Product Innovation – This fun and creative blog by Hagai Bichler has his own undeveloped ideas for inventions and innovations (like myself, he apparently likes the brainstorming part better than trying to raise capital, make prototypes, and so on). He also has a small section of “Top New Products.”

Enchanted Learning – This is essentially an online encyclopedia of both inventions and inventors. You can click on a period from ancient to modern times to see what innovations were happening then and who was inventing things. You can click on a country to see what has been invented there. You can choose a category like clothing or medicine. Or you can just go alphabetically through all the inventions and inventors listed.

Top 10 Inventions 2011 – This article on MSNBC.com looks at some pretty cool inventions and innovations. The Stark Hand, for example, is a new prosthetic that allows its user to catch balls or hold a glass of wine. The BodyGuard is a “crime-fighting armored glove,” and yes, there are photos for each of the entries here.

Four Hour Work Week – This is the personal blog of Tim Ferriss, the author of “The Four Hour Work Week” and other books. He often writes about new ideas and tricks for doing things more efficiently. The last time I checked out his blog he was reporting on office-related innovations.

Life Hacker – This fun site has hundreds of ideas on how to do things in new ways. Recent posts include:

Use Chalkboard Paint to Make Reusable, Dishwasher Safe Labels for Your Storage Jars

The New New: Apple Gadgets, Repurposed Smartphones, and the Best Cable Ever

Recycle Jeans Into a Garden Apron

Top Ten Things – This site of lists has a post on the “10 Most Weird Inventions of 2012.” Pizza scissors, stairs that are also drawers (someone is going to get killed using those), and a “butter stick” for applying butter to toast are among the items covered. There is a lot of creativity exhibited here, even if there isn’t much usefulness.

Brainstorming Articles – Don’t forget our own brainpower site, which in addition to other innovation resources has a a collection of pages on brainstorming.

The basic idea suggested was to have visitors to an art museum get tokens for each room they visit, and distribute those into collection boxes for each painting they like, putting in as few or as many as they like. The artists would then receive some compensation according to the monthly token count. There was more to the scheme, of course, but that is the basic outline.

Apart from the appeal to artists, there is something else that makes this an interesting plan. It is that we would see which “art” is truly appreciated by the public and which is not. In fact, it might be fun for the museum to have an “unknown artist” day, when the paintings are not labeled, and the artists signatures covered. Throw in some decent amateur paintings and we could see if the masters are really enjoyed that much more by viewers, or if the name is a big part of what brings them in.

In another post the author looked at the concept of “weighted democracy,” in which a political literacy test would determine the weight of each citizen’s vote. This one generated a few responses, as you might guess, and there are some potential problems with the approach. But whether or not the idea is worth implementing or not, I love to see out-of-the-box thinking like this.

Democracy is not some sacred idea. It might be the best of the many imperfect ways to organize political power and governance, but then again, we have seen historical examples of terrible leaders being elected to do terrible things, and no majority makes something right by their mere common desire. So perhaps we need some new kind of democracy, but maybe we also need to look for a better system to replace it altogether. I’m not sure what that could be, but it never hurts to consider new ideas.

Loved the blog so far. I hope thinkspherical.wordpress.com/ will be around for a while.

1. We know how de-motivating it can be to dwell on past mistakes, but it can be a hard habit to break. If there is a specific mistake that you keep thinking about, take time to sit down and make a note of every lesson you learned from that mistake. Then tell yourself that you have learned what you need to, so you can drop the matter. If it pops up again in your mind, remind yourself that you don’t need to think about it any longer, and immediately start concentrating on something more productive.

2. Praise people when they do well. Doing so creates a different atmosphere that not only helps that person feel better about himself, but makes you feel better as well. It also subconsciously motivates you to do praiseworthy things. Look for an opportunity to praise someone for a job well done today.

3. Start developing the habits of courage. Fear is just an emotion, but taking advice from your fears is a problem. The more you do it, the more of a habit it becomes. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. Do what needs to be done when faced with any fear, large or small, and it will become a habit that changes your life.

