THE CREATIVE THINKING CLUB.
Challenging the current narratives.
So I was watching a video, one of many from AI as I can tell by the voice and the mis-pronounced words. Anyway, it was about the death of thinking and how we’ve created a stupid generation which operates only on information and validation. We’ve all seen these videos, or something like them. And what they all have in common is what AI itself brings to society, it can’t think creatively.
But we can…
I know it’s all AI because there were no creative solutions, no creative ideas, no attempt at all to address the situation, just to document it. So what you have is a video documenting and complaining about the death of creative thinking, brought to you by a machine that itself can’t think creatively, and so it is impossible to get any kind of resolution from the video, as it is a circular, closed information system.
So then I got an idea. Whether from God or not I’ll have to pray on, but I got an idea. It’s called the Creative Thinking Club. I wondered if I could teach a class on that. Wouldn’t that be interesting? I wonder who would take it? Would it be online or in person. If in person it would probably evolve into something resembling my Rhetoric class, one of my favorites from college. But the point is to take souls who have adopted and accepted the information / dopamine hit model of indoctrination, and through actually encouraging creative thinking, see what happens. My guess for most people is that it would be uncomfortable simply because the questions I would ask to start such debates would have no single answer, no simple answer, and maybe no answer at all. That’s what makes all this interesting, and creative.
So just for fun, let me post some of those questions, and see if anyone posts an answer, or a discussion, or even more questions. You can take these and ask friends and family and see what happens. I’m curious. Please let me know. So…
Why do we go to war?
Why do we work?
Why do we let two political parties control our government?
What if we boycotted AI, social media, and most of the internet and went back to a paper, phone call, and person to person economy?
Why do we let the government lower the value of our money?
Why are most buildings so boring?
What if we made our major cities, into city-states like in ancient times, and they had to be self-funding and self-sufficient?
Shouldn’t stores carry more kinds of cheese?
What are the consequences of losing the ability to afford private airplanes, private boats, and cottages?
Should we bring back the 140 species of apples we used to have?
Should we pay people to keep bees and chickens?
Do or did you teach your kids how to debate?
What if we returned to primarily a manufacturing economy?
Should Indian reservations be abolished?
How far are you on your bucket list?
Should the federal budget be up for a popular vote? Or maybe just a vote of 3/4 of the state legislatures?
How do you measure happiness?
Do you write creative articles, actual letters, or stories?
Do you “follow the science?”
Should we create internet free zones?
Should kids be required to learn how to use slide rules, sextants, and how to read paper maps?
Would you live in a tiny house? Should the homeless get tiny house communities?
What if all your purchases were to local businesses?
What if states authorized new and simple car manufacturing companies to operate intrastate, never going interstate and involving the feds?
What if we only used cash?
Would you amend the Constitution?
Where will the country be in 50 years?
What if churches set up a whole system of private schools, enough to eliminate all the gov’t schools?
What if we all became Amish?
What if you never bought processed food again?
What if everyone had a vegetable garden?
What if we disarmed the non-military federal government?
What if you only used your landline? Would you also use an answering machine?
What if all computer keystrokes, website searches, and social media actions, were by law anonymous?
What if juries could overrule judges?
If aliens visit us from space and landed in your yard, what would you do?
What if all algorithms and their use had to be public?
What is money?
Are you free?
Did anyone really invent a 70 mpg carburetor?
What if the taxes on capital were the same as on income?
What if we deflated our money back to its value in 1960?
So these are just a few of the questions I thought of while sitting here. I’m sure I could come up with dozens more. Just the act of coming up with these questions is creative thinking, I think.
Now, if your answer to most of these questions is there’s nothing you can do, that’s the way it is, I’m just one person, you can’t fight the government, or any other such answer, or if you start all your answers with “because,” you might be in the information only group. I don’t condemn that. Most of our country is there. Bread and circuses.
Maybe try “why not,” instead of “because,” and see what happens.
I don’t expect definitive answers to any of these questions. I don’t think most are possible to accomplish right now given the current state of our thinking. I just wanted to explore the idea that creative questions create not just creative answers, but more creative minds. Also, no action happens until a critical mass of people know it’s possible. That’s when things change.
As in my previous article on freedom, you can still think as creatively as you want. The only time anyone or any entity would know is if you post your creative thoughts.
And that is exactly the point of this article…