Being critical or skeptical is easy. It's a low-effort approach to encountering new ideas. It's fine most of the time because most new ideas aren't going anywhe

Being critical or skeptical is easy. It's a low-effort approach to encountering new ideas. It's fine most of the time because most new ideas aren't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. So there's little-to-no cost in rejecting them. But it's a boring way to go about things. I can't speak for anyone else, but it certainly doesn't engage my intellectual curiosity, which is the purported purpose of this site. A few years ago I made up an exercise for myself. I resolved to look at every startup in each YC batch for that year. I went to Tech Crunch and read their Demo Day reports and the short blurbs they had on each company. For most of them, my reflexive response was that they were dumb or pointless or unworkable. Fine. Noted. But then I made myself come up with best case scenarios for each of them. What if this does work, what's the best possible outcome? What's the bigger picture that this could be the entry point for? If I was given this startup idea, what would I do to make it work? This was of course much more difficult than simply dismissing the ideas. And it was ridiculously time consuming since there's now 50 bajillion YC teams every season. But it also turned out to be very enjoyable. I got hooked on it. Letting my imagination and analytical skills run in optimistic, problem-solving directions. And now I have a much fuller and more capable toolset to use when I approach new concepts. It's paid off for me in concrete ways in my professional and personal life. Considering the best case take and how you'd make it real is a habit I very much recommend.