4. Complaining is not only a waste of energy, but a obstacle to seeing what can be done and doing it. If things could not be different, there is no point to complaining, and it sucks away your productive energy. If things can be different, think about how to change them instead of complaining. Watch yourself today, and at the first hint of a complaint, however subtle, immediately turn your thinking in a more productive direction.

5. Make “problems” into adventure stories. A problem is often defined by our interior dialog about it. Think “overwhelming” enough, and it starts to feel that way. Why not think about how you’ll look back on the problem when you have overcome it? See yourself telling the story as an adventure. Try this and you’ll find that it is far more motivating than worrying.

6. Practice being a good listener. It doesn’t necessarily come naturally. Keep quiet while others are speaking, and speak up only to ask relevant questions, so they can better explain whatever their point is. This practice will not only let you learn more (you already know what you have to say), but will help you get along better with people.

7. Make your major goals into small steps. This makes them easier to act on and accomplish. For example, if you want to save for retirement, their are steps you can take today. You could open a savings account, buy a book on investing, or make a form to track your savings. Write down many small steps that will carry you towards your goals.

8. Think of something you are looking forward to as soon as you wake up. This makes it easier to get excited about the day, and therefore easier to get out of bed.

9. Watch out for short-term thinking. When parents give their children candy or other sweets to quiet them, they’re teaching their kids to whine and cry for rewards. Soon they suffer the consequences of their short-term thinking, because the world at large offers little to those who whine and complain. We do the same with ourselves when we take our “candy,” without looking at the whole picture. I’m sure you can see how debt problems, wrecked relationships, unhealthy bodies, and more result from this. Consider the long-term consequences (good and bad) of the things you do today.

I won’t offer these kinds of general tips for life very often, but if you have your own to add to the list, feel free to do so in the comment area below.

One man says that business needs to be heavily regulated and taxed for the good of society. Another says that this leads to less economic growth and therefore more poverty. They each have their arguments and make them, setting them more firmly in their minds as they do battle. No minds are changed, as is common in such circumstances.

Had each actually allowed for the possibility that the other saw something real, they might have found common ground and new understandings. Perhaps the first knew of massive corruption in corporations, the cost of which was passed on to taxpayers. The second may have learned something new, and then pointed out that much of the corruption was actually due to regulations that favored corporations, teaching the other to see from another perspective.

We argue from what we see, and since we generally continue to “see” different evidence from our own experiences, nobody wins. On the other hand if I shut up and listen to what you have to say, my mind might become more powerful with the addition of your ideas and knowledge. There is no guarantee this will happen, but I know that it rarely happens from listening to my own ideas over and over, right? Paying attention to what the other person is saying is the better way to learn and to increase the power of one’s thinking.

Why argue? What does it accomplish? Here are some more questions to ponder:

1. How often have you actually changed a person’s mind through direct ideological confrontation and argument?

2. When you hear a position you disagree with, do you normally start arguing against it or do you first ask the person why he or she holds the position, and what evidence they have?

3. When is the last time you listened to an someone explain something that was contradictory to a strong belief of yours–without arguing or ignoring them?

4. Certainly there are times when arguing is appropriate, so when are these times?

“The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself. As we do that, Darwin’s rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken. By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution, we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires.

If you turned off the electricity in the United States, you would see millions of people die quickly, because they wouldn’t have asthma medications, respirators, insulin, a whole host of things we invented to prevent people from dying. Eventually, we get to the point where evolution is guided by what we’re engineering. That’s a big deal. Today’s plastic surgery is going to seem tame compared to what’s coming.”

Enriquez points out that although at this pint we are almost identical to Neanderthals genetically, that can change quickly. DNA sequencing technology and other science is advancing at a faster and faster pace. He warns that because science is close to sequencing 10,000 human genomes, we may soon have to deal with the biological fact of variation among groups of people, and the resulting ethical considerations (do we want to know which groups are superior or inferior in this or that aspect, and what do we do with that information?).

