Special forces—special people? This education thing! This creativity thing!

The SAS is the most elite of the special forces in the world. They are not people who go out and advertise; they keep it inside. They don't want anybody to know about them.

Taylor Hackford

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As a byproduct of my research—and also because I am just plain interested—I have had a great deal to do with Special Forces. They feature in all my novels.

One way or another, I am fairly sure Special Forces have existed for as long as there have been armies—albeit by other names—but, in their present form, they are traceable back to WW II. Since that time, after a period of uncertainty—the British SAS was actually disbanded for a while—they have gone from strength to strength.

Why so? Well, they are successful out of all proportion to their numbers. True, they cost more per head—sometimes a great deal more—but the return on investment tends to be exceptionally high.

But why is this? Well, one argument is that they are, quite simply, the cream of the crop—and exceptionally well trained and equipped as well—so, of course, they will be disproportionately successful. Another argument is that they do as well as they do because they normally have the initiative. They tend to pick how and when they will fight—and to turn down missions where they feel they cannot be successful.

It seems to me that that both these arguments are valid—but they miss the main point—which is that Special Forces soldiers have a different mindset. In essence, they are empowered. Instead of being subject to the minutiae of conventional military discipline, they are told the mission and—generally speaking—left to get on with it. In fact, they can, if they so wish, question the mission itself. In effect, they are treated like sentient adults, and primarily, their discipline is self imposed. In fact, Special Forces soldiers are rarely punished. The normal sanction is that you are returned to your original unit.

I have to wonder as to what extent this approach could be applied in normal life—starting off with school—and whether such an approach might not yield fairly extraordinary dividends. Currently, we emphasize “socialization”—by which we really mean pressure to conform backed up by discipline—but pay for it in terms of suppressing creativity.

How do I know that? It’s not a conclusion I can quantify. It is an opinion supported by the opinions of others whose judgment I respect.

Could we get a superior result if children—and adults—were given more responsibility?

My view is that we could—and that the benefits to society, if we really could tap into human creativity, would be immense.

There has been some experimental work to this effect—in schools as opposed to Special Forces—and the results have been entirely positive. In fact, they have been remarkable—but seem to have attracted little attention.

It could be that we should think about this stuff more than we do. Instead we have an approach to discipline which has resulted in our imprisoning many more people 2.4 million—than China—which has a multiple of our population.

This authoritarian approach—self righteous and judgmental—permeates our culture and results not only in extraordinarily long prison sentences, but in the worst labor relations in the developed world.

Such heavy costs—serious though they are—pale in relation to our loss of creativity. If we want to grow this economy, and solve our other problems, we need to get creative about it.

The downside, as far as I am concerned, is probably that a whole lot more people—their creativity unleashed—will start writing books.

The upside—with luck—is that a whole lot more people will start reading them.

I can live with that.

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A book we should all read—FACTORY MAN by Beth Macy. It’s a great American success story—and it happens to be true.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

Brian Tracy

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Every so often, countries like people behave idiotically. It’s just part of the human condition.

I regard the mania for outsourcing manufacturing which gripped American corporations from the 1980s until recently, as a perfect example of that kind of mass idiocy. I guess we should give thanks that its consequences weren’t worse.

We could have opted for Fascism like Germany did in the 30s or completely lost it like the Cambodians did when they allowed the Kmer Rouge to take over and engage in genocide. Still, for all that, the horrendous consequences were bad enough and will be with us for decades.

Literally, tens of thousands of U.S. factories were closed, millions of Americans lost their jobs, thousands of communities were devastated—and, perhaps, worst of all, we exported expertise on a massive scale—so actually trained and entrenched our competition. If idiocy is the right word to describe this corporate behavior—and I am far from sure it is strong enough—then you can make a good case that it was greed-driven, short-sighted, treasonous, corporate, idiocy.

One of the core negative side effects of outsourcing manufacturing on this massive scale is that you lose a significant amount of other capabilities including the necessary expertise to increase productivity, and to innovate. In effect, by securing short-term gains—which may well be less than your expectations and have a tendency to erode—you have mortgaged your company’s future.

