

"Good ideas have lonely childhoods" - MaysonL
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004670.html

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froo
I agree with most of the points presented, but I just cannot agree with point
2. In fact, the second point comes across as more like hey-you're-awesome
mumbo jumbo that I would expect from motivational speakers.

 _"Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas
are always initially resisted"_

I don't think a blanket statement like they are _always_ resisted is quite
true. For example, a simple test would be:

2 people are caught in a house fire, person A says "lets get out of here"...
person B would have to say "no, lets stay here" for this statement to be true.

Similarly ideas can be resisted because they are actually bad ideas.

If anything, I would say that people are more or less resistant to change,
unless there are very obvious reasons for change.

~~~
hooande
It seems like you're over analyzing the point he was trying to make. I've seen
his point to be true in the corporate environment time and time again. The
problem with the standard org chart is that there is one person who is
identified as "boss" and with that comes the implication that he generally
knows best. If someone else has a different or contrarian idea it kind of goes
against the established power structure and has a _potential_ to cause
problems.

~~~
froo
I'm not saying that it's not true a lot of the time as I do believe a lot of
good ideas do meet initial resistance, by all means I think that people should
be as creative as they can.

I just think that the one thing that we are all looking for is validation
(especially in an idea rich environment such as this) and that such a blanket
statement as "all good ideas are initially resisted" can be misleading,
especially if someone misinterprets it as "my idea is being resisted,
therefore it must be a good idea"...

As Iggy Pop once sang (please excuse the language, but it is probably
appropriate)

 _if it looks like shit, sounds like shit, it must be shit_

But in all seriousness, I wasn't meant to overanalyze the point, I was just
trying to provide commentary on why I don't think it is as black and white as
was laid out in the post and it only applied to that single point.

Thanks for motivating me to explain it a little better, +1 for you!

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babyshake
conversely, do lonely children have good ideas?

~~~
raganwald
Playing along with your question, I suggest no more so than popular children,
however the popular children are exposed to pressure to discard the good ideas
and have no incentive for acting on them.

Those few lonely children with good ideas, OTOH, have very little pressuring
them to abandon their ideas. Who asking them to stop coding and go out to
play?

~~~
13ren
interesting. I've noticed some famously creative people had a period of
convalescence during their childhood. e.g. Descartes apparently formulated the
idea of x-y (ie Cartesian) coordinates while bed-ridden.

I don't know how strong the correlation is (maybe lots of bedridden kids don't
become creative? maybe lots of non-bedridden kids do become creative?), and
there are other reasons for being lonely.

~~~
vitaminj
Well, if you're lonlely, bedridden or have any kind of impediments to living
the "conventional" life, then I'd presume that solitary (and somewhat
sedentary) fields like science and arts would be your outlet for creativity.

On the other hand, I have a friend who you wouldn't call creative in the
conventional sense, but comes up with increasingly imaginative ways to pull
women. Ultimately, it's what you devote your time to, whether it's by free
will or some limitation.

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mleonhard
"The hard bit of having a "good idea" is not the invention of it, nor the
selling of it to the end-user, but managing the myriad of politics and egos of
the people who are supposedly on the same team as yourself."

Does this statement disturb you all like it frightens me?

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vaksel
I wonder if its just the case that most of ideas are created by the "nerds"
and the "geeks" who had lonenly childhoods because of their smarts and got
picked on in school.

I really don't think you can create anything decent if you don't surround
yourself by other smart people that'll make you think.

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rgrieselhuber
I also think that many good people have lonely childhoods.

~~~
PieSquared
Though not many lonely people have good childhoods.

