Never give in...
never, never, never, never,
in nothing great or small,
large or petty,
never give in
except to convictions of honor and good sense.
Never yield to force...
never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Winston Churchill
Too Funny: An Author Pleads For Crowdsourcing
You could understand this point of view from a different context: bootleg recordings of recording artists' live performances. Most popular artists sooner or later release one or more authorized "live" compilations (particularly after Peter Frampton's unbelievable success with his mid-70's album). But I could easily see cases of impromptu guest performances or failed official recordings when, years later, say, Bruce Springsteen says, "Just before we went on tour in 1979, we went to this little club near Philadelphia. We were in the zone that night, but we don't have a suitable quality recording of the event." One could easily see where Springsteen fans might check to see if any fan at the club that night recorded the event.
In fact, free products or services have been a way of building a larger audience for future transactions. But science fiction author Walter Jon Williams decided to use piracy for his own benefit in a delightful tongue-in-cheek post called "Crowdsource, please":
I’m striving to get my out-of-print books and stories online so that (a) you can enjoy them, and (b) I can make a few bucks...I discovered that my work had been pirated, and was available for free...I figured I’d let the pirates do the work, and steal from them... [But] the scans were truly dreadful and full of errors [and] apparently a few of my books were so obscure that they flew under the radar of even the pirates!..So I’m willing to trade. Should any of you volunteer to provide scans of [any of 3 out-of-print books], that lucky individual will get a signed, personalized copy of the WJW book of his or her choice [and be acknowledged in a future edition of the missing volume].PC World has an interesting post up arguing Why History Needs Software Piracy. No, this piece is not encouraging illegal mass distribution of copyrighted work. It's best understood in context. For example, I've got some unusable licensed music tracks from a former digital music distributor; in other cases, I've exhausted my digital rights simply as an artifact of having to reformat the hard drive on a notebook PC and restore from backup without making a single copy to media or another device. There are other classic pop songs which aren't available through iTunes or Amazon. Books or journals go out of print (I published 3 book chapters in the 1990's).
To be honest, I've never made a penny from anything I've published, whether it's a dozen articles or another 6 national conference proceedings and book chapters (and, of course, these blogs). I've occasionally thought about making available my academic and professional articles and book chapters, but there are also publisher contractual rights to consider.
My mom once asked me why I'm writing this blog--it's not like I'm making any money off it. I think initially I wanted to use it to flesh out some ideas for future political volumes; that's still a possibility, but to be honest with pageviews reaching in the dozens versus thousands, if I was to become a commercial success, my sales wouldn't get much of a boost off of the blog. Second, I thought perhaps my prolific, high quality commentaries with a fairly distinctive perspective might attract the interest of a publishing group. For the most part, the blog is more of an exercise in discipline: I found when I was teaching, I always came to class with prepared lecture notes in detail. In a similar fashion, I find in presenting my political perspective, I often have to research various topics to an exhaustive degree, sometimes with a dozen or more links.
It also provides a paper trail of my evolving political views which I find interesting. When I started off the blog, I was more tolerant of nation building, federal government leadership in education, and a more active Fed Reserve role.
Greatest Innovators?
Lemelson-MIT have an annual invention index. Among other things, they poll teens and young adults as to their ranking of inventors or innovators. This year's ranking was headed by Thomas Edison (52%), Steve Jobs (24%), Alexander Bell (10%), Marie Curie (5%), and Mark Zuckerberg (3%).
Let's just say I have a different take. Jobs and Zuckerberg would not even be listed among my honorable mentions; I see them more as marketers than inventors; certainly their products or services have been innovative and popular but more evolutionary than revolutionary.
I first would like to acknowledge the context which I believe contributes to American leadership in innovation: from a political standpoint, we have English philosopher John Locke, whom provided the intellectual context for our Declaration of Independence, and James Madison the Father of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights and our government's balance of powers; from a philosophical standpoint, the American pragmatist school (championed by Peirce, James, and Dewey); from a management perspective, scientific management founder Frederick Taylor, IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, and quality guru W. Edwards Deming.
I would argue that technology has had a number of important leaders, starting with the Wright brothers and air/space travel/warfare; Watson and Crick (DNA) and the human genome project; and Intel's microprocessor and Microsoft's cross-vendor personal computing operating system in the world of high tech.
It's almost a crime to single out any one person or movement. There are hundreds, if not thousands of innovators whom should be recognized. But I'm at a loss to explain how Dean Kamen, probably the best known American inventor today, didn't place high on the list. I have embedded a couple of videos below. I think one of the more interesting points discussed was when DoD went to Kamen to ask about development of an artificial limb; he mentions how he expected a thick specification document, not to mention years of going through FDA approval. The context seems to suggest that DoD was more interested in giving Kamen room he needed to achieve his goal versus trying to micromanage the process. I would have liked to have heard more about these issues; a simple Google search reveals references to Kamen's rants about FDA red tape.
My personal experience is that creativity requires both hard work and an ability to question one's own assumptions. Peer pressure or groupthink (including pervasive progressive ideology in most universities) is not conducive to creative approaches. I found in trying to do something new I often had to battle resistance to change, skeptical colleagues, etc. Most young people at one time or another question authority and/or bureaucracy, and I think that the relevant frame of mind is more likely to come from a libertarian than a communitarian standpoint. Still, Kamen is clearly moved, especially in the second video, talking about how wounded warriors have gained a degree of independence from his efforts.
Let me just say for the record: I am a deficit hawk, but I will not balance the budget on the back of people whom sacrificed their health and limbs in the service of their country.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Queen, "Bicycle Race"/"Fat-Bottomed Girls"