In regards to the speed at which economic changes can happen, Enriquez says;

“In the industrial revolution, it took a lifetime to build enough industry to double the wealth of a country. In the knowledge revolution, you can build billion-dollar companies with 20 people very quickly. The implication is that you can double the wealth of a country very quickly. In Korea in 1975, people had one-fifth of the income of Mexicans, and today they have five times more. Even the poorest places can generate wealth quickly.”

It is fascinating to think that if we have a rational framework for change, we can make huge advances in health and economics in the span of a generation or two. A new human species? That may be a ways off. But a radically new world to live in may not be that far away, for better or worse.

A Cybernetic Brain -  Some speculation on the technology coming to a brain near you (the one behind your eyes).  (Brain Power News Blog)

Some Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence – How close are we, and what will it mean? (Increase Brainpower Website)

Mind Power Techniques – One specific one explained with an example.  (Brain Power News Blog)

Truly Radical Welfare Reform – This is an idea you probably haven’t heard of. (999 Ideas)

Fast Thinker – Are you a fast thinker? We all are at a level below consciosuness.  (Brain Power News Blog)

The Psychology of Bribery – Why do some cultures have more bribery than others?  (Brain Power News Blog)

Real or Imaginary – How do we distinguish between memories that are real and thoughts we once had?  (Brain Power News Blog)

Everyone Is Wrong (Even When They Are Right) – A look at the uncertainty of certainty. (My personal blog)

Are We Less Violent? – Steven Pinker says we are, but I wonder how we define this.  (Brain Power News Blog)

Learning Using Imagination – A technique to try today.  (Brain Power News Blog)

Fear and the Brain – What you can do to overcome the effects of fear on thinking. (Increase Brainpower Website)

You can also subscribe via your RSS reader to this and my other blogs (although the option is not yet available on some of the websites), so you’ll get the latest creative ideas posts right on your desktop.

It is clear that our minds are very powerful. We are capable of creating amazing things, some of which are very beneficial to humans. But the pursuit of knowledge and the use of that knowledge is not motivated only by a desire to do the most real good, is it? With all the potential motivations operating in the minds of humans, how do we know that we are pursuing actual values?

For example, we can design an economy that excels in raw productive power, but without asking whether economic health beyond a certain level has any correlation to human happiness. A military genius can know everything about how to win a war, yet never understand which wars should actually be engaged in to achieve what really matters. On a personal level, a man can excel at the art of the job interview, only to get a series of jobs that destroy his character and peace of mind.

Given this potential to misdirect our power because of many misguided motivations, it seems possible that we are living in a world of “”mistaken” technologies. We have poured genius into creating ever larger and more luxurious living spaces without ever questioning the underlying premise that having more and bigger things will make us happier. We have poured genius into making cars which perhaps cause more problems than real value in their current form.

Here are four questions to get you thinking about this subject:

1. Which dangers of technology are ignored too often?

2. How do we know whether a motivation is aligned with our true values?

3. What current technologies might be wrong for us?

4. How could we measure the value of technologies?

By the way, although this is about the dangers of technology, I should note that it is not anti-technology. I happen to think that many of the problems we have will only be solved through advancing technologies. That does not mean we should ignore the risks though.

Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) studied human response to a physical stimulus in a quantitative fashion. In one experiment, he blindfolded a man and gradually increased the weight he was holding. The subject was told to respond as soon as he felt the increase. It was found that the smallest difference a person can perceive as a difference, is proportional to the starting value of the weight. In other words, start at an ounce and a half-ounce difference is easy to detect, but start at ten pounds and you won’t notice a difference of several ounces.

Weber actually created an exact formula describing this. A century later scientists in the field of behavioral economics applied the idea to the “money decisions” that people make. It was stated something like this: A change of stimulus is more emotional and motivational, according to the base: Subjects tested would drive across town to save $10 on a $20 item, for example, but not to save $20 on a $500 item – even though the effort was the same for double the savings. For sales people, this means you probably won’t lose a sale on a thousand-dollar couch over a $20 difference, so forget about dropping the price and sell the other benefits.

