively simple” in a recent press release for his show Gold Digger, currently on exhibit at Jack Gallery in Los Angeles, but the word deceptive apparently goes a bit deeper.

Web cartoonist Dave Kelly created a drawing about five years ago of one of his characters, Purple Pussy, praying at bedside, “Dear God, Make everyone die. Amen.” Goldman has a nearly identical piece in Gold Digger which he's selling as if it’s his original creation (see for yourself.) This isn’t his only rendition of the piece he copied. There’s another more direct rip-off here. Calls to the gallery for comment were forwarded to a surely over-worked and under-whelmed vice-president at the parent company of the gallery who has yet to respond.

This story broke in the Something Awful forums. The discussion can be seen here, forum.somethingawful.com. More info (and commentary) here: www.fleen.com

It happens. It happens a lot, actually. It’s usually someone with more money and influence taking ideas from and credit for the work of an independent artist. There is often little, if any, recourse for a person being taken advantage of in this way. Copyright and intellectual property laws are nebulous, legal representation is rarely free, plus filing a lawsuit and seeing it through is a huge burden on people just trying to live their lives. There's a website devoted to calling out art thieves, www.youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com. Their focus is on companies ripping off artists, not artist-on-artist copying, which, as they point out, can get real bitchy. The case at hand sits on the fence though between artist vs. artist and company vs. artist. Goldman has a company that sells things with his artwork, so he is both. It can be a murky debate. YTWWN has a set of rules for clarifying situations in which “copying” may not be as nefarious as it might seem.

Another facet of this situation is when artists claim they've been ripped off but haven't. That happens too. Take, for instance, the case of LOVE and HATE. Many people know the famous sculpture by Robert Indiana titled "LOVE". It is iconic. Tributes, rip-offs, renditions and re-interpretations of “LOVE” are plentiful.

Shortly after we published photos from Eleven at Leonard Street Gallery in London on March 12th, we received multiple emails from friends of Los Angeles-based “un-pop” artist, Gidget Gein, claiming that we were perpetrating art thievery by posting this photo of a series of pieces by DFace...

Claims of rip-offery in this case are insulting to artists who actually are ripped off. Neither Gein’s nor DFace’s pieces are particularly original and both fall under the category of parody/inspiration.

Appropriating someone else's original artwork, selling it and putting that money in your bank account may not be deemed technically illegal, but those of us with a conscience know that it's wrong.

—ert o’hara, Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine (I sincerely yet somewhat ironically apologize to the photographers whose pictures I swiped but did not credit [because I didn't find a byline] to make my point in this story.)

2) “’Ghost Rider’ creator sues over copyright”, by Leslie Simmons on Tuesday, April 10 2007:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter, ESQ.) - The creator of Ghost Rider has sued Marvel Enterprises, Sony Pictures Entertainment and several entities over what he claims is an unauthorized “joint venture and conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize” his copyrights to the comic book character.

Gary Friedrich and his company filed the 61-page complaint April 4 in federal court in Illinois claiming 21 violations based on the production and marketing of Sony’s recent “Ghost Rider,” starring Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes. Friedrich claims the copyrights used in the film and in related products reverted from Marvel to him in 2001.

The defendants include Sony’s Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, producers Relativity Media, Crystal Sky Pictures and Michael De Luca Prods. as well as Hasbro Inc. and Take-Two Interactive.

Friedrich alleges copyright infringement, and accuses Marvel of waste for failing “to properly utilize and capitalize” on the Ghost Rider character. Marvel’s attempts to do so, Friedrich claims, have only damaged the value of his work by failing to properly promote and protect the characters and by accepting inadequate royalties from co-defendants. Friedrich also claims that toymaker Hasbro and videogame firm Take-Two have improperly created merchandise based on the characters.

Friedrich created the character of Johnny Blaze and his alter ego Ghost Rider in 1968. Three years later, he agreed to publish the character in comic books through Stan Lee’s Magazine Management, which eventually became Marvel Entertainment.

Under the agreement, Magazine Management became holder of the copyright for the first issue, which explains the origin story of Ghost Rider. Lee’s company also held the copyrights to subsequent Ghost Rider works.

However, Magazine Management allegedly never registered the work with the Copyright Office and, pursuant to federal law, Friedrich regained the copyrights to Ghost Rider in 2001.

