14 ms·

In Defense of Bad Ideas

101 points by as89 6y ago

ooobit2 6y ago
I'm not sure what to say apart from, "Yeah, think outside of the box just as often."
perl4ever 6y ago
I'd forgotten about that stuff, but it seems like the bad idea was the prize itself. I mean, the winner did just enough to get the prize, and stopped, and nothing further ever came of it, right? Just because of how SpaceX overshadows everything in retrospect.
- as89 6y ago
  No, they're still going at it. Partnered with Virgin to make further iterations of the Spaceship One concept under The Spaceship Company. They're shooting to do private spaceflights under the name Virgin Galactic.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    Orbit though?
    - skolsuper 6y ago
      What about it?
    - PopeDotNinja 6y ago
      Sub-orbital. Think getting the craft up to altitude of 100+ km, hang out for a few minutes, and descend back to Earth. SpaceShip One, the prototype inspiring the Virgin Galactic fleet, was capable of reaching speeds of 0.9 km/s. [1] Escape velocity to get into orbit from Earth's surface is 11.2 km/s. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity
      - thesz 6y ago
        Escape velocity is a velocity to escape gravitational field. Orbit velocity is a velocity to orbit a thing inside its gravitational field. For example, ISS has orbit speed of about 7.7 km/s at 350 km above the ground. Orbit speed "at the surface" of Earth is about 8km/s, I believe.
        PopeDotNinja 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        My point, not to be overly disrespectful, is that suborbital flights are so different from what SpaceX has done that they seem like party tricks, not stepping stones. In the big picture, it's not a huge amount wasted, I was just remarking on it being less significant in retrospect than one might have hoped.
      - addHocker 6y ago
        All it needs - is a hook and a fishersatellite to get this bird to space.
jkhdigital 6y ago
Bad ideas are magical when they come in the form of long call options (bounded cost, unlimited upside). Bad ideas destroy companies/nations/civilizations when they come in the form of short put options (bounded benefit, unlimited downside).
- sudeepj 6y ago
  This is indeed very well put. However sometimes due to nature of the idea it is hard to evaluate the extent of downside in advance and what may seem like a limited downside actually turns out to be worse.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  True. Also: when one is in a local maximum, bad ideas are the easiest way to get in the attraction basin of a better one.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > long call options > short put options I tried to think of what a "short call option" or a "long put option" would be, and I don't think the concepts exist. Do they?
  - ekelsen 6y ago
    If you buy a call option, someone has to be on the other side of the contract. They are the short position.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Sure, but they don't have a call option. All they have is an obligation.
      - brewmarche 6y ago
        Short just means they have a negative amount of that, in this case a negative amount of options.
krm01 6y ago
Would have loved to read a longer writeup exploring that premise (which I agree with). The difference between Bad ideas and Good ideas, is determined by the outcome. Something that seems bad but ends up working (milliondollarhomepage, pet-rock, etc.) ends up being brilliant, in the eyes of the public.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  I would argue that Walter Benjamin's "History is written by the winners" (rephrased) is someone a longer write-up of the same premise, albeit not in a technical area.
- PresidentChuck 6y ago
  Yeah, all ideas are bad until they accepted. To create is to challenge the status quo
hliyan 6y ago
Reminds me of the strange aircraft designs of Burt Rutan, the closest thing the 80-90's had to an Elon Musk: https://www.flyingmag.com/photo-gallery/photos/awesome-airplanes-burt-rutan/ https://www.flyingmag.com/photo-gallery/photos/awesome-airpl...
- taneq 6y ago
  If you're referring to SpaceShipOne, that's because Rutan's company built it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne
adwn 6y ago
The article assumes that SpaceShipOne's design was actually a good design. It wasn't. To be precise, it was a good design to satisfy the artificial requirements of the prize, but nothing else. The design doesn't scale. The hybrid rocket motor has been the source of countless headaches, lousy performance, and more than a decade of delays, the feathering mechanism has already cost the life of a test pilot, and the need for a pilot plus co-pilot severely reduces the payload capacity. Now, the article's thesis – that good and bad ideas are sometimes hard to distinguish before they've been tried – is still true, but the author chose a bad example.
- darkerside 6y ago