This, by the way, is why car dealers can so successfully sell options for your new vehicle. The day before you bought that car, you may not have paid $200 for a stereo, but you easily agree to pay $400 for one as part of the car purchase. The reasoning goes like this, “What’s $400 more when I am already spending $24,000?” Well, actually, it’s the same amount as yesterday, but try to explain that to your subconscious mind.

Now that you are aware of Weber’s Law, here a couple questions to ponder:

- In what other areas of life would you expect to see the effects of Weber’s Law?

- How can you avoid making less-than-rational decisions due to this effect?

We should note that a license given by a government only requires a minimum standard that is primarily measured in terms of education and training, not performance. While the stated purpose is public safety, the practice of licensing leads the public to be complacent. In fact, people are complacent to the point where most will spend twice as much time researching which computer to buy than researching which doctors or lawyers or financial planners to use.

The premise that licensing encourages is that all who have a license are roughly equal in ability. This is clearly not true, and nobody would even claim it to be, but people do act as though this is the case. In addition to the complacency that results from licensing, it also discourages pay based on performance. It would make sense that among surgeons in the same hospital, those who kill twice as many patients as others should offer a discount, but once licensing becomes the norm, measuring and making public such performance statistics is less common.

It’s assumed that if licensing did not exist that we would all be at more risk, but this has not been proven in any systematic way. We see a more safety in an industry as licenses become the norm, but usually if you look at the history the standards were rising well before the calls for licensing. Customers can ask for credentials in any case, and it would be fraud to misrepresent ones experience or education, so hiring professionals with just as much training would still be possible. In any case, licenses or cerifications that are not legally required–and which may have higher standards–could be looked for customers. These are common in many industries that do not have legal licensing requirements. Also possible would be the choice to hire a skilled (and cheaper) professional who happened to have fewer degrees but did a good job anyhow. If it it really true that the overall risk is reduced by licensing, it seems there would be studies and evidence to supports this.

Now, here are two questions to get you thinking about the morality of licensing laws and the real intent.

1. If my friend wants me to sell his house for him, knowing I have no real estate license, and I am willing to do it, is it actually right to send me to jail for such a “crime?” What is the specific thing I did that is wrong?

2. What real purpose does the licensing of “low risk” professions serve, such as licenses for hair cutters and interior designers? What constituency do you think originally pushed for such laws?

The principle doesn’t really change if we elected others (government) to steal the money for us. After all, I could hire someone to steal from my neighbor and people would still call this a theft. Nor does it change anything to claim that it is for the victim’s own good. That’s for him to decide, isn’t it?

Well, that’s the theory, anyhow. Most people accept that some degree of government taxation and control is morally justified. They almost never have good arguments for this, and almost never think about the arguments which suggest taxation is theft, but that doesn’t mean those who favor taxes are wrong. It’s simply normal (perhaps regrettably) to forgo any serious and challenging thought about matters that “everyone” agrees upon. But what about those arguments for the right to tax people?

The arguments which claim that “rights come with responsibilities” are perhaps the weakest, since they suggest that if a man does not do whatever others claim to be his “responsibilities” he has no rights. The founders of the United States agreed with many other political philosophers, that rights are inherent in all humans–in other words you don’t have to “buy” them as the “rights come with responsibilities” argument suggests.

A stronger argument for taking resident’s money by force is that the alternative of anarchy is worse for all–presumably even for those individuals who would rather not pay taxes. Without an apparatus to protect individuals (a government), the existence of rights and freedom in theory doesn’t mean much.

But that doesn’t answer all the questions by any means. In fact, I leave you with four more, just to get you thinking about whether taxation is theft or when it might become so.

1. On what basis are we justified in taking a person’s money or property by force or threat of force (without that threat few would actually pay taxes).

2. How much of a person’s money can we take based on the purposes that justify this taking?

3. Which purposes do justify taxation?

4. Is there a moral difference between voting for others to take money from people and doing it yourself–even if used for the same purposes?

Personally I do not think taxation is theft (except in certain circumstances), but I don’t think because we disagree with an argument we should ignore it, especially if it has any small element of truth to it. Feel free to add you own thoughts below.