“Nonetheless, without any compensation to and without any agreement, consent or participation of plaintiff ... in late 2006 or early 2007, the defendants herein wrongfully embarked upon a high-profile campaign, arrangement, joint venture and conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize plaintiff’s copyrights, the Johnny Blaze character and persona, the origin story and the related characters and personas created by plaintiff, in various endeavors, including, but not limited to, the use of the same in movie theater presentations and promotions, commercials, action-figure toys, video games, clothing and novels,” the lawsuit states.

The “Ghost Rider” film opened February 16 in North America and has grossed an estimated $214.6 million in worldwide box office, according to boxofficemojo.com.

Friedrich seeks unspecified damages for claims of copyright infringement, violations of federal and Illinois state unfair competition laws, negligence, waste, tortuous interference with prospective business expectancy, misappropriation of characters, unauthorized use of the characters and false advertising and endorsement.

A Sony spokesman said the studio had no comment on the suit and had not been served with the complaint.

If I were to be biased I’d continue this charade titled “Raping of the Creative Mind” by pointing out more examples of rape. To balance the bias toward a fairer judgment, here’s a Raping-of-the-Creative-Mind perspective worth sticking between your lobes:

“Ping; Creativity, Innovation and the Cultural Parade,” by G. Pascal Zachary, published in the New York Times: April 15, 2007. G. Pascal Zachary teaches journalism at Stanford and writes about technology and economic development.

Stereotypes about national origin are the dirty secret of technology communities.

The riffs on nationalities go something like this: The Chinese do not invent anything; they only copy. Italians design beautiful shoes, but who ever heard of a Tuscan computer programmer? Russians dominate chess, yet cannot seem to engineer a children’s toy. Germans excel when they control all variables — of a high-performance automobile. The French routinely lead in technologies that require large government subsidies. The Japanese so yearn for acceptance that individuals won’t promote a new idea without the approval of their peers.

If I have offended anyone, I will not apologize. I am recycling crass stereotypes about national traits in the service of a better understanding of how innovation works.

Talk of national identity rarely comes up in public, but privately many people — from academia to venture capital firms — take for granted that the contours of a career in technology are often shaped by the national origin of the technologist.

“Though the reasons can differ a fair amount, national origin does correlate with the innovativeness of the people of a country,” says Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University.

When a train set a new land speed record this month by reaching an astonishing 357 miles an hour, there was no mystery about where the train’s designers lived or the speed test took place.

France.

“The French government has always been very good at making things where government support is critical,” like trains, nuclear power plants and airplanes, Mr. Mokyr says. “But the French are not terribly good at creating Googles or Microsofts, where private action is central.”

The French engineering company, Alstom, after all, is the world market leader in high-speed trains. But a well-informed person would be hard-pressed to name a leading French information technology company.

Indeed, many of France’s best computer brains work in Silicon Valley. These Franco-geeks, who number in the thousands, even have two associations, SiliconFrench and DBF.

“The French business system is constraining for individuals while supportive of scientists and engineers working on large, rigid systems that actually benefit from top-down decisions and slow change,” says Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple executive who helped organize DBF and is a partner at Allegis Capital in Palo Alto, Calif.

Comprehending innovation through the prism of national identity has its risks. In the 1970s, many people dismissed the Japanese as mere imitators and failed to see how the knowledge gained from copying would lead to path-breaking technologies. The success of Toyota, Sony and Japan’s vibrant animation industry provide cautionary tales for those who might dismiss entire nationalities as copycats or only as consumers of advanced innovations.

Nations can and do change, sometimes by smart planning, sometimes by serendipity. Finland, home to the mobile phone powerhouse Nokia, was an agricultural country 50 years ago. So was Ireland, now home to thriving clusters in electronics and pharmaceuticals. Ireland’s investment recruitment agency is now crowing about the virtues of “the Irish mind” in a series of print ads. The most popular ad, using a drawing of the Irish rock star Bono, declares: “The Irish. Creative. Imaginative. And flexible. Agile minds with a unique capacity to innovate, without being directed.”

Friends of Israel’s top engineering school, Technion, are paying for a similar series of ads, which appear periodically on the Op-Ed page of this newspaper. “The brainpower of its people” is “Israel’s only natural resource,” one ad declares.

Mr. Mokyr notes that “these ads pertain to highly trained people.” He adds: “It’s not that the people of one country are inherently smarter than those of others. But some nations invest more in education, or are more efficient in producing skilled people.”

Why this is so has been debated endlessly by economists since Adam Smith, the 18th-century author of “The Wealth of Nations.”

There is little debate, however, that small countries are freer these days than large ones to boast about the supposed talents of their people. That is partly because larger countries can inspire fear or may have a history of invading others. Irish chauvinism seems benign, yet some people may regard praising the genius of “the German mind,” for instance, as objectionable, given the history of German aggression in World War II.

