Parasites, failure, and useful ideas
1. Dan Dennett: Ants, terrorism, and the awesome power of memes:
If you work with people on ideas, you’ve probably seen it happen many times before: a bad idea is introduced, the team goes with it, and somewhere along the line, we realize it’s all about to go very badly.
Ideas replicate (especially bad ones) with a mind of their own. Kill the bad ones, and keep the good ones.
2. From J.K. Rowlings’ talk on the benefits of failing, and the importance of imagination:
“Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
3. Give out good ideas for free (vid)
Not only will they get smarter, but they’ll also thank you
4. The Machine is Us/ing Us: Web 2.0 (a very infectious idea) explained in under 5 minutes (all of them captivating):