One consequence of being unable to secure productivity gains is  for overall productivity growth to drop—which has happened—and an incentive for management to endeavor to increase profits by squeezing pay, cutting investment, and to engaging in financial manipulation (such as stock buybacks). These activities help to explain the current lack of demand, poor growth rate, higher than desirable real unemployment rate—and general fragility of the economy despite considerable competitive advantage and stimulus in areas such as energy costs. There is no mystery about our current economic plight. We have inflicted the damage upon ourselves.

FACTORY MAN is the awesome story of one factory owner, John Bassett III who decided to stand and fight in the U.S.—and who succeeded in defiance of conventional wisdom and overwhelming odds.

This is what Slate said about the book.

In her excellent new book Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local—and Helped Save an American Town, award-winning journalist Beth Macy tells the story of John Bassett III, a third-generation factory owner and descendant of Virginia’s Bassett Furniture family, which once ran the world’s largest wood furniture manufacturing company before cheap Chinese imports put an end to all that. A rare success story, Bassett took on the Chinese by filing the world’s largest anti-dumping petition—and winning in 2005. Bassett is now the chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co., which employs some 700 people and has sales of more than $90 million. Here at the Eye, Macy shares an adapted excerpt from the book that explains how the Chinese began to decimate the U.S. furniture-making industry beginning in the 1980s—and how Americans helped them do it.

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July 29 2014: The Marines UHAC—Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connector. Ingenious, but too big, too slow, too costly to operate, too lightly armored for high survivability on land—and far, far, far, too expensive. Oh, and by the way, unnecessary. All those points apart, it looks kind of fun.

I went in the Marines when I was 16. I spent four and a half years in the Marines and then came right to New York to be an actor. And then seven years later, I got my first job.

Gene Hackman

What struck me about the above quote was the phrase “seven years later”—and this is THE Gene Hackman talking. I’m not sure that those who have regular jobs, and paychecks, have any idea of what is involved if you want to make it in the creative arts—or what it takes. Seven years!

V.

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The Marines seem determined to re-fight WW II—as in they still envisage storming enemy held beaches. To that end, ideally they want armored vehicles that can be launched from quite far out, make their own way to land, and then maneuver like tanks or infantry fighting vehicles (at least up to a point).

To my mind, there are various flaws to this thinking.

• It is exceedingly unlikely that we will want to storm the beaches again. We are much more likely to seize a beachhead from the air by way of a parachute drop, assault by rotary aircraft, or by simply landing at an airport (or an any suitable ground) which we have previously seized. In all probability, we would grab a port (or ports). Ports are already set up to offload massive amounts of material very quickly.
• The requirement for armor to float tends to make the resultant vehicle better at floating than fighting on land. That makes no sense because getting ashore is normally a minor element in the mission. It might take hours—but the land part may go on for days, weeks, or months. In short, the vehicle should be optimized for the land.
• We already have better, faster, cheaper ways of landing armor. Appreciate that the armor itself does not have to float. It merely has to be carried by something that does. Here, we have traditional landing craft, hovercraft, and ships. A suitably designed ship could reverse onto a beach or similar and vehicles simply drive off. The notion that armored vehicles have to be seaworthy in themselves is simply not valid. The ability to cross rivers is, indeed, useful—but even that is not essential as experience has shown that building bridges under fire, though not for the faint of heart, is achievable. Consider that the Israeli’s did just that in 1973 when they crossed the Suez Canal to invade Egypt—after Egypt had invaded them.

The real plan is as follows.

“[A] future full-scale UHAC would have up to three times the payload of the Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC) and approximately the payload of a 1600-series Landing Craft Utility (LCU),” said a joint reportwith the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. “It would have the same well deck footprint as an SSC with speeds twice that of an LCU. The captive air cell technology also yields a low ground pressure footprint (less than 2 psi) giving it the ability to traverse mud flats or climb over obstacles in excess of 10 feet. With a projected range of over 200 miles, UHAC could deliver forces and sustainment from well over a horizon.”