Some countries are too big and diverse for easy generalizations. Talk of “the American mind” makes no sense because “the U.S. is so multicultural,” says Andreas Bechtolsheim, a native of Germany and a prominent computer designer in Silicon Valley.

While migration and the flow of knowledge across borders have led to a flattening of the world, different technological strengths remain associated with different nations. So nations bent on becoming more innovative in other fields must confront their own collective strengths — and weaknesses.

And that means taking stereotypes seriously, while not being imprisoned by them.

Consider China, the fastest-growing economy. “Chinese technologists are highly sensitive to their reputation as imitators, and they are trying to find areas where they can break through,” says Carlos Genardini, an American who is chief executive of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks, an innovation incubator.

“Building the designs of others is a hard habit to break,” Mr. Genardini says. Sometimes success is the enemy. “The Chinese make a good living from making the products of others,” he adds. “Why change?”

One reason is political pressure. This month, the United States said it would ask the World Trade Organization to compel the Chinese government to do more to reduce, if not eliminate, factories devoted to churning out copies of American movies and other products.

Self-interest ultimately ought to persuade the Chinese that creativity trumps copying. That is because profits and industrial leadership, often go to the companies and countries that create distinct technological systems. Think Intel’s microprocessor family and Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Or France’s high-speed trains.

Thinking ahead, China’s technologists talk openly about “a second modernization” and the importance of creativity. Yet China’s creative potential is limited by the hegemony of an authoritarian Communist Party, which recently showed its muscle by issuing new warnings against Chinese use of the Internet for suspect social and political purposes. Despite exhortations to be more original, Chinese people “feel a widespread fear of stepping out of the box,” says Justin O’Connor, a professor of “cultural industries” at the University of Leeds in Britain who is studying China’s recent experience.

China, of course, was the world’s leading technological power — 500 years ago. The grand sweep of history engenders humility and hope. National traits are fluid. Always shaped by unpredictable experience, these traits are subject to design and redesign. Just as technologists invent great products, countries invent, and reinvent, people.

P.S. – Bono eats his feces.

With a little something extra on the Raping of the Creative Mind, an anecdote by artist Jeff Soto wrote April 24, 2007, under the title “Imitation Art”:

And, lastly, I’m dealing with artists who are imitating mine and other’s work. They say imitation is a form of flattery but when people are doing stuff very similar in style to what you’ve been doing for years and they’re selling it, it’s more of a slap on the face. I am not naming any names but I’ve seen alot of imitation the past couple of years and it’s getting worse. The good thing is that for some reason people tend to copy the stuff I was doing right out of school- sun rays (hehe which I copied from Alex Gross), robots, boxes with wings, etc. It still sucks. I don’t know if the artists are to blame or the galleries that show them. Or it could be the buyers who are supporting this. So here’s some advice for everyone...

Artists- if you find yourself with a lack of ideas or have trouble finding your style, DO NOT take the easy path. Don’t look at who’s successful and steal their ideas. Do not copy them. Do not imitate them. This might help you sell some paintings, you may even sell out a show or two. But in the long run it will come back to bite you in the ass. You’ll be but a flash in the pan. A one hit wonder. If you are a serious artist and you make art because you have to, it’s in your soul, it’s in your heart, you will eventually find your own style. I’m not saying it will be easy. It takes sacrifice, dedication, and experimentation. And once you think you found your style, throw it all away. Because your shit will get stagnant if you don’t keep evolving. The artists who are copying will not be around in a couple years. Watch. *Note- it’s alright to be a little derivative right out of school, no one can help that. But if you’re out of school for a while and selling your paintings and deep down you know it’s not totally original, then it’s time to refocus and get onto a better path.

And..

Galleries- You have a responsibility to show original work. When you show work that is overly derivative, it cheapens your gallery and the entire “scene”. This scene is small. Really small actually. If you are showing work in this genre you should have at least an understanding of who the artists are, what their work looks like and where they have shown. You have to have the backbone to be able to tell artists to come back in a year with new work if it’s derivative. Galleries used to be tougher. It was special if your work got in. It meant you were making original, thought provoking work. Realistically not everyone is going to be able to show Viner or Camille Rose Garcia, but that doesn't mean you should find someone who is making similar work. There are tons of young artists out there who are deserving, hard working, eager and super original. Go find them. Promote them. Teach them. There are tons of young artists out there who are copying. They will come to you. Educate them. Push them. Be honest with them. They will return better artists.

