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Remember when google offered that “ideas to save the planet” contest? I used to wade through those.

They fell into a couple easy categories. Perpetual motion machines, casual ideas that are obviously impractical, fundamentally failing to understand the subject area. Not a single one of them seemed new or useful.

Then again Nicola Tesla had some strange ideas. Turns out half of them were brilliant and the other half still seem weird. Efforts to demarcate crackpot and real might be approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

I like the author’s strategy of helping people gain the knowledge to understand what they’re trying to talk about. Teslas ideas about motion and flow as it pertains to physical health were weird but that doesn’t mean he was unable to learn about biology, had he spent time learning about it, maybe he’d have brought his ideas back to reality and contributed something interesting.

We should celebrate people for their curiosity, encourage them to gain the knowledge that has already been discovered and help them express their ideas in ways that others can relate to.




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