The Domain of the Future
In this chapter, CS means to explore creative ideas in terms of social institutions, profiling individuals whose contributions caused significant changes to the organization of the human community.
(EN: These later chapters seem to be falling into a pattern - stories that reflect bits and pieces of ideas discussed in previous chapters - so I will likely not be taking detailed reading notes.)
The Science of Survival
The author profiles an ecologist, who was among the first to raise the issue of environmental pollution by industry.
His early inspiration was the damage caused by nuclear weapons and the contamination that resulted from weapons development tests - in which he recognized man's power to do severe, wide-spread, and long-lasting damage that had the potential to render the planet uninhabitable.
He also recognized that this was not merely a scientific problem, but a political and economic one, as the discoveries of science put tremendous power in the hands of a few, and those few had little incentive to use it responsibly. The military controlled nuclear weapons and large corporations had facilities that could pollute the land, water, and air.
His work consisted largely of being a whistle-blower and an alarmist, calling attention to these potential problems without offering a practical solution. He also noted that he was struggling to convince people of abstract concerns that ran contrary to more concrete and recognizable problems.
Naturally, this led to a great deal of rejection. Those who profited from depleting and poisoning the environment wanted him to keep quite for mercenary reasons. And the common people simply did not care. Common people are decidedly anti-intellectual, and are so distracted by the prospect of cheap food that they fail to recognize (or pointedly ignore) the damage that industrialized agriculture does to the environment when practiced on a large scale.
(EN: What's lacking in this story is any significant sign of success. While environmentalism has gained popularity in common culture, it really doesn't seem to be making a significant difference - except making domestic products uncompetitive in the international market. Moreover, the movement is still stuck in the mode of bemoaning problems without providing solutions - which is not particularly creative or useful.)
Splicing Cultural DNA
Another ecologist is profiled: this one comes from an economic background rather than a scientific one, and her concern was more in the nature of sustainable economics than environmental protection.
The child of a wealthy family, she had little need of money, but instead sought travel and stimulation. She wrote to a number of Caribbean resorts, offering to "run their hotels" in exchange for room, board, and access to the guest services.
In this environment, she became acutely aware of the economic inequalities in the world - the contrast between the wealthy guests of "glittery" resorts and the abject poverty of the communities that surround them. From there, she extended her perspective to consider the global economy - how the top seven industrialized nations represent only 13% of the world's population but consume a majority of its resources.
(EN: I can't refrain from interjecting that this point of view pointedly ignores productivity - while a population/consumption comparison suggests parasitism, what we find is that the nations that consume the most also produce the most. Comparisons of per-capita GDP to per-capita consumption bear this out. Whether it's individual people or nations, the path to prosperity is the same: you must produce more than you consume to amass wealth.)
She struck upon the idea that the reason it was not recognized as a problem is largely due to myopia: that progress on the part of one person, organization, or nation comes at no cost to any other. Her belief was that the world is a zero-sum system, and that for one to gain another must lose. While this makes little sense economically, she turned to the notion of "complexity" - which is a bit of a dodge.
(EN: The rest of the story doesn't seem to go much of anywhere. The person in question is a political activist, and another example of a person who points out problems they are unable to solve.)
(EN: The same can be said of the two other stories that follow in the chapter. They are mini-biographies that touch on the concept of creativity in one way or another, but introduce nothing new to the discussion.)