Kim Jones wrote:
> On 23/03/2009, at 1:56 AM, John Mikes wrote:
>
>
>> Russell,
>> you are not alone as the target of this remark...
>>
>> Many people consider 'creativity' (like "change", "quality" etc.) a
>> POSITIVE concept. - WRONG. -
>> Just consider the recent creative financial genius Maddoff, with his
>> b$50 scam - he was creative. And so are tyrants, criminals, galore.
>> (Don't forget politicians<G>)
>>
>
>
> But surely people are driven by their VALUES, John? Creativity is like
> a gun - it's about as good or as bad as the person wielding it. I
> could go one better than you in this direction: the perpetrators of
> 9/11 were creative geniuses (as Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer
> said publicly on the day of 9/11, after seeing the TV images). They
> gave the world an incredibly potent lesson in Lateral Thinking: when
> is a jetliner not a jetliner? When it's a BOMB...
>
> But you fail to mention the beneficial creativity of people like Ray
> Kurzweil (My Kurzweil 2500 sampling keyboard-synthesiser will be
> buried with me in my coffin), Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the Web)
> and - well, I'm tempted to add Steven Wolfram for his Alpha Net engine
> but then I can hear the howls of disapproval already.
>
> John, if it hadn't been for creativity the human race would still be
> living in caves and living in fear of darkness and night.
>
> Creativity merely IS, like elephants and soy beans. You can use it to
> do "good" or "wreak evil". More or less the proof that it is something
> real and worthy of our further effort of understanding.
>
>
> Madoff was (is) indeed creative - I wouldn't give you five cents for
> his values though. Hitler was in some respects a creative genius,
> unfortunately he possessed very dubious values.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Kim
Actually, Madoff was just skillful - not creative. Ponzi was creative.
Brent
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Received on Wed Mar 25 2009 - 13:03:48 PDT