{"id":7463,"date":"2012-04-05T21:59:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T21:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=7463"},"modified":"2012-04-06T01:30:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T01:30:51","slug":"the-future-lies-with-those-individuals-who-can-see-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=7463","title":{"rendered":"The future lies with those individuals who can see connections"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — gaming the future, rethinking thinking, NPS essay contest, mixing drinks ]
\n.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d like to introduce what may be a new format for my DoubleQuotes<\/strong> and SPECS<\/strong>. It features two ideas — in this case, the telephone and the game console — which merge into one via some overlap between them — here, the iPhone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You want the neurosciwence behind all this? Try Fauconnier <\/strong>and Turner<\/strong>‘s The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and The Mind’s Hidden Complexities<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It was a piece by Benjamin Kohlmann<\/strong> in today’s Small Wars Journal<\/strong> titled The Military Needs More Disruptive Thinkers<\/a> that triggered this post.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Listen up: <\/p>\n

The future lies with those individuals who can see connections across a myriad of professions and intellectual pursuits.  The mind that can see that a phone and entertainment device can be intertwined into something like, say, an iPhone<\/a>.  Or, an intellect that recognizes how secondary and tertiary networks are often more valuable than first-order relationships<\/a>, thus creating something like LinkedIn.  Or the strategist who understands that crowdsourced, horizontally structured non-state actors pose a greater threat to our security<\/a> than Nation states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s from today’s Small Wars Journal<\/strong> piece — and when I read that paragraph, I was way too excited to read the rest, because:<\/p>\n

1. That’s what my series of posts [1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>, 4<\/a>, 5<\/a>] on Arthur Koestler<\/strong>‘s notion of intersecting concepts has been all about, and…<\/p>\n

2. I’ve been working on a family of games that will train people — pleasurably — in precisely this kind of “overlap” thinking for at least fifteen years now. Don Oldenberg<\/strong> of the Washington Post described one of my games as an “on-line match of ricocheting intellects<\/a>” back in 1996.<\/p>\n

But you’ll be hearing more on #2 in the not too distant, once our team has all its ducks in a row — and black swans permitting.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Hey, this kind of thinking can get you noticed<\/strong><\/em> — it’s what last year’s Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security essay contest<\/a> [link opens .pdf] boiled down to:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

If you’ll permit me a quick detour:<\/p>\n

Not only that, it’s also the basis for cocktail hour!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It appears that the Bartender’s Guide<\/a> was first published in 1862, so bartenders have been doing this — mixing ideas, mixing drinks — for at least a century and a half. Maybe the fact that they work with liquor has something to do with it.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In any case, isn’t it time for the rest of us to catch up?<\/p>\n

The future lies with those individuals who can see connections across a myriad of professions and intellectual pursuits.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — gaming the future, rethinking thinking, NPS essay contest, mixing drinks ] . I’d like to introduce what may be a new format for my DoubleQuotes and SPECS. It features two ideas — in this case, the telephone and the game console — which merge into one via some overlap between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,21,529,624,718,678,162,1,42],"tags":[740],"class_list":["post-7463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-creativity","category-games","category-hipbone-games","category-rethinking-thinking","category-sembl","category-small-wars-journal","category-uncategorized","category-washington-post","tag-koestler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7463"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7504,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions\/7504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}