It will not only be able to traverse a wider variety of beachheads but also be able to climb over 10-foot-tall sea walls. It may have a top speed of up to 20 knots, if it goes into real production.

Currently the Marines are testing a half-scale Ultra Heavy-lift Amphibious Connector, or UHAC, just off the coast of the Philippines; the full-size version will measure in at 34 feet tall and 84 feet long and be able to haul a payload of about 200 tons, three times that of the Marines’ current Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC).

“The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is sponsoring a half-scale UHAC demonstration during their 2014 Advanced Warfighting Experiment (in conjunction with RIMPAC [Rim of the Pacific Exercise] 2014),” explained the report. “Development of a full-scale technology demonstrator is a possibility.”

Clearly, the full scale UHAC is not designed to do too much maneuvering on land—which is a relief –because at 34’ tall, an enemy would need to  blind not to hit it.  However, I still wonder why the Marines feel they need the UHAC. Is that comment about low ground pressure significant? I wonder do they have a particular scenario in mind.

I shall have to talk to some Marine friends. Despite my critical comments, I’m a great supporter of crazy projects. You pretty much always learn something from a fresh approach.  

Not many people know this, but I was once was in charge of an LCT or Landing Craft Tank (See Photo). My brother Rex had bought it with a view to using it as a platform for divers in the North Sea. It wasn’t a bad idea though the North Sea is notoriously rough—and LCTs notoriously unstable in bad weather. Anyway, it was all academic because the LCT—which looked as if it was floating on the river—was actually holed and sitting on the bottom. That was not immediately obvious because the craft had a double bottomed hull, and the inner hull was still intact. Still, I rather liked having my very own vessel for a while. It was a piece of history. I think Rex sold it for scrap in the end.

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Apparently you live longer if your have a sense of purpose—regardless of what that purpose is. I guess that means serial killers live longer. I’d like to think writers do too.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Pablo Picasso

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Cecil Beaton

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

George Carlin

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I would have thought it was self evident that a sense of purpose would prolong your life. On the other hand, death seems pretty arbitrary—so perhaps not. Certainly, I can think of a number of driven people who have died before their time. In short, self evident is an opinion. It isn’t evidence—and I will confess a weakness for evidence.

Recent research by Patrick Hill, an assistant professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and his colleague Nicholas Turiano of the University of Rochester Medical Center have come up with data which suggests that people with a sense of purpose have a 15 percent lower risk of death than their peers—and it doesn’t seem to matter when people find their direction. It can be in your 20s, 50s, or 70s.

Hill says he isn’t clear why a sense of purpose tends to keep you above ground a little longer. He comments that purposeful individuals may lead healthier lives—or perhaps a sense of purpose protects against the harmful effects of stress.

I give thanks every day that I changed career direction and opted to become a writer—but I have to say it is scarcely a stress free occupation. Apart from the creative challenges, book writing is akin to tightrope walking in a high wind financially—and then there is the issue of social disapproval to deal with. A surprising number of people don’t regard book writing as a proper job. After all, it doesn’t provide a regular paycheck. Accordingly, I appreciate all the stress protection I can get.

Still. whatever about the stress of being a writer, the truth is that I rarely feel stressed while actually writing no matter how difficult the project. On the contrary, while actually writing, I spend most of the time in the zone—which is about as stress free as it gets (and pretty damn wonderful). In fact, it’s much better than anything I used to imagine.

It’s not like the transient thrill you get when you win a prize or watch a good movie. It’s a continuous pleasure which you get to experience pretty much all day every day.

In the past, I have described writing as living with failure—because you never write quite as well as you want (or, if you do, you raise the bar).

Well, the other side of the coin is that is that it appears that in terms of sheer satisfaction, certain types of failure may be seriously under-rated.

It is something I feel exceedingly fortunate to have found out.

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July 28 2014: The missile factor when it comes to flying. It is not just a threat in combat situations. We don’t want to admit it, but it may well prove to be a major problem in civilian aviation. There are many more SAMs out there than we seem to realize—and more people incentivized to use them against civilian aircraft. And SAMs are getting better and deadlier.

