Since most unconventional ideas tend to fail (because people have thought for a long time about what would be good, and over time those things have often become

Since most unconventional ideas tend to fail (because people have thought for a long time about what would be good, and over time those things have often become conventional), it is a useful heuristic to go with conservative, conventional ideas. I think this totally fits in with "wisdom of crowds". Of course, this also means you won't generate that once-in-a-million super great unconventional idea. But then again, I think that's the point. If you try to generate the great unconventional idea, the base rate of failure is so high that you should not have so much hubris as to believe you actually can do it, and most often you should admit that what you think is a great unconventional idea really probably can't do any better than whatever conventional wisdom would choose. I think my view on this is not popular because everyone wants to believe in the idea underdog -- the idea that was spurned by conventional wisdom but proved itself regardless and made someone famous for executing upon it. That's great and all, but in the same way that putting all of your money on a single stock is a bad strategy, failing to average across ideas embraced by conventional wisdom is also (often, but not always) a bad strategy. On a different note though, there is a lot of value in your comment even connecting it back to the "wisdom of crowds" stuff. One of the issues with "wisdom of crowds" is that the aggregated average tends only to be better whenever there is a sufficient variance of opinions in the crowd. This way, there is not systematic bias in everyone's thinking, meaning that the average too will have that bias. The more variation, the more that each participant's particular way of being wrong will contribute to "canceling out" the errors, leaving the average in a good position. To me it suggests that when unconventional ideas do hit it big, it is because they are highly related to some source of demonstrable bias in conventional wisdom, and by removing that bias, such ideas can actually improve upon whatever is the current state of conventional wisdom. But most of the time, it seems we only hit upon these bias-based improvements by accident because tons and tons of people keep trying (and failing, often to their personal detriment) to commit to unconventional ideas that aren't articulated in terms of any demonstrable bias, and it ends up basically being an idea lottery to see who happens to hit the "jackpot" idea. That's what makes conventional wisdom appealing as an alternative, steady expected return with low risk, but it's also what means it will never lead you to the next big thing.