  It's a great example. The only reason these factors clearly outweigh the positives is because the benefit of hindsight. Or do you imagine the brightest minds of NASA just weren't thinking clearly for decades? The killer feature of the shuttle was supposed to be the cost savings from being able to make multiple trips using the same equipment (sound familiar?). It turned out not to be a feasible solution from a technical cost standpoint, but if people can't clearly estimate the cost of adding a new feature to a website, I totally believe would have been indistinguishable from a good idea at the time.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > It turned out not to be a feasible solution from a technical cost standpoint The shuttle turned out not to be a feasible solution because it was loaded down with other requirements that had nothing to do with the killer feature you describe. A key one was the requirement from the US Air Force that the shuttle have enough cross range capability to be launched into a polar orbit and then return to the launch site after one orbit [1]. That was what drove costs up to the point where the shuttle wasn't feasible any more in terms of the killer feature. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/scota.html https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/scota.html
- surjansingh 6y ago
  As the author of the article, maybe I can explain why I think it’s a good example. I’ll just say - I absolutely could have chosen something that was more of a slam dunk great idea (in hindsight) with tons of follow-on success. I mostly chose it because the Rotary Rocket and SpaceShipOne sit next to each other in Mojave and got me thinking about this in the first place. As you said yourself, it was a good design to win the prize. That to me is the key. It did everything it set out to accomplish. Your comments all relate to the scaled up SpaceShipTwo - a completely different vehicle - which I agree that the jury might still be out on. But to me, that’s like saying that a hang glider is a bad idea if someone tries to make a hang glider for ten people. Is it the hang glider that’s the bad idea or the fact that someone’s trying to scale something that maybe doesn’t scale well? That it was the first private crewed spaceflight shouldn’t be underestimated either. I think this list of human spaceflights really puts it in context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights Thanks for reading and for your perspective.
bluedino 6y ago
I've always wondered how terrible automotive designs make it to production. Engines or transmissions that quickly fail, cars that are just garbage in quality...nobody along the years of development stopped to say "maybe we shouldn't build this..", or perhaps someone did? Did the company building this get their moneys worth when it comes to lessons learned?
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  When it comes to mechanical failures like that, it's never due to incompetence; it's due to cost cutting concerns (e.g. using less material, cheaper / inferior material) and / or planned obsolescence. Automotive engineers are highly competent, and most will have had a lot of education when it comes to materials, strengths, stresses, wear and tear, etcetera. And car companies build up that knowledge over the decades. Definitely not a problem with all cars, but the better built cars are more expensive. I want to say "you get what you pay for", but at the same time I know nowadays there are a lot of products (e.g. electrical tools) where the brand is bought up and the new owner makes big cost cutting measures to maximize their profit margin, the money coming from "brand inertia", that is, a brand is known for being good for a couple years after they start reducing quality and durability.
  - reactor4 6y ago
    Nissan's CVT seem to be a counterexample of everything in your first paragraph. I could also bring a lot of counterexamples to your second paragrah (e.g.: many german cars).
    - michaelcampbell 6y ago
      "better built cars are more expensive" is not the same as "expensive cars are better built".
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dognotdog 6y ago
jotm 6y ago
That rotary rocket looks like a design that could work, tbh Instead of rocket propulsion, first stages could in theory deploy helicopter wings and get a decent slow down even before spinning them up to full speed (with autorotation the blades act like a parachute/wings). Seems like it would be a harder implementation than the high precision control with a rocket, though.
bmmayer1 6y ago
I wonder if "Abolish the police" is one of these ideas.
- tonyhb 6y ago
  Notwithstanding the political debate that you're enticing, I believe "abolish the police" is shorthand for "abolish the current police system/qualified immunity and replace it with something more humane". I strongly believe that no one is saying "let's have no judicial system".
wojtczyk 6y ago
Does anybody know, why the rotary rocket body did not start spinning itself once it lifted off the ground? There’s only one propeller.
pathhandwaving 6y ago
Some ideas are just bad Example: Should I take this unmarked pill a stranger just handed me? No you probably shouldn't Example 2: Should I jump off this cliff with rocks at the bottom? Is it higher than 2-5 feet. Probably not. Example 3: Should I eat this raw meat product that has been sitting out on my counter for more than a day. Probably no. I understand the point here, but some ideas are just bad ideas.