“We're not afraid of sanctions. We're not afraid of military invasion. What frightens us is the invasion of western immorality.”

Ruhollah Khomeini

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BUK SA-11 GADFLY SURFACE TO AIR MISSILE

The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 has brought the threat of anti-aircraft missiles front and center. In fact, it has never really gone away, but is an issue that has received remarkably little media attention for some considerable time. Given the large number of such missiles in circulation, that was surprising in its way. Then again, the media depend upon advertising, airlines are good customers, and airlines certainly don’t like talking about such threats.

For their part, governments certainly don’t want to alarm their populations. Aviation plays a vital role in all economies today—whether developed or otherwise. Shutting a nation’s aviation down would have catastrophic economic consequences—but the possibility is becoming likelier by the day. Missiles are getting better and better, propellants are becoming more powerful, electronics are improving at phenomenal speed, and guidance systems are becoming more discriminating, yet harder to evade. In short, a whole new generation of SAMS is coming into circulation.

There is more to it than that—and this is particularly important. The expertise that underpins the various technologies that go into constructing an effective SAM is becoming much more widely available. Let me express it simply. For a host of reasons—including the internet and perceived urgent need—our enemies are becoming vastly more technologically literate at a rapid rate. That means they will soon be able to match our destructive toys—even if they cannot already. It also means we are soon going to be seeing highly sophisticated weaponry emerging from non-traditional sources. Or such is my opinion.

The U.S. has helped to create this situation in a host of ways—both by enabling the technologies, and by creating a climate of threat. Regarding the latter point, our invasion of Iraq—which has yielded such disastrous results—must have incentivized all who don’t have our best interests at heart to develop advanced weaponry at the fastest possible speed.

Iran, for instance, already has drones and increasingly sophisticated missiles—and these are just the weapons we know about. But, it would be hard to deny that they must have a well justified fear of being attacked—and possibly being invaded. Any doubts to that effect must have been swept away by our invasion of Iraq in 2003.

All of that apart, according to the Professional Pilots Rumour Network, over 40 civilian aircraft have been hot by MANPAD missiles since they were introduced in 1967. Most occurred in conflict zones. They caused 28 crashes and over 800 deaths (not including the recent Ukrainian incidents).

But here is the kicker: Over a million MANPAD and other missiles have been manufactured worldwide—and most are still out there and ready to be upgraded and used.

SAM = Surface to Air Missile

MANPAD = Man Portable Air Defense System (such as an SA7 or Stinger.

So who might want to use these MANPADs against civilian aircraft? Well, apart from our traditional enemies such as Iran and North Korea, we are building up a whole host of relatively new enemies—mostly extreme Islamists—who will sooner or late come to the view that shooting down civilian aircraft attracts at least as much publicity as hijackings, creates a greater climate of fear, and does vastly greater economic damage.

Can we counter this? Sure we can—up to a point. But it’s not a threat we are taking seriously as yet. We need to do so—and to think strategically about our communications. For instance, it may make sense to invest much more in high speed rail—or Elon Musk’s concept—if  only from a National Security point of view. Here it is worth pointing out that the Interstate system was justified by the Eisenhower system as essential for defense. Well, it was—but the economic advantages have been incalculable.

I believe we are in much the same situation today—except that now we seem to be ideologically averse to planning or investing. 

We also need to think through the consequences of our actions more seriously. Iraq has opened a Pandora’s box—and we may soon do just the same thing in Africa (where we are operating extensively as if we were invulnerable).

Our military may be be effectively militarily invulnerable (subject to acceptable casualties). American civilians are not.

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We need faster, cheaper, (hurricane proof) housing—and I have this thing about domes. Blame Buckminster Fuller. Now meet architect Nicoló Bini.

Unlike traditional low-cost, temporary disaster relief shelters, Binishells are intended to be permanent fixtures. The technique is speedy and, according to Bini, costs start at just $3,500.

