What is your big idea? Here's mine (from an email on the essence of the idea):
Subject: The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it.
In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below, it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone — in what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking? But in the force fields of fallacy that people hide behind today, you can claim to be a critical thinker and not do anything that remotely reflects its requirements. What was once understood as a demanding process that puts your mind to the test: Is now one Tweet away from glory in the Gutter Games of Government. In this fantasyland where liars are loved as bastions of virtue and people telling you what you wanna hear are “geniuses”:
You can “win” an argument without even knowing what the issue’s about.
And the professionals answer to America suffocating in an atmosphere of absurdity? Endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways. It’s all an illusion of progress — perfectly captured by John Wooden’s “Never mistake activity for achievement.” But there’s an opportunity to turn it all around — by taking the problem and turning it into a solution. A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything. And you do it by holding one man to his own “standards”: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And that — is an opportunity! How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach. I’ve got the perfect pillar — on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today). I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts we were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Your field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had. Imagine! There was a time when we did.
What is your big idea? Here's mine (from an email on the essence of the idea):
Subject: The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it.
In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below, it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone — in what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking? But in the force fields of fallacy that people hide behind today, you can claim to be a critical thinker and not do anything that remotely reflects its requirements. What was once understood as a demanding process that puts your mind to the test: Is now one Tweet away from glory in the Gutter Games of Government. In this fantasyland where liars are loved as bastions of virtue and people telling you what you wanna hear are “geniuses”:
You can “win” an argument without even knowing what the issue’s about.
And the professionals answer to America suffocating in an atmosphere of absurdity? Endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways. It’s all an illusion of progress — perfectly captured by John Wooden’s “Never mistake activity for achievement.” But there’s an opportunity to turn it all around — by taking the problem and turning it into a solution. A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything. And you do it by holding one man to his own “standards”: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And that — is an opportunity! How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach. I’ve got the perfect pillar — on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today). I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts we were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Your field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had. Imagine! There was a time when we did.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Richard W. Memmer