101 points by as89 6y ago

I'm not sure what to say apart from, "Yeah, think outside of the box just as often."

I'd forgotten about that stuff, but it seems like the bad idea was the prize itself. I mean, the winner did just enough to get the prize, and stopped, and nothing further ever came of it, right? Just because of how SpaceX overshadows everything in retrospect.

as89 6y ago
No, they're still going at it. Partnered with Virgin to make further iterations of the Spaceship One concept under The Spaceship Company. They're shooting to do private spaceflights under the name Virgin Galactic.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Orbit though?
  - skolsuper 6y ago
    What about it?
  - PopeDotNinja 6y ago
    Sub-orbital. Think getting the craft up to altitude of 100+ km, hang out for a few minutes, and descend back to Earth. SpaceShip One, the prototype inspiring the Virgin Galactic fleet, was capable of reaching speeds of 0.9 km/s. [1] Escape velocity to get into orbit from Earth's surface is 11.2 km/s. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity
    - thesz 6y ago
      Escape velocity is a velocity to escape gravitational field. Orbit velocity is a velocity to orbit a thing inside its gravitational field. For example, ISS has orbit speed of about 7.7 km/s at 350 km above the ground. Orbit speed "at the surface" of Earth is about 8km/s, I believe.
      - PopeDotNinja 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        My point, not to be overly disrespectful, is that suborbital flights are so different from what SpaceX has done that they seem like party tricks, not stepping stones. In the big picture, it's not a huge amount wasted, I was just remarking on it being less significant in retrospect than one might have hoped.
    - addHocker 6y ago
      All it needs - is a hook and a fishersatellite to get this bird to space.

jkhdigital 6y ago

Bad ideas are magical when they come in the form of long call options (bounded cost, unlimited upside). Bad ideas destroy companies/nations/civilizations when they come in the form of short put options (bounded benefit, unlimited downside).

sudeepj 6y ago
This is indeed very well put. However sometimes due to nature of the idea it is hard to evaluate the extent of downside in advance and what may seem like a limited downside actually turns out to be worse.
082349872349872 6y ago
True. Also: when one is in a local maximum, bad ideas are the easiest way to get in the attraction basin of a better one.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> long call options > short put options I tried to think of what a "short call option" or a "long put option" would be, and I don't think the concepts exist. Do they?
- ekelsen 6y ago
  If you buy a call option, someone has to be on the other side of the contract. They are the short position.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Sure, but they don't have a call option. All they have is an obligation.
    - brewmarche 6y ago
      Short just means they have a negative amount of that, in this case a negative amount of options.

krm01 6y ago

Would have loved to read a longer writeup exploring that premise (which I agree with). The difference between Bad ideas and Good ideas, is determined by the outcome. Something that seems bad but ends up working (milliondollarhomepage, pet-rock, etc.) ends up being brilliant, in the eyes of the public.

cycomanic 6y ago
I would argue that Walter Benjamin's "History is written by the winners" (rephrased) is someone a longer write-up of the same premise, albeit not in a technical area.
PresidentChuck 6y ago
Yeah, all ideas are bad until they accepted. To create is to challenge the status quo

hliyan 6y ago

Reminds me of the strange aircraft designs of Burt Rutan, the closest thing the 80-90's had to an Elon Musk: https://www.flyingmag.com/photo-gallery/photos/awesome-airplanes-burt-rutan/ https://www.flyingmag.com/photo-gallery/photos/awesome-airpl...

taneq 6y ago
If you're referring to SpaceShipOne, that's because Rutan's company built it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne

adwn 6y ago

The article assumes that SpaceShipOne's design was actually a good design. It wasn't. To be precise, it was a good design to satisfy the artificial requirements of the prize, but nothing else. The design doesn't scale. The hybrid rocket motor has been the source of countless headaches, lousy performance, and more than a decade of delays, the feathering mechanism has already cost the life of a test pilot, and the need for a pilot plus co-pilot severely reduces the payload capacity. Now, the article's thesis – that good and bad ideas are sometimes hard to distinguish before they've been tried – is still true, but the author chose a bad example.