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I grew up in big old houses in Ireland. Such ‘Big Houses’ were a  feature of my (fast fading) class, the Anglo-Irish. They looked good, had well proportioned rooms, separate servants’ quarters, normally came with land (our house in Bray had five acres) and frequently featured large walled gardens, orchards, horse paddocks, and the like.

They were also near impossible to heat at an economic cost—and were impractical in more ways than I have space to list. However, the features I recall most were dry rot and damp—which, somehow, never seemed to be eradicated.

I thought all of this was normal for a long time because I was rarely exposed to any other kind of house—but when I hit puberty, and found the tie I had planned to wear for a date was covered in green mold—decided there had to be a better way.

Yes, males really did wear ties on teenage dates in those days—and horse-drawn carts were still a feature of Dublin traffic. I kid you not.

My epiphany came when I went to Germany and encountered a sash window that didn’t rattle, but closed with a satisfying clunk—and doors that fitted tightly, and didn’t let in drafts.

Good grief! There really was a better way. How had these people lost the war!

From then on I collected houses (so to speak) and, over time, came to the conclusion that there were endless better ways—and less expensive ways of building—but that too much money was at stake for radical alternatives to be tried. In fact, they were mostly sidelined through ignorance, inertia, zoning, insurance restrictions, mortgage technicalities, and other techniques. Housing was much more about money than shelter—and, sadly, it still is. If we really wanted to house everybody more than adequately in energy efficient, comfortable, dwellings, we have the technology and resources to do it with relative ease. But those who control the levers of power do not.

That hasn’t stopped me thinking about alternatives—and the following showed up in that marvelous magazine, Wired.

Here is an extract. Read on.

Each Binishell starts as a two-dimensional shape on the ground, ringed by a wooden form into which an air bladder, reinforcing steel rebar, and a load of concrete is placed. As the concrete sets, an air pump fills the bladder and a concrete dome begins to rise from the Earth. An hour later, the concrete has hardened, the bladder is deflated, removed for reuse, and the building’s soaring shell is ready for inspection and interior construction. The concept is bizarre, combining a building material from the time of Julius Caesar with a Jetsons aesthetic, but the approach has already worked before.

Binishells were pioneered by Dr. Dante Bini, Nicoló’s father, and the first Binishell, which popped up in 1964, is still standing. All told, over 1,600 Binishells have been built in 23 countries across the globe, including gymnasium-sized shells 120 feet in diameter and tiny bubble-shaped bungalows in the developing world. “Binishells have survived even extreme environments—such as the lava, ash and constant earthquakes on Mount Etna—for almost 50 years,” says Nicoló. The younger Bini is reviving the technique as a way to provide low-cost housing for refugees and displaced people, but believes Binishells could be used and to fabricate schools, military bases, sports stadiums and generally provide architects with a cost-effective way to explore convex construction.

Unlike traditional low-cost, temporary disaster relief shelters, Binishells are intended to be permanent fixtures. The technique is speedy and, according to Bini, costs start at just $3,500. A cluster of Binishells might look like a sci-fi film set, but the materials to build one could be found on any job site. “Aside from some special additives, our concrete mix can be sourced locally almost anywhere,” says Bini. “Similarly our reinforcement is the same rebar you find sitting on the shelf of supply stores around the world.”

Binishells could be a compelling alternative to current disaster relief housing which is usually intended to be temporary, often end up as shanty ghettos. Concrete fabrication makes passive solar heating an easy option, reducing drain on strained infrastructure. The domed shape is naturally aerodynamic providing some protection from hurricanes. A gentle curvature and low roof height allow green roofs to be planted and easily tended. “With 25% of the world’s population living in sub-standard shelters, this is where we feel we can have the most impact,” says Nicoló.

I don’t know whether Blinishells—or domes in general—are the answer, but I do believe we should experiment vastly more. Could be fun—and interesting. The primary reasons we don’t right now is because of all the restrictions I have mentioned. Mostly, we have made it legally impossible to stray from the status quo.

 But that’s crazy!

So one might think.

