Stop Ridiculing Ideas

http://www.jamescun.com/2011/10/stop-ridiculing-ideas/

by jamescun • 15 years ago

21 19 15 years ago

icebraining2• 15 years ago

Yes and no. While mocking shouldn't be encouraged, there's value in criticizing an idea; finding good answers to the problems raised by critics is indispensable.

The important thing is that you should approach it with a constructive mindset, picking it apart without disregarding it outright.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

He did say 'stop ridiculing' and not 'stop criticizing'.

It's impossible to have a discussion on perpetual motion or cold fusion because people who don't even understand the basics will jump in and start mocking everyone. These are extreme examples, but the same thing happens to any idea that someone thinks is impossible, naive, or bad.

(I'm not saying I think they are possible. I'm saying it should be possible to have a discussion about them... Because I'm also not saying they're impossible.)

TillE• 15 years ago

Perpetual motion is physically impossible. It fully deserves ridicule. Cold fusion will stop being ridiculed once there's a reproducible experiment.

Pseudoscience deserves absolutely no respect. Quite the opposite. The same goes for any variety of bullshit.

icebraining2• 15 years ago

He did say 'stop ridiculing' and not 'stop criticizing'

Yes, but in the example he gave when he pointed out that even himself falls for that, he says "instead of complimenting it or saying what I liked about the idea, my first comments were massive flaws I saw in the idea and how it could all fail."

This shouldn't be confused with ridiculing.

augustiner• 15 years ago

I think the problem is more general and it's not the culture. It's just much easier to find arguments for how the idea could fail rather than ones supporting it or proving it might work.

angusland• 15 years ago

It reminds me of the awesome "failure" scene in Meet the Robinsons. We should ask what experiments have been run on the idea, what has been proven or disproven.

tobiasu• 15 years ago

Ridiculing serves as an information overload protection, it shuts the inventor up and prevents ones brain to explore the idea in more depth.

One has to respect that people don't want to be bombarded with information. They have a life, too.

verroq• 15 years ago

Most people criticise out of envy. They don't want to think that somebody else has a better idea than them, by pointing out flaws they assert their own ego.

LiveTheDream• 15 years ago

I don't think this is categorically true. Critical responses to ideas are also a cultural thing (think: Americans tend to be over-the-top positive, Eastern Europeans tend to be bluntly negative).

jimmeh• 15 years ago

It's my observation that industry in general and technology in particular is dominated by a kind of group think that makes certain 'ideas' unassailable once they've reach a certain level of critical mass from the crunchocracy, irrespective of their objective merits.

Roughly: I think most organisations would be better served with a culture that encourages less inhibition, less self censorship and more encouragement of brainstorming ideas, and a much more rigorous critical, analytical investigation of ideas before accepting them.

jakeonthemove2• 15 years ago

It's not just a British cultural problem - everyone everywhere in the world ridicules people and things they don't understand, don't want to admit may be true, or just don't have time to think about.

If you would create something like the Silicon Valley in the UK and bring the brightest minds and hard working people from all over the world, you'd also get better odds at success for ideas that seem ridiculous.

freejack3• 15 years ago

I've learned over the years that no amount of criticism, ridicule, feedback, input, commentary or lauding should kill an idea. Its all positive if you take it that way. Every statement made about your idea should be taken onboard and evaluated and used as fuel for improving your notion. Some feedback is shit and some ridicule is useful - if you love your idea, its up to you to figure out which is which and how you can use it to propel your plan forward.

I love it when I run into someone who has nothing but negativity or ridicule for my plan. At least it means I've come up with something worth reacting to. The worst is when I hear nothing. Crickets hurt :-)

Stop Ridiculing Ideas

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