It's clear to me that the statistics on "wrap rage" (and possibly the name) do trace back to Cornhill Direct, and that they were purposely released. But why? My old hypothesis was that it was a PR firm, but what's the advantage. Are they just trying to frighten old people into buying health insurance? Possibly, but it seems awfullly indirect.
The other option is just that it was a funny statistic that got wings, because it matches up to a concern that's, well, growing more concerning for millions of Baby Boomers. In that interpretation, the content matches on to a convenient cultural concern, rather than being pushed by various media outlets because it's an easy story to write, etc. Obviously I'm overly schematicizing, and it's probably some of both.
I'm just trying to get a sense for the way certain ideas just seem to be in the air. Mark Twain has an article on telepathy that I can't read the tone of; he's not particularly funny or ridiculous, and it certainly sounds a little like he believes what he's writing, while he's also smart enough to put some distance between himself and the ideas. He remarks on the frequency of people thinking things at the same time and claims that one person is just reading the other's mind. (The challenge, of course, being figuring out which.) One of his pieces of evidence is the simultaneous discovery of various things all over the world.
I can't help but think that new ideas happen when the economic and intellectual circumstances are right. For example, Benz and Daimler building gasoline-powered cars simultaneously; Neipce and Drais inventing the bicycle within a year of each other; etc etc etc. Hence the particular curse of being "before one's time."
More particularly, inventors (and other thinkers) are emmeshed in similar social networks, have access to similar components, and often are part of societies facing similar problems. Of course analogous solutions are likely. This makes me want to write about English poetic forms in the 1590's, but I NEED an apartment.
Addendum:
I can't find the Twain essay, but here's an excerpt from a letter:
"To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:
LONDON, Jan. 8, 1900. DEAR JOE,--Mental Telepathy has scored another. Mental Telegraphy will be greatly respected a century hence.
By the accident of writing my sister and describing to her the remarkable cures made by Kellgren with his hands and without drugs, I brought upon myself a quite stunning surprise; for she wrote to me that she had been taking this very treatment in Buffalo--and that it was an American invention.
Well, it does really turn out that Dr. Still, in the middle of Kansas, in a village, began to experiment in 1874, only five years after Kellgren began the same work obscurely in the village of Gotha, in Germany. Dr. Still seems to be an honest man; therefore I am persuaded that Kellgren moved him to his experiments by Mental Telegraphy across six hours of longitude, without need of a wire. By the time Still began to experiment, Kellgren had completed his development of the principles of his system and established himself in a good practice in London--1874 --and was in good shape to convey his discovery to Kansas, Mental Telegraphically.
"
the whole letter can be found at http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/mark-twains-letters-1886-1900/ebook-page-105.asp.
