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Comment by cryptica | Hacker News Reader

Having worked for multiple tech corporations, this idea that creativity levels are going up is ridiculous. Corporations suppress true creativity and only allow it to exist within a very narrow spectrum. Also, the people they hire are not creative. You cannot be creative without being a contrarian and corporations don't hire contrarians.

Free thinkers are contrarians for most of their lives because they are not swayed by the undulating rhetoric of the times. When society is sane, free thinkers appear sane, then society is insane, free thinkers appear insane (when in a group of insane people, those who are sane will be labeled as insane).

Free thinkers are always sane with reference to the reality of the world around them but they can become unhinged from social and cultural norms when these norms start to diverge from observable reality.

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> Corporations suppress true creativity

I think this point is summarized well by the blurb of a book i came across recently:

“Everything you have been told about creativity is wrong

From line managers, corporate CEOs, urban designers, teachers, politicians, mayors, advertisers and even our friends and family, the message is “be creative’. Creativity is heralded as the driving force of our contemporary society, celebrated as agile, progressive and liberating. It is the spring of the knowledge economy and shapes the cities we inhabit. It even defines our politics. What could possibly be wrong with this?

In this brilliant, counter-intuitive blast, Oli Mould demands that we rethink the story we are being sold. Behind the novelty, he shows that creativity is a barely hidden form of neoliberal appropriation. It is a regime that prioritises individual success over collective flourishing. It refuses to recognise anything—job, place, person—that is not profitable. And it impacts on everything around us: the places where we work, the way we are managed, how we spend our leisure time.

Is there an alternative? Mould offers a radical redefinition of creativity, one embedded in the idea of collective flourishing, outside the tyranny of profit. Bold, passionate and refreshing, Against Creativity, is a timely correction to the doctrine of our times.”

Nowhere is this more clear than on platforms like YouTube where the tendrils of corporate control extend outside of the entity itself to ensnare another class of gig worker. Entertainers are now vapidly defined "Creators" who are working to provide entertainment such that it appeases "the algorithm" and grants them wealth.

> working to provide entertainment such that it appeases "the algorithm" and grants them wealth

nice framing. All hail the algorithm!

Re: You cannot be creative without being a contrarian and corporations don't hire contrarians.

Amen! "Shut up and go with the flow" is common advice I hear when I question the logic of various decisions in multiple organizations. If a corporation really wants creativity, they'll allow and REWARD asking "pesky questions" that may hurt egos of those with higher rank.

Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends & Influence People" basically confirms this: you have to have a personal relationship to truly influence somebody, logic alone won't cut it. I hate that book, but it's speaks the ugly truth. Humans are not Vulcans.

It's there if you want it, most orgs don't. I'm just the messenger.

That being said, some contrarians gum up the works with low-quality questions and research. (Sometimes called "trolls".) There does need to be a systematic way to ask questions and make suggestions with a vetting process, but such requires a skill-set and training, which does require org resources and time.

Shannon said information value depends on the degree to which the content of the message is surprising.

Can we say creative people are more attracted to, and produce more surprising information than non-creative people?

Corporations are usually biased towards logic and statistics (finance & accounting), but through this they can become blind to the fact that predictable bits contain much less information than unpredictable bits, and they can even develop a kind of hidden disgust around creativity.

For example, nobody gets fired for being "logical" and it not working out. But if you're make a creative mistake, well that's all on you and you're shown the door. This compounds and all you're left with are "Experts" in logic straightjackets.

> Corporations are usually biased towards logic and statistics (finance & accounting)

I would argue they're more biased towards metrics than logic.

sure, I meant more "logical thinking" than formal "logic".

I understand where you are coming from, and it might indeed appear that way. But look at another link from HN: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54510363 This is incredible creativity at work there at this dutch company.

So creativity exists, it is well and flourishing, but still the overwhelming majority of people are not creative. Therefore, most people at Facebook, Google etc. are not creative. If you want to be creative, you need to be creative in carving out your own way of doing so also. It was always like that, and it will always be like that.

> incredible creativity at work there at this dutch company

I understand where you are coming from, and it might indeed appear that way. But the primary reason they are successful and have been able to make this step is because of the rich inheritance available to the researchers.

Most jobs under Capitalism today are soul crushing and exploitative. In my journey of going upstream to try to seek to understand the root of this dysfunction, I came to see that it is due to 1) the Intellectual Property system that creates contrived/artificial scarcity due to outdated economics, and 2) the credit monopoly [the way we are forced to mediate our interactions through capitalist debt protocols/agreements ($, €, etc)]. Our current system is truly the elephant in the room. [1]

I really don't think an Intellectual Property Monopoly is the only way creativity can happen. I think if we switched to FLOSS-everything we'd still have all the same tech. In fact I think we'd have more innovation than ever before. More chances for more people to work on things means more experimentation and results, could mean safer and more sustainable developments - and thus more sustainable technologies.

