In Praise of Idiots, Lunatics, and Con Men

You have likely heard a fantastic story about an amazing adventurer who never gave up, and always moved forward. This dashing catalyst of so many things was greater than the average man, and capable of so much. Then you read the history of this person, and they come off as a jerk, or some kind of idiot. The reality is, they were both. In fact, this person, needed to be an idiot to do the things we all say he is brave for.

Most people who move the world forward a large step are some kind of idiot, lunatic, or con man. They have to be, or their work couldn’t be done. The logical intelligent safe person would not do it. If you look at these men correctly, you find that often we praise them only after the fact, and then only if they succeeded.

I know this is hard to believe, because you can’t imagine these glorious people to be such duddering fools, but they are. The only real check is whether or not they knew what they were doing, and believed it.

An Idiot is someone who has no clue how something works. They do the thing, but don’t understand it at all. They might have an explanation, but it so completely false, it becomes surprising how much they were able to move forward.

A lunatic knows much about the subject, and the dangers it involves. They go forward anyway. Test pilots specifically try to make planes screw up. They become some of the best pilots in the world, because they know how to deal with machines that have completely gone wrong.

Con Men are fully aware that what they are selling is dangerous, and in fact probably doesn’t work. However, they work to convince others it will, and that this thing is worth doing. They act as if they know exactly how something works, and are smart intelligent people doing it. Really though, most of the things that work were stolen, and the people who suffered were the idiots and lunatics who followed them.

The praise always comes after the big discovery, or the moon landing. You probably don’t realize how many rednecks there are that work for NASA, or all of Sir Isaac Newton’s hobbies. In fact, you likely don’t realize that most people who end up doing great and amazing things didn’t think all the way through.

Making sure everything works at each step is a slow process, and will always take the safest route. The aquaduct system will be perfect once it is done, but won’t hold up to technology as it moves faster.

In academic circles the use of theory is the be all and end all. Very few take it a step further and try to use it. You will meet tons of historians, anthropologists, scientists, and others that love to talk about how things work theoretically, or within the bounds of a certain narrative. Asking them to actually do something with it, or test the idea is not done. They don’t have enough evidence, or information to work with.

Before you think this is a recent thing, you should realize it has been the task for millennia.

The entire history of avionics is owed to lunatics and idiots. In the book aeronauts, ballooning did not get started until someone made a balloon. That sounds dumb, and boy howdy it is. The scientists were aware that hot air made things rise. They even did tests with bits of paper to prove it. Yet no one felt brave enough to try it. A farmer, who thought the smoke had to smell right, not only made the first major balloon, but did it before royalty. After that, there was a sudden rise in scientists who could build balloons. The first passengers aboard a balloon were animals, because scientists were scared to get in.

If I told you to get in a box, and that it could fly, would you get in? You have no idea if it flies, or how dangerous it is, in fact you know there is a lot keeping it from flying. I would have to convince you to get into the balloon, the airplane, or the rocketship somehow. The reality is, even if I explain how the box flies, I am probably wrong. The Wright brothers did not know. Many of the rockets designed for early space travel were by men who didn’t have degrees at all. They just happened to know how to make rockets -and speak German.

Who came to America first? It doesn’t matter who you say it is, they are all considered some kind of lunatic or fool. The Vikings were explorers and travelled long distances out of need. It was harder to travel through dense forests than sail around them. The same goes for various Pacific island groups. Columbus has a long history of no one wanting to follow his ideas. In fact, he likely got his money from local mobsters. His plans were off by several days. Far worse, when he did find a new place, he had to insist it was the Indes or not get paid. We praise him now, but he died in a debters prison. Compare that to Eric the Red, and the Vikings seemed to have an easier way.

The guys who created Doom were college drop outs who spent more time playing Dungeons and Dragons and listening to hard rock albums than thinking about the future. They just wanted to make this really cool product that would be totally awesome to play.

Even today, as the technology becomes cheaper to send things to space, we haven’t really left. Space X, and other companies screw up, and have a hard time moving forward. It’s hard, and only a lunatic would think it was possible.