darkerside 6y ago
It's a great example. The only reason these factors clearly outweigh the positives is because the benefit of hindsight. Or do you imagine the brightest minds of NASA just weren't thinking clearly for decades? The killer feature of the shuttle was supposed to be the cost savings from being able to make multiple trips using the same equipment (sound familiar?). It turned out not to be a feasible solution from a technical cost standpoint, but if people can't clearly estimate the cost of adding a new feature to a website, I totally believe would have been indistinguishable from a good idea at the time.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > It turned out not to be a feasible solution from a technical cost standpoint The shuttle turned out not to be a feasible solution because it was loaded down with other requirements that had nothing to do with the killer feature you describe. A key one was the requirement from the US Air Force that the shuttle have enough cross range capability to be launched into a polar orbit and then return to the launch site after one orbit [1]. That was what drove costs up to the point where the shuttle wasn't feasible any more in terms of the killer feature. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/scota.html https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/scota.html
surjansingh 6y ago
As the author of the article, maybe I can explain why I think it’s a good example. I’ll just say - I absolutely could have chosen something that was more of a slam dunk great idea (in hindsight) with tons of follow-on success. I mostly chose it because the Rotary Rocket and SpaceShipOne sit next to each other in Mojave and got me thinking about this in the first place. As you said yourself, it was a good design to win the prize. That to me is the key. It did everything it set out to accomplish. Your comments all relate to the scaled up SpaceShipTwo - a completely different vehicle - which I agree that the jury might still be out on. But to me, that’s like saying that a hang glider is a bad idea if someone tries to make a hang glider for ten people. Is it the hang glider that’s the bad idea or the fact that someone’s trying to scale something that maybe doesn’t scale well? That it was the first private crewed spaceflight shouldn’t be underestimated either. I think this list of human spaceflights really puts it in context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights Thanks for reading and for your perspective.

bluedino 6y ago

I've always wondered how terrible automotive designs make it to production. Engines or transmissions that quickly fail, cars that are just garbage in quality...nobody along the years of development stopped to say "maybe we shouldn't build this..", or perhaps someone did? Did the company building this get their moneys worth when it comes to lessons learned?

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
When it comes to mechanical failures like that, it's never due to incompetence; it's due to cost cutting concerns (e.g. using less material, cheaper / inferior material) and / or planned obsolescence. Automotive engineers are highly competent, and most will have had a lot of education when it comes to materials, strengths, stresses, wear and tear, etcetera. And car companies build up that knowledge over the decades. Definitely not a problem with all cars, but the better built cars are more expensive. I want to say "you get what you pay for", but at the same time I know nowadays there are a lot of products (e.g. electrical tools) where the brand is bought up and the new owner makes big cost cutting measures to maximize their profit margin, the money coming from "brand inertia", that is, a brand is known for being good for a couple years after they start reducing quality and durability.
- reactor4 6y ago
  Nissan's CVT seem to be a counterexample of everything in your first paragraph. I could also bring a lot of counterexamples to your second paragrah (e.g.: many german cars).
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    "better built cars are more expensive" is not the same as "expensive cars are better built".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dognotdog 6y ago

jotm 6y ago

That rotary rocket looks like a design that could work, tbh Instead of rocket propulsion, first stages could in theory deploy helicopter wings and get a decent slow down even before spinning them up to full speed (with autorotation the blades act like a parachute/wings). Seems like it would be a harder implementation than the high precision control with a rocket, though.

bmmayer1 6y ago

I wonder if "Abolish the police" is one of these ideas.

tonyhb 6y ago
Notwithstanding the political debate that you're enticing, I believe "abolish the police" is shorthand for "abolish the current police system/qualified immunity and replace it with something more humane". I strongly believe that no one is saying "let's have no judicial system".

wojtczyk 6y ago

Does anybody know, why the rotary rocket body did not start spinning itself once it lifted off the ground? There’s only one propeller.

pathhandwaving 6y ago

Some ideas are just bad Example: Should I take this unmarked pill a stranger just handed me? No you probably shouldn't Example 2: Should I jump off this cliff with rocks at the bottom? Is it higher than 2-5 feet. Probably not. Example 3: Should I eat this raw meat product that has been sitting out on my counter for more than a day. Probably no. I understand the point here, but some ideas are just bad ideas.