Silicon Valley isn't special. I am on here with you other technology enthusiasts and experts because the discussions on innovation do happen here currently. But it's not because it's unique. It's because Silicon Valley and American investors exert power over everyone else in the world through through it's IP system and agreements like TRIPS, together with the US-based money system and US-influenced 'development' organizations like the IMF and the World Bank. [2]

Imagine what the world would look like without IP?

[1] https://prezi.com/xmzld_-wayho/new-economy-new-wealth/

[2] https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/10/16/apartheid-in-the...

> because of the rich inheritance available to the researchers

And where did that come from? From some open-source foundation?

> And where did that come from? From some open-source foundation?

From our dead ancestors.

“A patent is a device that enables one man to claim special financial rewards for being the last link in the complicated social process that produced the invention.”

— Lewis Mumford

"Every machine has had the same history — a long record of sleepless nights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial improvements discovered by several generations of nameless workers, who have added to the original invention these little nothings, without which the most fertile idea would remain fruitless. More than that: every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry.

Science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle-all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present.

By what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say — This is mine, not yours?"

— Peter Kropotkin

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.

We are. If you want new giants, paying them properly is a good idea. That proper pay cannot come from the public. Look at the university system, it sucks. It's a difficult problem.

>Therefore, most people at Facebook, Google etc. are not creative.

I'd disagree with that. Take the average programmer at Google who went to work this morning and wrote a hundred lines of code that didn't already exist. They created something that didn't exist before so must be a creative individual.

is this supposed to be sarcasm? in case its not: just because you've created something that didnt exist before doesn't define you as creative. quality and ingenuity also matter

Quality and ingenuity are subjective.

also maybe some creative work needs to be coupled with narratives, if intended for others.

For the example above, one could look at it as a meaningless blob, and someone else could describe it as a run-time behavior with y-axis representing time. Someone else could have some other interpretation. So a narrative could help it fit it in the intended place

Not arbitrarily so. We don't have to throw our hands in the air and declare them infinitely ineffable.

Nor do we have to throw out everything that doesn't meet some arbitrarily high standard.

Obviously it very much depends on the 100 lines of code if that was a creative act or not:

    var x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
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    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
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    x = 0
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    x = 0
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    x = 0
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    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0
    x = 0

In the here and now, at all times, you are very much correct, as correct as a free thinker will claim to be anyway.

Over the course of 400 years, creativity and freedoms of expression has indeed been on the rise.

However, companies and human organisation still have the same needs to funnel the creative input, hopefully into something valuable with minimal externalized costs.

So the balance is between personal creative freedoms and benefits, versus organisational control, exploitation and value extraction.

> You cannot be creative without being a contrarian and corporations don't hire contrarians.

Why? You seem to have some limited definition of creativity.

i think theyre saying that to be creative, you need to think in a way that's not thought of by everybody, so that by definition makes you contrarian. its an interesting point, not sure how much i agree with it, but i think it definitely shows amongst people we define to be successful authors/painters, etc. the epic ones had always gone "against the grain"

As a counterpoint, over history, countless of simple people were doing creative folk music. I don't think many of them were contrarians of any kind.

agreed, i really think theres a spectrum. some are more, others are less. but creativity is creativity. i do think that to be a household name posthumously, you need to be leaning heavily towards questioning everything

Were Mozart, Bach, Michelangelo, Balzac into questioning everything? I've read the biography of Balzac for example and it seem that his biggest dream was to be rich and accepted by aristocracy as a peer. And yet his work is immortal.

The Advant Guarde died in the 1960s with Warhol.

If you want to be truly free thinking then suffer your whole life for your art/creation and die in obscurity only to be celebrated decades after your death.

Contrarian is used as if it means; I can do what I want against a percieved opponent and get paid handsomely for it.

The real contrarians are pushing data collection, adtech, outrage machines and using knowledge to control people. The power in being contrary is found in collective outrage movements, tech and religion instead.

Thinkingly freely is part of the order now, as reliable and necessary as bread and butter. It is not contrary.

So the true modern day contrarian is the...conformist? I like it. Feels very 'fourth turning'.

> The Advant Guarde died in the 1960s with Warhol.

News to Andy Warhol I'm sure, who lived until 1987.

His Marilyn peice in '62 was the nail in the coffin for the avant guarde.

Being rebellious and contrary ended with his workman-like style and using commercial subjects to cash in on pop art. The desire to create paintings that have a revolutionary and contrary meaning to the establishment, has since faded away. We are seeing the fresh new ideas in video games instead and they were made to be saleable and agreeable products from day one. Its very difficult to get people to see a video game that truly challenges the status quo.

We are yet to see a peice of art or media that really challenges the world, since the 60s.

All the power is in the online platforms and data, that are used to target people with ourageous ideas. Art production has turned into a normal everyday machine, like the dishwasher or hot pockets.

Of course video gams are made saleable and agreeable, they are among the most expensive mediums to make. If you want unusual challenging or irritating, you need cheaper production then that. And people play them for completely different reasons then "being rebellious" - they play them because everyone plays them.

That being said, how do you define "challenges world"? Because I am pretty sure I can find challenging pieces made after 1960 regardless of what your definition of challenging is. They are just not mainstream.

