Conjuring Scenius — Packy McCormick

Thirteen of history’s most productive and influential scenia and their contributions to humanity.

Network effects of success : Silicon Valley is famous for its “mafias.” As companies sell or IPO for billions of dollars, they make many of their employees very wealthy. Those employees form new companies, support each other, and invest in the next generation of companies. ThePayPal Mafia, Silicon Valley’s most famous, includes entrepreneurs who w

These burgeoning efforts offer hope that scenius can indeed be created online, but must also be strengthened and punctuated by real-world interaction; that competition will always drive humans to push themselves further, but that competition need not be zero-sum; that the scale of the internet can mean bolder, more ambitious missions.  

Just as the Renaissance had le botteghe , scenius more broadly requires a home. As it turns out, a surprising amount of innovation happens in bars.

Patrons of The Eagle and Child wrote three of the five best-selling fantasy series ofall-timewithin an eighteen year period - The Lord of the Rings , The Hobbit , and The Chronicles of Narnia . It is here, on Tuesday mornings, that C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the other members ofThe Inklingsof Oxford met to read, discuss, and critique each other

Looking backwards, it’s striking how unevenly distributed progress has been in the past...the discoveries that came to elevate standards of living for everyone arose in comparatively tiny geographic pockets of innovative effort.

Starting in the mid-500s BC, history’s foundational scenius sprung to life in Greece and lasted over two centuries. The ancient Greeks created the modern philosophy we still turn to in search of answers to life’s biggest questions. In addition to foundational technologies and concepts like geometry (every high schooler learns the Pythagorean Theore

The InterIntellect is a “virtual city of minds.” A community of, and talent agency for, online intellectuals, the InterIntellect gathers some of the best minds from across the globe to discuss and collaborate with each other, and to educate the public.

Although many have tried many times, it is not really possible to command scenius into being... The best you can do is NOT KILL IT. When it pops up, don’t crush it. When it starts rolling, don’t formalize it. When it sparks, fan it. But don’t move the scenius to better quarters. Try to keep accountants and architects and police and do-gooders away

Scenia can be large or small, span over centuries or last just a decade. The Inklings consisted of no more than fifteen people who met for a little under two decades, while Silicon Valley, fueled by the contributions of millions of people, has progressed uninterruptedly for nearly seventy years. No two scenia look the same; their similarity lies in