From: Ben Goertzel (ben@webmind.com)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 20:29:04 MDT
> And businesspeople, who tend to have the $$, don't tend to be particularly
> flexible in their conceptual frameworks, as compared to say, artists,
> musicians, scientists,.... Success in business is often driven
> by a certain
> narrowness of mind, which enables the narrowness of focus that is often
> crucial to business success. At least that's been my impression.
>
> ben
In retrospect, this paragraph itself may have been rather narrow-minded in
conception. I think I'm in a bad mood! ;p
Of course, businesspeople come in all shapes and sizes, and I fear I've been
overexposed to a certain breed of New York banker, the members of which do
fit my description in that paragraph rather well
On the other hand, I've certainly also known a fair number of innovative and
broad-minded businessfolks too, over the course of my life. I just haven't
been encountering very many of them lately. I suppose that the currently
harsh market conditions are pushing a lot of people toward their most
conservative frames of mind.
Anyway, this thread got started by Brian saying how it was hard to convince
people of the Singularity's reality. And I do stand by the essence of my
statement even though I overstated the point. For a complex combination of
reasons, most businessfolks are not of the cast of mind to recognize the
importance of something like the Singularity. "Narrowness" was perhaps not
the right way to put it ... "pragmatism" is a little better but not quite
right either. Some of you will know what I mean and am not quite adequately
saying...
ben
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