There are ways to help with becoming an idiot, a lunatic, or a con man. The first way is to admit you have no idea, and slowly move forward anyway. The next is to be bored and do it as a hobby. Another good path is to be good at one thing, and then asked to do another. The last is to be desperate.

The first is something philosophers speak of all the time. Admitting you know nothing helps with learning things. For example, I am starting into a study on Vikings and Maori. I have no idea where it will lead me, or what it will explain. I have vague ideas based on previous work, but honestly, who knows. At this point my friends who know a bit more are incredibly useful. I am using it to help my cub scouts move forward. Last year’s theme was Roman Soldiers, and they loved it. So, I thought to try something a bit harder. The other scout leaders let me, and assume I know what I am doing. Because it ends well, they approve of it. Actually it ends with a full blown war between cub scouts. I really wish I had pictures of it.

The problem with this set up is how few people who are comfortable with their lives are willing to do something like this. They have enough to worry about, and don’t want to look like fools.

The next way is from boredom. There is a lot of history that shows boredom moves things forward. If you are bored, the willingness to do something -anything- becomes very strong. There are long history books praising boredom from the Industrial Revolution. Suddenly people with money had less to do. More people had money and free time. Videogames could not be introduced if we didn’t have an extreme boredom. The same works with TV, Radio, Opera, and others.

With that, we also have a willingness to do insane things. Write, make rockets, or redo the entire system of governance. Cabin Fever does it all.

Another great way is to be a fool at a new market. A leading psychologist was asked to help out with financial things. He didn’t know a lot about financial systems, so he used things like Game Theory and other psyche stuff to understand it. He ended up getting the nobel prize in finance because of his lack of knowledge.

Finally we have desperation. This can be during a desperate time of life, or a small point. The desperation to come up with something, anything that can help does wonders. In fact, at the start of most major breakthroughs, the inventors use their knowledge with things they really shouldn’t.

Early arcades were used mainly for gambling. The difference between a casino and an arcade did not exist. You would find target games, bowling games, pinball machines, and gambling machines right next to each other. The owner of the building could oust the people there easily, and with police help. So the only way to make things work was to make money, and pay off everyone.

An open secret among technology researchers is porn. We know something is going to be big based on how porn uses it. This isn’t an easy thing to admit either. Google’s search protocols are based on porn industry standards. The first videos had nudity. We can watch as it starts, and the desperation to have this new thing work is given out to folks who aren’t liked by good family loving folks.

Why do I bring this up? There is two parts to the answer. The first is that much of history has these idiots, lunatics and con men show up. The second is that many great and important things wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for them.

Let’s take videogames. When they started, there was a lot of theory. Heck computing had theory for centuries, but no one moved it forward. Babbage theorized about a computing machine, even drawing everything down, but never actually built it. There were early computers in the first World War, but no one really used them.

If it hadn’t been for the lunatics at MIT, we would never have moved forward so quickly. One of the first games was built there. Computer Space was what inspired guys like Nolan Bushnell to create an arcade game. The game that sold wasn’t Computer Space though. But Bushnell told everyone he invented CS, and also Pong. Why? Because at that time, people needed to have a single person to believe in. He lied to keep the company going. In fact, many of his lies are still being uncovered.

I was actually going to put a quote here from the Ultimate Videogame History book, but any page mentioning Nolan Bushnell and some of his secrets is blocked on Google Books. Serious. Not saying anything, just letting you know.

Shigeru Miyamoto is the greatest videogame designer in the world. The reality is that his first game Donkey Kong came at a desperate moment, and he was actually a toy designer at the time. In fact, so was the head of his department. Gunpei Yokoi would create some of the now standard things used today. Hiroshi Yamauchi kept the game department in desperation to gain his approval. If he said a game was good, it got published, if it did not, then the creator would have to make something else. This tactic helped him create an empire. Miyamoto has likely kept that desperation within the company even today.

To go into any history, you find them, and they tend to play important figures.

The reason why is that without those steps forward, we wouldn’t have these things. It’s true, the first car crashed into a barn while the creator was having a pint. But without that invention, the steam engine would not move forward in history. Yes, Columbus has a dark history about him, and was a bit of an idiot, but he went West when no one else would. We take these things for granted, but at one time no one was willing to try.