And...

Buyers- You’re gonna hopefully buy a piece of art because you love something about it. Investing in art is not bad either. I hope you also really research the artists you are interested in (especially if you're looking at it as an investment). It’s hard to keep track of everything but try to stay informed. Most of the artists being copied have shown at some time at La Luz de Jesus (now Billy Shire Fine Art), Jonathan Levine Gallery, Merry Karnowsky, New Image Art, BLK/MRKT, etc. They have higher standards and will never show anything derivative. Research some of these galleries that have been around for a while (there are more, don’t limit to those I mentioned), get back copies of Juxtapoz, Giant Robot, check out American Illustration, there are also some great books on the subject. Most artists also have their resume’s listed on their websites. In short, do your research. Unless you don’t mind buying work that may be derivative, and that’s your prerogative (cue Bobby Brown here).

So that’s my little rant about this situation. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this and everyone agrees that it is getting to be a widespread problem. Any ideas on this? What are your thoughts?

A friend, jukebox & kind responder sent me a message on the headlined topic & subject matter a while ago that was recently given the go-ahead to be reproduced for the public. We had been talking about a television show i hesitate to name. We also talked about how I had thought the show was taking from Dick without giving credit. In hindsight, I was quite naïve, which you may notice my friend subdued the urge to tell me.

As of yet, I haven’t seen an entire episode of “Heroes.” I’ve seen bits and pieces of different episodes. So, I am familiar with the shows premise and some of its characters.

As for the regurgitation of Dick’s work, so far, I can see the similarities in the characters’ abilities. But, I don’t think the characters themselves are carbon copies. Dick’s work is a lot darker and more political.

“Heroes” is just the PG-way of telling the same story to a mass audience who didn’t read comic books, science fiction or anything else.

I can just imagine people watching this show and being in awe of a concept that they think is so original. That kind of situation sounds all too familiar to a Dick plot: Surreal fantasies, with characters discovering that their world is an illusion.

Oh yeah, and “Heroes” also reminded me of a show I used to watch on Nickelodeon called “The Tomorrow People.” Do you remember it? Basically, human evolution is taking place, and these evolved people are calling themselves “The Tomorrow People.” The TP would go through a transition phase like an over night ordeal, and it was called something like “breaking out.” If they survived that ordeal they would gain psi powers such as telepathy, telekinesis or teleportation.

Didn’t the characters on “Heroes” just wake up with their abilities?

Well, kind-of. Some woke up with the abilities, while others were awake when their abilities began to manifest. But, there’s a good point in there: stories we have now appear to be rehashed, retold or done over in a modern-day lingo many can hear/see/hear-see.

Why? For a greater society’s benefit(s); to pass on a form of knowledge to the initiated; to inject a metaphysical booster shot; “these memories can’t wait.”

Which brings me to a Postmodern asterisk: the Media violates us so much (“How much does she violate us?!”), that it becomes quite impossible to formulate a purely original story. Originality in our veins? Blood through the brain. Even if originality is assumed to be realized, and proudly i’ll add from personal experience, there are some savvy fuckers who shoot sticky, haughty nay-saying into our hair, at last ruining the high-ride plane. To add insult to injury, we were asleep the whole time we dreamed we were soaring clean free. They’ve, the happy trigger nay-sayers, become priests in media temples or pious Media whores, saying, “Yes, Nature says it is so.” Think of it this way, it’d be like me claiming to have found the metaphorical meaning of… “Bob”.

As a frequent flyer, i’d like to think that my creative mind is sitting safely amongst the comforts of what i’d like to call my own seat. Me & my salty peanuts. What is being avoided, quite blindly, is the fact that my creativity is apart of a bigger picture: us; the passengers, the seats, the oxygenated air, the pilots & crew and of coarse the plane. There is no me without we. (Or is it, “there is no we without me”?) We/me are/is telling ourselves/myself some important shit, a whole “new” outlook on life worth verbalizing, hence the creative output i’d like to call my own.

Which brings the crux of why originality can be such an elusive specter. Simply stated – maybe – a magician uses the language & elements in his/her environs to produce Magick. Or, an artist uses the language & elements in his/her environs to produce Art.

If all this is too much digital hoopla to handle in a given reading; if your lingering question is: what is all the scribbles & scratches & monkey pounding so far connected here worth; where is the true value of an art? If the question is there (or not), then let’s entertain an applicable tangent about how “You Remind Me of Me” (by Benedict Carey, at the NYT, published on February 12, this year of our Lord or in our current Common Era).

