"any idea, to be truly groundbreaking, can not be easily distinguished from noise / crackpot theories" This is an interesting insight. Yeah, I think you are on

"any idea, to be truly groundbreaking, can not be easily distinguished from noise / crackpot theories" This is an interesting insight. Yeah, I think you are onto something here. Groundbreaking ideas, as opposed to new technologies, tend not to have obvious real world applications/results for years. As such, they aren't easily distinguishable from random crackpottery. We tend to validate ideas by their later applications, or, at the very least, a heap of corroborating evidence. Both takes a lot of time to aggregate.