But it gets weirder, and harder to explain. A young jewish boy in England enjoyed writing. He lied about his credentials to get a job as a writer, and often did books he wasn’t proud of. Yet, if he hadn’t we wouldn’t have American Gods, Ananzi Boys, and Coraline.

That would be about average for writers. Stephen King was an English teacher, and didn’t think his work would amaze anyone.

A crazy Idahoan farmboy decided that radiowaves could transmit pictures. He invented TV. See, if you’re idahoan, you know he had to be bored. Just one day he couldn’t stand it anymore, and decided to invent TV.

These people moved things forward because they were willing to do it. The vast majority of people with ideas did not. Just about every writer I know has admitted how crazy they feel at times. They keep going at their work until someone pays them. In fact, thats how most writers end up getting paid. Well ok, they end up having to sell their work, which means acting as if they know what they are doing, and that their last work took years of hard work to make. The reality is that most books takes a month to make. Don’t get me wrong, the book I have with Alpha readers now took me a year, but I was also writing other books at the time. Plus doing all those other activities, like working at conventions, and other stuff.

In other words, the willingness to do, to make, or to take that step forward is insanity. The reality is most people who start have no idea what they are doing. No one knows if it is safe, or if anyone really wants it. In fact, it will most likely fail. We only praise the people who make it, so why try. The logical, knowledgable person with his sanity about him would never do it. No amount of ideas could persuade him.

The reality is, we only praise these great writers because now we see them as great. If you met a Christopher Columbus today, would you believe him? No, of course not, his ideas are crazy. We can’t get to Mars that fast, and the idea for a space colony is not going to happen because we have problems here that need to be dealt with. The problem is, most greats are also ordinary.

Christ was once made fun of by his own town, because they knew him growing up.

Elijah was called a crazy man in the desert.

Columbus couldn’t get funding to head West.

Isaac Newton spent most of his time in his office, never talking to anyone else. He tried to find mathematic patterns in the bible.

If I were to take you into a time machine, and point out any of these men, you wouldn’t recognize them. There wouldn’t be a halo around them like so many paintings show. They would be ordinary looking, common, and perhaps shunned by others. It works the same today. We only praise them now, because we know what they did.

Thats another aspect we don’t want to admit. The boredom. Those guys who created modern computing were outcasts for a reason. They spent all their time with a computer, instead of going outside, and talking to people. Some of them were famous for not bathing. This description does not make them sound like those guys looking off at the sunset as if it was the future.

Then there is something even worse. What if what they want to do is evil? They have conned a bunch of folks, and moved forward with their lunatic ideas. Those idiots who follow them are plowing away at their new evil scheme.

Hitler was willing to take all the theory on German people being better to an extreme. he did the same with art, and new technologies. Rocket science moved forward by decades because he rounded up anyone able to fix a machine, and told them to make fiery death. His scientists did horrible experiments on human beings.

The two idiots who shot up Columbine could not get things straight. In a way we are all lucky. There were bombs in that highschool, and in the emergency evacuation zones. Had they actually worked, the copycats of late would have used bombs as well. They knew what they were doing, but didn’t understand it fully.

This is part of the lunatic, and idiot ideal. Horrible awful ideas are moved forward by the same methods. In some cases, we don’t realize how bad the idea is until later, after it was tried out. Another reason to not move forward with our ideas.

When we talk about great people, we tend to ignore their faults. We make them into great men who knew what they were doing. Even though the truth is that they were likely idiots, lunatics, or con men. We make their desperation, or boredom out to be something to look up to, or even praise. The problem is, the exact same methods can be used for evil. Because of our own fears, most people do not try out ideas, or do something stupid.

This leads to the reasons why it isn’t talked about very often. We make these grand images, because it makes what we are doing now seem grand. Unwilling to move forward, we look at the past as a way to see how far we have progressed. People try to invoke these great men, and act as if they knew what they were doing.

We cover it up, because knowing that everything you used had to be from someone who honestly had no idea would be frightening. The future is like that. It is scary, and full of unknowns.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, its ok. Move forward anyway. It’s a scary horrible awful future ahead of us, and only a few lunatics and idiots can get us through.