GRABBING THE BRASS RING (C)1993 Alan M. Schwartz Many and varied organizations exist admission to which is based upon demonstrated intelligence via performance in standardized tests. Mensa (98%-tile) is the grand old lady of them all with 100,000 members worldwide. Other major players are Intertel (99%-tile), Triple 9 (99.9%-tile), ISPE (99.9%-tile), Prometheus (99.997%-tile), and Mega (99.9999%-tile). Among them all, the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry is unique in soliciting continuing achievement among its constituents, and denying full membership status and suffrage to any admitted Associate who does not submit minimal credentials thereafter. Among them all, ISPE is unique in having sponsored two books of its members' papers - "Thinking on the Edge" and "Thinking Beyond the Edge." At the time of this writing, six months into its release, the former has sold more than 3000 copies in the world at large while the latter is in editorial process. A romance novel or other pedestrian book is a commercial success at 5000 copies sold. Perhaps these folk are on to something. The top 0.1% are now embarking upon the ISPE Institute for Advanced Studies. They contemplate a multi-million dollar physical and virtual electronic linkage of their best with the dataflow and challenges of all mankind, complete with television and other media interface. I support the creation, publicity, funding and operation of a consortium of superior and aggressive minds given stellar resources to exercise and valuable, difficult goals to achieve. Serendipity alone will furnish triumphs. Critical points exist in history where mankind evolved. The codification of thought through philosophy and the conception of rigorously traceable validity of knowledge starting with geometry elevated Greece. Rome's political unity derived from common law and language, and macro-engineering in support of society. The Renaissance cauterized Church-imposed secular isolation to open mercantile and scholastic commerce across the planet, and unveiled the rules of visual perception. Newton and Leibniz each formulated calculus, a language suited to analyzing all creation. Darwin proposed a means of reflex biological improvement, and the watch no longer needed a watchmaker. The end of the 19th century gave rise to Relativity and quantum mechanics, precise models of the fundamental structure of reality. By 1980 the capacity of digital storage devices exceeded that of all Terran brains summed and grew exponentially. Now what? We solicit the genius needed to plot a course perpendicular to everything. The bulk of humanity drags its heels as the minority pulls. Beneficent social agendas metastasize to oppose valuable evolutionary pressures discarding culls in favor of conquerors. Proper thinking is legislated and enforced to the detriment of innovation. In our own time Environmentalism opposes progress, technology and prosperity in all their varied forms. Non- discrimination renders unlawful an education based upon the requirement and standardized evaluation of excellence. The multi-trillion dollar wealth of the most aggressive, original, sovereign and capable nation in history has been poured down the throats of its poor to no effect save greater requisition. Civilizations contain themselves within their own introspection like the surface tension of a water droplet. Progress awaits an ambitious minority adept at bursting through to there where monsters lay, or external conquest by more vital champions. A handful of Spaniards expunged Amerindian society. The largest polity of planet Earth, the Chinese, amounted to nothing and starved for it. Hong Kong and Taiwan won something better. University tenure cherishes superior minds in a fertile setting and protects them against the vengeance of fashionable beliefs. Industrial research is a rich womb for technical development. The former is critically addicted to now diminishing government grants; the latter is moribund within an economy drowning in debt come due. Now what? Genius is never budgeted for herbivores. ISPE is unique among intelligence societies in that it does not graze - it demands accomplishment of its members and rewards them. The best of the best must secure resources, repay their financiers with acceptable coin, and pursue a concurrent hidden agenda of unbounded evolution. The Industrial Revolution provided mechanical prostheses to amplify almost without limit an individual's or an economy's physical jurisdiction. Wealth beyond measure was born. The microprocessor provides mental prostheses to amplify almost without limit an individual's or an economy's intellectual jurisdiction. The ISPE Institute for Advanced Studies promises to empower the next great grab for evolution's brass ring. Lead, follow, stand aside, or be destroyed.