Today we witnessed what was ostensibly the death of Dr. Barnaby Oblivion, details of which, if you’re reading this at all, can be found in an elsewhere you already know about. What you might not have caught was this, Barnaby’s blog post affirming that he is not, in fact, dead at all. Go check it out.

So now we’re in the design phase, and to that end we had some listening/watching to do. First Tim Owens on how we are all artists. Tim, much respect, but I have to disagree with you on just one point (and even that may be just the result of a misunderstanding): When you assume that everyone is on equal footing creatively. Specifically how you say that the Mozarts and the factory workers aren’t actually separated at birth. Now, maybe we’re talking about two different things: talent and creativity, but I have to say that, yes, Mozart was exceptionally talented and that was an accident of his genes. Mozart was born into a musical family, but Leopold Mozart would have had to have been another Wolfgang to encourage that kind of talent that early in his son – assuming the tabula rasa hypothesis.

Now there’s a great case for the separation of talent and creativity – just go to any Guitar Center on a Saturday afternoon and listen to the shredders and slappers. Talented, but not very creative. Or look at Regretsy to see creativity without talent. It sounds heretical in this day and age to assume that we are not all created equal, but it’s readily observable. If we agree to separate talent and creativity, then yes, I do agree with you, Tim. Creativity is a learned behavior and can be fostered or suppressed. As a musician, I know I’m extremely talented, but there wasn’t much music in my house after early days and the Miracle Piano Teaching System. But I and my male ancestors, at least back to my grandfather (I know nothing about his father) have been musicians with varying degrees of enthusiasm. My dad’s dad wasn’t around and his mom wasn’t musical. How do you explain his affinity? And sometimes I’m creative musically, but sometimes I just go through the motions. Lately I haven’t played at all. And maybe we can attribute that to the fact that I’m not around other musicians very much (my roommate is a fellow bassist, so it’s not like we can jam) and hence creativity is environmental.

Other than that, I liked the talk – I promised myself to check out those resources (there are already like a dozen fonts from DaFont that I want to install) more than just cursorily soon.

Next up was Everything is a Remix, Part 3. After watching this I plan to go watch the first two and stay tuned for Part 4. This one was definitely right up my alley. Like a lot of college kids, I had an Ayn Rand phase (it was mercifully brief) which still affects my thinking somewhat. One of her premises, especially in The Fountainhead, is that it is (usually) readily identifiable individuals who alone are responsible for the achievements which contribute to human progress. And to some extent I still believe that – I don’t think innovation is inevitable. I do think it takes intellectual rogues to defy the status quo, but I also don’t think that it is entirely incumbent upon them. I submit for your consideration George Lucas. Whatever you may think of him now, he did revolutionize special effects in filmmaking with Star Wars. After that, people like Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg or continued to improve upon the model, but you also have the original Battlestar Galactica series which was an obvious attempt to capitalize on what Lucas had done, and not that . Was it inevitable? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. Film was doing just fine before 1977 and probably could have kept going just fine without Lucas’ innovations. My point is, yes, all the elements were there beforehand but it takes a unique mind to put them together in a certain way. One of the major points of the video was this idea of independent invention – Newton and Leibniz are a perfect example. Or the Wright brothers and all the attempts at flight that had been made beforehand. The point is, with so many people in the world (we’re nearing 7 billions today), all it takes is two people similarly configured neurologically (no matter where they are) to make the same cognitive leap. If everyone were so configured, imagine where we’d be today. Or maybe you can’t, since (I think, anyway) human potential is beyond what we can even think of. But the point is, the vast majority of people, for whatever reason, valid or no, have no concerns above and beyond getting by. Still others put their creative energy to use exploiting those people. Collective change is slow and plodding, and maybe inevitable, but not close to the timescale we’re talking. But sometimes you get sparks, and those sparks set off flammables – and then the world is aflame with innovation.