There was a time when the mainstream view on art was led by academia and the political status quo. There was an opportunity to upset the system by producing a collection of artworks that bucked the trend and opposed the powers-that-be. Simply doing that act had power in itself, bringing the new idea into being, had potential for radical social change. The modern era in particular had a few revolutions of thought and art-style. They were social leaders in themselves. Art history goes over them, like Dada, constructivism, ect.

Now anything that breaks the trend is drowned out with money and/or censorship.

The banana taped to the wall a few years ago inspired people to think about how much art costs to buy, and how art is a money-laundering front for rich people. There was little discussion and sight of the original intent of the piece as a humorous comedy. It did not change how people view society, the world or art. It is seen as a clever man who could sell a $2 banana for $120k, rather than a comment on what art means. The piece has been captured by neoliberal economics (as if it ever meant to be anything else).

The video game Hatred [0] was a misanthrophic mass killer who goes on a genocidal crusade. It was banned from steam and panned by reviews. I don't endorse the content of the game, though it perfectly demonstrates the stifling lack of power any particular piece of art has to change people's minds today. You have to be approved by the internet's gatekeepers to be seen and heard. The act of creation has to be matched with the audience interacting with your artwork and a single image of your game does not have the same impact as a Dada artwork did in the 1900s.

>And people play them for completely different reasons then "being rebellious"

I agree (partly). The advent garde is dead, the power is with the tech platforms to change society, not art. So there are no "free thinking creatives", there are just technologists who push internet platforms further and further into people's lives. That's where the "free thought" is. Art is entirely ordered and almost completely chaos-free.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatred_(video_game)

A minor rebuttal, people do like the rebellious aspect of Star Wars, despite it's conformity to everyday art production.

Knowing what Hatred is, it mostly demonstrates that mediocre game with no ambition to change minds does not have power to change minds. I mean, authors did not even intended to change peoples minds and the only thing the game had going for it was the controversy. And even that controversy was possible only because it was during gamergate years, the same game would not gain notoriority today. Had there been no controversy, you would not know the thing exists even (and you could buy that game, while not being on steam it was easily accessible).

And it is completely odd to have "change the world" expectations on art form that has very specific demographic as an interest, is super time consuming to interact with and have tendency to create own world isolated from the rest of world.

In any case, it sounds to me that what you want is the major power institution using art to make change to society from top down rather then individual artists experimenting and rebelling.

I'm just reciting art history.

The Hatred example was to show the power of the gatekeepers. I dont really have a better example of oppositional art lately, which adds to the idea that its gone. Maybe SUPERHOT's 'obey' motif may qualify barely.

I don't want any of that stuff, per se. I'm just saying its gone.

I dont understand how you came to the conclusion that I want institutional power over society, when the advant garde was exactly against that. The institute had power and it was sucessfully rebelled aginst. No longer.

If you want a better recitation of art history look up Camille Paglia. Its more provoking and better explained over a lecture than trying to jam it into a comment.

Hatred is available on steam right now. (Just checked.)

Hatred was available to buy, even as it was not on steam. Steam is not like apple store - you can sideload windows apps. It does not even show warning like alternative to playstore would. And the bad reviews did not made it impossible to get. The controversy around it likely just added to sales.

Hatred shows only that some games don't make it to the steam. Steam was always historically super selective in what they allow. Quite openly so. The steam community was historically even more selective making it hard for new genres to go in at first.

> I dont understand how you came to the conclusion that I want institutional power over society, when the advant garde was exactly against that

I misread what you wrote.

I think they're trying to explain what they see as existing rather than what they want to exist.

The second issue is that there are individual artists experimenting and counter-cultures but the current "economics of creativity" mean these are almost immediately stolen, distorted and released for mass appeal.

> The banana taped to the wall a few years ago inspired people to think about how much art costs to buy, and how art is a money-laundering front for rich people.

Before that, we had Artist's Shit [1] in 1961 and countless similar stunts. I'm under impression that the main thing art does today is rebel and "force to reflect". Perhaps that's why almost no one is interested in it, as what it has to say is usualy quite shallow in its message (capitalism sucks, we get it) and also not very linked to the actual piece (The pieces often require lengthy explanation on what the artist was actually trying to say).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit

The counter-culture of 'rebellion' doesnt stay the same. The most recent star wars films focused on 'resistance' instead. It's an opposing force to a current trend.

I don't care that no-one was interested or not, the key part is that the content of the discussion centred around money.

If people weren't interested in the subject of artistic comdy and they expressed that, there would be evidence art still matters. Wrapping up people's disinterest with a conversation around money, shows it's dead art. Shallow or deep, interpreted or not.

The fact that you guys are still deflecting from the idea that art is less potent, is in itself a sorrowful confirmation of the idea.

> We are yet to see a peice of art or media that really challenges the world, since the 60s.

I think we've seen so much challenging since the 1950s that perhaps everything that could be challenged was already challenged to death by multiple artists and there's nothing else left to challenge.

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