But credentials are not necessary for a BCIMIN. Only the impedance mismatch between the depth of knowledge and experience being brought to bear on the work, and the seemingly “beneath them” level of hands-on-work and mucking about at the tool level.
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See also
@Meaningness on the underlying social evolution process.https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths …Show this thread -
BCIMINs are a *natural* expression of human motivations. When they are repressed, potential blue-collar innovators turn to crime and other pathological activities. You can’t get rid of the 9%. See this Baumol paper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937617?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents …
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For fun fictional portraits of a BCIMIN era, try Terry Pratchett’s Raising Steam or HBO’s Deadwood. Let’s finish with some subtle takeaways.
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1. Innovation watchers often uncritically fetishize either credentialed expertise or unqualified blue-collar doerism. Nope. BCIMINs run on expertise (credentialed or not) *slumming at blue-collar levels*. Get this wrong and you’ll end up either academic posturing or JohnHenryism.
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2. The 90% normies often assume the 1% pioneers are the only ones who matter and form “scenes” of personality cults around them. The 9% BCIMIN types are often viewed with suspicion and become targets of societal policing. This never works. They just turn to crime etc.
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3. Unlike the 1%, who have a love-hate tortured relationship with fame and the attention of the 90%, the 9% neither attract, nor crave the spotlight. But they will not toe the lines or conform to societal norms or social proof either. They’ll tolerate some spotlight as a burden.
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4. They aren’t a community. They are a network of competing/cooperating individuals stealing tricks from each other. Ideas diffuse slowly through the BCIMIN, as each skeptically tests tricks before adopting. It’s not viral meme floods. It’s a slow network with fad defenses.
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All this is fairly well-known and uncontroversial to students of innovation history. But people who enter BCIMINs attracted by 1% personality cults or with an uncritical fetish for either credentials or blue-collarism invariably don’t last. They crash and burn as scenesters.
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End of conversation
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Ah, I’ve never read this piece by Turner. Thanks for sharing. Reading it now!
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