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Extracts from a terrific interview with the consistently impressive Maria Popova—founder, writer and editor of Brain Pickings. The interviewer is Jocelyn K.Glei and the piece runs on 99u.com

The real work is how not to hang your self-worth, your sense of success and merits, the fullness of your heart, and the stability of your soul on those numbers—on that constant positive reinforcement and external validation. That’s the only real work, and the irony is that the more “successful” you get, by either your own standards or external standards, the harder it is to decouple all of those inner values from your work. I think we often confuse the doing for the being.

Maria Popova

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I find it hard to praise Maria Popova too highly. Essentially her website—always visually striking and rich with compelling content—explores creativity, and, in so doing, helps both justify and explain the unexplainable.

The following are some extracts from the interview with 99u.com (itself a fascinating site which rarely fails to intrigue me).

How do we answer the grand question of how to live—and more importantly—how to live well? This is the deeply philosophical (and yet eminently pragmatic) inquiry that lies at the core of Maria Popova’s remarkable blog, Brain Pickings. Since she launched Brain Pickings as a passion project back in 2006, it’s grown impressively, becoming an intellectual touchstone for inquiring minds that now draws several million readers a month.

In the age of information overload, Popova is the ultimate hunter-gatherer-curator, bringing her intensely curious mind to bear on everything from Susan Sontag’s journals to Maurice Sendak’s vintage illustrations to Albert Einstein’s letters. Rich with in-depth quotations and rarely seen imagery, Popova’s articles suss out overlooked wisdom on writing, Buddhism, daily routines, falling in love, storytelling, motherhood, mental illness, critical thinking, growing old, vulnerability, and a wild array of other topics. In the process, she exposes readers to books and concepts that they would likely never otherwise come across.

Not surprisingly, Popova’s work ethic is as relentless as her curiosity. Yet, after eight years of providing a service that lights up creative minds around the world, she is feeling the strain. Over tea, we talked about her struggle to dial back the pace of her workflow, and the tension between “getting things done” and being present in your own emotional reality.

The “Information Age” seems to have ushered in this hectic, new pace of working that’s driving us all a bit crazy. And it feels unsustainable. How do you think we ended up here?

I think that word “should” in our internal narratives is very toxic—this notion of, “what should I be doing?” and it’s always pegged to some sort of expectation, whether it’s self-imposed or external or a combination of the two. It’s hard to balance those expectations of what you should be doing with what you want to be doing. I feel very fortunate in that to a large extent what I do is exactly what I want to be doing for myself, and I still write for an audience of one. I read things that stimulate me and inspire me and help me figure out how to live and then I write about them. The fact that there are other people who enjoy it is nice, but it’s just a byproduct.

I think there is a high correlation between “type A” personalities and people that “do their own thing.” But we typically do that thing within a structure that’s borrowed from the world of working for the man—the only difference is you’re the man now. When you’re your own boss, the demands you place on yourself are probably higher and more intense than any demands anyone else would place on you if you were an employee.

If we are so busy being successful that we don’t have time to be happy, then we need to seriously reconsider our definition of success.

A friend of mine and I have an ongoing debate about whether great creative work comes out of happiness or sadness. She believes it generally comes out of misery or depression. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. What about you?

I think the only person who was right on this was Anais Nin, who wrote in her diary in 1945 that it is emotional excess that is the root of good writing and good creative work—and that could be in either direction, joyous or miserable.

The New York Times has this column called “The Lives They Lived” which they do at the end of every year, remembering all the people that died that year and what makes their lives worth contemplating, and they asked me to do one. I had a hard time deciding between two people but I ended up going with Ray Bradbury. I chose him precisely because I think his work ethic was such a beautiful and heartening antidote to that myth that genius requires some sort of malady of the soul.

Bradbury was always talking about how he never did a day of work in his life. He always wrote with love and with joy and that was the only way to really be for him. I think that sort of romantic idea of the despondent writer somewhere secluded, drinking and cutting her veins or whatever, is just horrible! And, I think a lot creators today think that that is the way to have good ideas, but I think just being in touch with your emotional reality is what it takes to make meaningful work.

Go read the full thing at 99u.com There is a video of Popova there also.

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