Artful persuasion depends on eye contact, but not just any kind. If one person prefers brief glances and the other is busy staring deeply, then it may not matter how good the jokes are or how much they both loved “Juno.” Rhythm counts.

Voice cadence does, too. People who speak in loud, animated bursts tend to feed off others who do the same, just as those who are lower key tend to relax in a cool stream of measured tones.

We have people making a living copying each other’s behavior in order to sell & create a market of the other. Arguably, whether or not the selling is justified or moral is a question for the cows when they do make it home.

Psychologists have been studying the art of persuasion for nearly a century, analyzing activities like political propaganda, television campaigns and door-to-door sales. Many factors influence people’s susceptibility to an appeal, studies suggest, including their perception of how exclusive an opportunity is and whether their neighbors are buying it.

Most people are also strongly sensitive to rapport, to charm, to the social music in the person making the pitch. In recent years, researchers have begun to decode the unspoken, subtle elements that come into play when people click.

They have found that immediate social bonding between strangers is highly dependent on mimicry, a synchronized and usually unconscious give and take of words and gestures that creates a current of good will between two people.

By understanding exactly how this process works, researchers say, people can better catch themselves when falling for an artful pitch, and even sharpen their own social skills in ways they may not have tried before.

Myths & meaning vary with people. Land in space & time observed through the focus of human beings. Past, present & future not in isolation but in regards to space. Shared & the bonds strengthen as a consequence. The prevalent popular culture of a given society tells us which bonds are possible. More bonds & the intensity of shared experience grows with strength. Myths & the meaning of experience vary with complexity. The human animal’s complexity fluctuates in multiple dimensions, constantly.

Imitation is one of the most common and recognizable behaviors in the animal kingdom. Just as baby chimps learn to climb by aping their elders, so infants pick up words and gestures by copying parents. They sense and mimic peers’ behavior from early on, too, looking up at the ceiling if others around them do so or mirroring others’ cringes of fear and anxiety.

Such behavioral contagion probably evolved early for survival, some scientists argue. It is what scatters a flock well before most members see a lunging predator.

Yet by drawing on apparently similar skills, even in seemingly trivial ways, people can prompt almost instantaneous cooperation from complete strangers.

Studies have found that if an invested other tries to sell us, and we know he/she is invested, we are inclined to reject the offer. (Noted, the studies were in an infantile state; only 37 university students were observed). “But we found that people who were mimicked actually felt more strongly about the product when they knew the other person was invested in it.”

Any amiable conversation provides ample evidence of this subconscious social waltz. Smiles are contagious. So is nodding, in an amiable conversation.

Accents converge quickly and automatically. A country chime or an Irish whistle can seemingly infect the voice of a New Yorker in a 10-minute phone call.

Later on in the article we are told that “when you’re being mimicked in a good way, it communicates a kind of pleasure, a social high you’re getting from the other person, and I suspect it activates the areas of the brain involved in sensing reward” by Jean Decety, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, said in the article.

Social mimicry can and does go wrong. At its malicious extreme, it curdles into mockery, which is why people often recoil when they catch of whiff of mimicry, ending any chance of a social bond. Preliminary studies suggest that the rules change if there is a wide cultural gap between two people. For almost everyone else, however, subtle mimicry comes across as a form of flattery, the physical dance of charm itself. And if that kind of flattery doesn’t close a deal, it may just be that the customer isn’t buying.

Everyone has the right to be charmed but not seduced.

In hindsight but with not enough foresight, the following observation might tie this gift of blog for you, Dear Reader. It was a gift from Schopenhauer, which probably conveys the deeper truths being searched for, in turn bringing to light, like receiving a toy we had not fathomed to be in existence, the inner meaning of play thus far played:

Everything that is really fundamental in a man, and therefore genuine works, as such, unconsciously; in this respect like the power of nature. That which has passed through the domain of consciousness is thereby transformed into an idea or picture; and so if it comes to be uttered, it is only an idea or picture which passes from one person to another.

Accordingly, any quality of mind or character that is genuine and lasting, is originally unconscious; and it is only when unconsciously brought into play that it makes a profound impression. If any like quality is consciously exercised, it means that it has been worked up; it becomes intentional, and therefore matter of affectation, in other words, of deception.

If a man does a thing unconsciously, it costs him no trouble; but if he tries to do it by taking trouble, he fails. This applies to the origin of those fundamental ideas which from the pith and marrow of all genuine work. Only that which is innate is genuine and will hold water; and every man who wants to achieve something, whether in practical life, in literature, or in art, must follow the rules without knowing them.