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This is true, but it does not mean that all unreasonable men contribute to progress. Most are wrong, and many are crazy. A few are right. Unfortunately, it's ha
by vannevar 15y ago
This is true, but it does not mean that all unreasonable men contribute to progress. Most are wrong, and many are crazy. A few are right. Unfortunately, it's hard for us (and impossible for them) to tell the difference.
- eternalban 15y agoIt is either a feature or a bug of civilization that it needs ballasts. My speculation regarding this phenomena is that it is an emergent (learned) response -- the collective adaptation has been to ignore outliers until proven correct. The absolute worst case (likely rare) is that a timely alternative viewpoint is ignored - i.e. Cassandras. On the balance, it appears the future collective wins as the validity of the outlier view (which were not that urgent) becomes apparent and the collective majority has developed the ability to adopt it and then the "tortured/rejected/misunderstood genuius" is celebrated after death. Civilizational win, with many individual loses (some entirely undeserved).