Crazy New Ideas

May 2021

There's one kind of opinion I'd be very afraid to express publicly.
If someone I knew to be both a domain expert and a reasonable person
proposed an idea that sounded preposterous, I'd be very reluctant
to say "That will never work."

Anyone who has studied the history of ideas, and especially the
history of science, knows that's how big things start. Someone
proposes an idea that sounds crazy, most people dismiss it, then
it gradually takes over the world.

Most implausible-sounding ideas are in fact bad and could be safely
dismissed. But not when they're proposed by reasonable domain
experts. If the person proposing the idea is reasonable, then they
know how implausible it sounds. And yet they're proposing it anyway.
That suggests they know something you don't. And if they have deep
domain expertise, that's probably the source of it.
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