Einstein. Genghis Kahn. Copernicus.
Leaders all.
Consider just the awesome changes made possible by Einstein. He fathered all modern technology, from TVs to computers to cellphones to atomic power and to, sigh, nuclear bombs. Over a hundred years after his first publications, his discoveries of the principles of reality continue to invent technologies—not only today’s technologies, like fusion reactors and quantum computers—but probably technologies far into the future.
Heck of a guy.
No less for his awesome achievements, Einstein was irrelevant.
Questioning Leadership
How can that be? How can Einstein have been irrelevant? How can I so fully minimize a thinker and observer as potent as was Einstein? Am I denying that Einstein singlehandedly shook the world? Irrelevant?
I’m being a bit dramatic, but only to clarify an essential point.
Justly so, Supporters think of themselves as being secondary to the originator of any new idea or social movement, right? I am one of Einstein’s mega Supporters, but Einstein established that matter is a condensed form of energy, not me, and Einstein recognized that space and time are never independent of the other, that there is only spaceTime. Those were Einstein’s achievements, not mine, his Supporter. So Einstein was primary, not his Supporters. Therefore, my assertion is merest drivel: Supporters are secondary to inventors. Supporters are secondary to discoverers, to new ideas.
But what evidence confirms the assertion of who is primary and who is secondary? What if the opposite is true? What if Supporters are never secondary? What if Supporters, not originators, exercise primary power?
How can that be?
Ignore What EverybodyKnows and Look at the Evidence
How can the roles of primary discoverers and secondary Supporters be false?
How can Supporters possibly be primary and discoverers secondary?
Here is how.
Think it through with me. Start by flipping the normal notion of How Things Are upside down: Supporters of any idea or thing have more power than has the thinker or tinkerer who introduced the idea, who invented the thing. To consider the ideas of another Human Being (for instance, my ideas) enables potential Supporters (for instance, you) to destroy or accept those ideas. When an idea resonates with your own dynamics, a single Supporter can assume the primary responsibility for catapulting an idea to a larger audience.
Not convinced yet? Of course not. But keep an open mind for one minute longer.
The unquestionable power of Supporters comes to play when Supporters confirm an idea—and promote it. To the degree that I, as a Supporter, fail to promote that which I cannot find fault with, to that degree I fail my responsibility to myself; I fail my responsibility to Humanity. When someone introduces a new idea that I believe is the truth and I do not accept and support that truth, I fail, not the idea, not the primary thinker.
Still openminded? Thirty-five more seconds.
Supporters, then, contrary to common thinking, hold the primary responsibility for creating a better world, not primary thinkers, not primary creators. Einstein’s modifications to how Newton conceived the world were fantastic improvements to our understanding of reality, but his being correct meant nothing.
Twenty-five more seconds.
What mattered was that Bohr and Schrodinger and Planck and Pauli and all the other high-level physicists of the era chose to exercise their power as Supporters. Einstein’s Supporters, not Einstein, brought his revealed truth to the world. In fact, Einstein published his brilliant insights into the nature of reality long before the other high-level physicists supported him, and until a single Supporter vouched for his genius, Einstein had to continue working as a patent clerk—for another four years. Until two Supporters stood tall, Einstein remained a patent clerk just so that he could feed his family.
Okay, that’s a bit more than a minute, but give me a few more seconds.
Arthur Eddington is his best-known early Supporter, in that he sought and found the first validation of Einstein’s theories, but that was years after one of Einstein’s old professors, Hendrik Lorentz, asserted his support.
If not for Lorentz and Eddington, how long would Einstein’s papers have languished, unread? Would he have been forgotten? Would we still be awaiting another Einstein?
EverybodyKnows that Einstein’s solitary genius was the significant breakthrough, even though the evidence points elsewhere, points to his Supporters.
Einstein made the discoveries and thereby made history, but his Supporters created the future.
Reevaluating Ancient History
If not Einstein, has any solitary person in history, unsupported, made a difference?
There must be many, right? EverybodyKnows that. For instance, during the way-back-when, one of our ancestors discovered how to control fire. Surely she, on her own, made a difference that propelled Humanity forward. How can anyone think otherwise?
Here is how.
We know nearly nothing about Ms. Firestarter or her ancestors. For all we know, preceding her were thousands of men, women, and transgenders (I’m kidding! I’m kidding!) who learned to control fire. But their discoveries died with them—because they didn’t have Supporters. We will never know how many times the ability to control fire was independently discovered prior to Ms. Firestarter’s birth. Once? A million times? But while we cannot know how many people independently learned to control fire, what we know for certain is that at some point Supporters accepted and promoted that they too could control fire.
Ms. Firestarter’s control of fire was important; her Supporters were vital. As soon as others accepted and promoted the control of fire they—the Supporters—founded civilization.
Speaking the Truth in the Face of Death
Again: if not Ms. Firestarter, has a single person ever significantly accelerated Humanity’s progress?
