Controversy walks hand-in-hand with innovation.
It seems, after all, that conversation focused on what’s to be raises hairs. Never mind that we can’t agree on the forecasting. It’s that even when we agree, the outlook may be distasteful.
Consider for a moment John Tierney’s recent piece correlating business lunch deal success with serotonin boosts. Here’s the summary slice:
In an experiment reported in Science, researchers at the University of Cambridge and U.C.L.A. manipulated the diet of subjects and found that people with low levels of serotonin become less likely to make a deal when playing the “Ultimatum Game.”
Don’t worry about what the “Ultimatum Game” is. The punch-line here suggests that food choices might impact a business transaction, or really any interaction focused on parity.
Extrapolating, one reaches an argument I’ve made in the past – that the current hornets’ nest around sports steroids is an early act in what will be an evolving hormone play. The future holds, I believe, cocktail dosing for bursts of charm, salesmanship, endurance, and the like. Or maybe not just bursts, but continuous behavioral alteration.
So here’s where most folks say, “Ugh.” A frightful prospect, “horrid,” (a progressive friend said), unnatural, etc. And rightfully so, perhaps. Perhaps.
One hears similar responses, by the way, to the idea of robot/human love. Or even to the notion of personal information trending public (or concentrating in certain business’ arms), which we’re seeing happen today.
And yet, as my progressive friend smartly points out, it seems that this last trend raises eyebrows and conversational distaste but slowly gains acceptance, a kind of wearing away of the initial disgust.
If we take our innovation in small steps, does controversy melt away? What, then, is the implication of accelerating innovation?
P.S., the following foods are most effective at boosting serotonin levels: “turkey, chicken, fish, pheasant, partridge, cottage cheese, bananas, eggs, nuts, wheat germ, avocados, milk, cheese and the legumes (beans, peas, pulses, soya)” [via]. Not your standard business lunch, btw.
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Photo credit: overflow, originally uploaded by *MarS
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