We Need To Play Each Others Instruments.

One Of The Founding Moments Of Public Health In The 19th Century Effectively Poisoned The Water Supply Of London Much More Effectively Than Any Modern Day Bioterrorist Could Have Ever Dreamed Of Doing.

The Patterns Are Simple, But Followed Together, They Make For A Whole That Is Wiser Than The Sum Of Its Parts. Go For A Walk; Cultivate Hunches; Write Everything Down, But Keep Your Folders Messy; Embrace Serendipity; Make Generative Mistakes; Take On Multiple Hobbies; Frequent Coffeehouses And Other Liquid Networks; Follow The Links; Let Others Build On Your Ideas; Borrow, Recycle; Reinvent. Build A Tangled Bank.

I Suspect Millions Of People From My Generation Probably Have Comparable Stories To Tell: If Not Of Sports Simulations Then Of Dungeons & Dragons, Or The Geopolitical Strategy Of Games Like Diplomacy, A Kind Of Chess Superimposed Onto Actual History.

One Of The Stories I Love Is How Gutenberg’s Printing Press Set Off This Interesting Chain Reaction, Where All Of A Sudden People Across Europe Noticed For The First Time That They Were Farsighted, And Needed Spectacles To Read Books (which They Hadn’t Really Noticed Before Books Became Part Of Everyday Life); Which Then Created A Market For Lens Makers, Which Then Created Pools Of Expertise In Crafting Lenses, Which Then Led People To Tinker With Those Lenses And Invent The Telescope And Microscope, Which Then Revolutionized Science In Countless Ways.

We Are Often Better Served By Connecting Ideas Than We Are By Protecting Them.