Every discoverer’s courage is important, but the courage of other Human Beings accepting and promoting the discovery is vital. Only Supporters propel discoveries into the future.
While this is always true, consider a third case: Copernicus. Copernicus discovered proof that the Sun did not orbit Earth; that Earth orbited the Sun. The Catholic Church, however, decreed that they would hasten his journey to heaven unless he renounced his discovery. Copernicus was Polish, and none of Poland’s few astronomers wanted to soon meet Copernicus in heaven, so they judiciously remained silent. They did not support Copernicus, even though they had the ability to check his work, meaning that they knew—they knew—he was right. Because his fellow astronomers did not support his discovery, the Copernican Revolution never happened.
Until it did.
The essential foundation from which Copernicus launched his Revolution was another revolution: the exchange of “goods” among scientists in the mid-1500s had gone international. Copernicus wisely shared his De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (literal translation: “Put a ball of bacon in that.”) with emerging astronomers in other countries—most notably, Tycho Brahe, a Dane, and Johannes Kepler, a German—before the Catholic Church placed him under house arrest. And threatened his life. The Danish and German scientific communities, then, deserve the lion’s share of the credit—not for Copernicus’s work, but for its effect; for the Copernican Revolution.
Copernicus, BTW, wasn’t even first to know that Earth was not the orbital center of the Sun. Aristarchus, c. 310–230 BC, was first to realize where the Sun sat. But Aristarchus, alas, couldn’t gain any Supporters, putting off “a giant leap for mankind” for nearly 1,800 years. Copernicus was not first. Rather, he was the first who won Supporters. As far as goes the scientific revolution, those Supporters who courageously affirmed the Copernican theory were more important than was Copernicus.
Who can say how drastically advanced technology would be today if Aristarchus’s pals had supported his discovery of the truth?
Another Morbid Truth: Spreading Death
As with Copernicus, so too with Genghis Kahn. Kahn did not create the largest empire in history. That would be silly. Kahn’s Supporters created the largest empire in history. His dependency on his Supporters is easier to imagine than those of Einstein and Copernicus. (Hey, guys, look! Little Genghis is attacking our city, all by his lonesome. Dude, if his buddies had supported Aristarchus, by now somebody would have invented the camera. On Youtube, this would go viral!)
As with Kahn’s complete dependence on his Supporters, so too Obama and Trump. These men did not elect themselves. Their Supporters put them in the presidency. (Arguably no president has done anything to significantly advance civilization; I’m only stating that Supporters always matter more than leaders.)
Music to My Ears; Beauty Preceding Horror
Beethoven was first to understand all of the elements of what we now call classical music and to use the full spectrum of elements with authority, but we wouldn’t know of his genius if Vienna, followed by all of Europe, hadn’t recognized and supported his effort.
Mozart recognized Beethoven’s genius and sublimely created everlasting melodies and counter-melodies, as well as blazing rhythms, but without the appreciation of his contemporaries, none of us would know of him. Too, without an audience Bach and his babies would never have given the world their mathematically perfect music.
Van Gogh and Picasso altered not just the expressions of paint on canvas, but also the potentials of paint on canvas. But not until Supporters championed these artists’ brilliance did their work reach the wider world and change art forever. Van Gogh, before his Supporters belatedly recognized his genius, killed himself.
[Insert sobering music.]
Frank Lloyd Wright. I. M. Pei. These and the other great architects of history were only identified after a core group of Supporters perceived and proclaimed their work.
[Insert grim music.]
Without his Supporters none of us would know the horror of Hitler.
Leaders are important. Supporters are crucial.
Supporters, Not Leaders, Rule the World
My imperative first step—asserting that our future exactly matches our past in that Supporters are crucial—is, however, meaningless without the equally imperative second step. The second step is to inform a critical number of people who understand the forking consequences between our success and failure. Only the second step ensures that awareness of the ideas we present here will not die at birth.
How many times did Humans discover fire?
How many times have Humans put the Sun at the center of Earth’s orbit?
How many times have other Hitlers, uh… well, never mind.
So first: establish, populate and generate awareness of seedingDandelion.com. Evolve it as an expanding proof of concept. As a testing ground.
Second: encourage a team of allies including, I hope, you.
Third: together, you and I assert the fundamentals of a wiki-plan that can be built upon and influenced by anyone interested in improving the future. Including you.
The greater the momentum, the quicker the impact. If you believe that ideas formed and argued here will be worthwhile, then be courageous. Share them with five friends. Word of mouth is the most effective form of communication. Consider publishing our initiative on your Facebook page. Tweet it to your family; announce it on your church bulletin board.
Am I asking too much? I’m asking only this: unless it makes you uncomfortable, share with others what I share with you. Publication provides grist for argument, provides details for acceptance or rejection, and provides a platform for intelligent skepticism and conscious open-mindedness.
What more-important concept could be the pivot point of Human development in this century? Can a better pivot point be discovered? Can we be its discoverers?
Is this worth your support?
Thank you.
Tentatively, the next post will…
Compare Plumbers to Doctors
