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Comment by sigseg1v | Hacker News Reader

With all due respect, if the idea is good, then it will happen. The proposer of the idea needs to nurture it and part of that is defending it.

When someone is super optimistic and comes forward with an idea where:

- it's actually just a half baked solution for something I already tried to solve 4 years ago

- I'm acutely aware of all the spots it will fall

- they still think it can work, when it really really honestly can not

- they lack the experience to see that it won't work and become frustrated when I point out 20 problems with it and why it's not worth pursuing further

^ what exactly am I supposed to do with the above? You can take the advice/critique or leave it, but if I'm supposed to try to help and nurture a dead end instead of telling you the issues with it, that makes no sense to me.

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> With all due respect, if the idea is good, then it will happen.

Not sure if that's survivorship bias or post-facto rationalization. I guess the 'it will happen' implies eventually and since we cannot wait for all time there is no good idea that could qualify as never going to happen.

I know of many good ideas that haven't' happened yet and are unlikely to be brought to fruition in my lifetime. At least Meta-Languages became popular, that only took 60 years.

> With all due respect, if the idea is good, then it will happen

Working in a corporate environment, I have not found this to be the case. Good ideas get nowhere without buy-in

I think it really depends on the motivations of the business. Some are more R&D and innovation driven. Getting "buy-in" is technically necessary, but trivially easy as long as the biggest cost is only development time. If it's a bad idea, it eventually fades away as other priorities take over.

There is no one singular "corporate environment". This is especially true when a lot of people working there tend to not job hop much. Time both grows that particular work culture, and keeps those people ignorant.

> what exactly am I supposed to do with the above?

Exactly what you did there: ask a question.

You tried it, you know where the potential failure points are. Don't assume the super optimistic person hasn't considered them. Ask them how they would address those issues. If they have addressed them, maybe there is something workable. If they haven't addressed those failure points, you have given them a choice: to tackle those issues in the background or to set the idea aside.

>With all due respect, if the idea is good, then it will happen

If this is true, companies wouldn't fail all the time.

Many good ideas have multiple failed attempts wrt implementation.

Eg: if we accept that transcontinental rail spanning the USofA was a good idea, then it can be seen that several wanna be railroad barons fell by the wayside.

This logic means you can’t ever be wrong because any case of a good idea not being implemented can be hand waved away as “not yet.”

Edit: you changed your comment a lot

Take a look at the technology sitting in front of you. How many ideas does it incorporate that were tried and failed, or were tried but languished in niche markets for decades before they became an everyday thing?

A lot of ideas fail because they're not ready: they are expensive, they are not reliable (yet), the world is not ready for them. None of those reasons mean an idea is bad. They simply mean it will take more time and effort for them to work.

“a lot of ideas fail because they’re not ready” =/= “all good ideas win out”

True, but you don't know which ideas are going to win out until they have won out (or an objectively better idea replaces them).

I agree. I do not think we are anywhere near the original conversation anymore, however. I certainly never said anything that contradicts your comment.

He had a comment that said, essentially, “all good ideas eventually win out.” He then heavily edited his comment after I responded. That could be the source of confusion for you here.

> This logic means

No, it doesn't. Maybe wind back on the absolutism a little and look to the wide world where things happen. Warts and all.

I am arguing it does. Condescending, dismissive responses aren’t arguments. I am not being absolutist, I am saying you are making it impossible to disagree by definition.

I am down to discuss this if you want to but this isn’t exactly a great start to a productive conversation.

> but this isn’t exactly a great start to a productive conversation.

My thought entirely. Perhaps you think I'm in the camp that believes all good ides come to fruition.

My position is that the world is complex, there are "good ideas" that have a time frame, should they not be implemented with that time frame their time has passed and they're no longer good ideas.

That said, my response above stands - just because a good idea exists and is timely, it does not follow that failures to implement cannot happen, nor does it mean that at least one attempt must succeed, further there are cases with a time window, I have a great idea for improving horse drawn ploughing, for example ...

Also, see @II2II 's peer comment above, another take on possible happenings.

Where I take issue with the content of your comment is specifically:

> This logic means ...

the reasoning you use there eludes me.

I’m done man

> The proposer of the idea needs to nurture it and part of that is defending it.

Some people are focusing on the first sentence, but I think this part is key. Obviously, if it's a good idea and you're putting in the work, that's probably a good direction. Critique is useful, defending an idea can help prevent you from being blindsided and help to hone your vision.

One of the things a lot of people seem to struggle with is knowing when it's worth it to keep going and when to let go. When working on something, there can be a lot of people coming from all sides saying, "this won't work," "this will work if you just stick with it", "actually, you're just missing X." There's a lot of noise, and the pushback can be fairly cliche at times.

Sometimes, things like you've mentioned like lack of experience will block them. But, depending on how strongly somebody feels about a concept, when they don't necessarily know if it's a good idea, they may just nurture it and see how everything plays out. It's okay if some things fail.

These are all excuses. I tried this 4 years ago excuse often fails after I try and somehow things magically work. We create blindspots when we focus too deeply for too long. Sometimes when trying things you believe will fail because of past experience you discover you were doing it wrong or time has caught up or some other variable changed.

> With all due respect, if the idea is good, then it will happen.

There are umpteen careerist assholes in corporate environments who reflexively shoot down everyone else's ideas who isn't senior simply to advance their and their friends' ideas to get credit and promotions instead. They refuse to listen honestly and double-down on "their way" with bullshit rationalizations how their ideas are "better". There is no convincing of anything or debating them publicly because it's contrary to their interests.

Politically-motivated adversarial "opposition" to "bad ideas" while silencing better ideas because of non-meritorious factors is distinctly far more troubling than shooting down genuinely worse ideas.

Knocking down ideas often comes with intros like “With all due respect”.

This is faith in some sort of cosmic truth a la “the invisible hand.” The best ideas do not always win out. We wouldn’t have concepts such as “first mover advantage” if that was true.

Sometimes, the only way to get the negative aspects of an idea across to someone with a bright look in their eye is to stand back and let them do it.

Let them fail.

And then, when they run face-first into that brick wall (exactly as predicted), don't point and laugh and say "I told you so!"

Instead, help them to their feet and to get dusted off. You can then share stories of your mutual, independent failures over a beer or something.

(And the next time? You still don't have to tell them that the idea is a dead-end; if they're smart, they'll ask you questions before they burst out in a sprint.)

Most of the startups were flawed ideas according to vast majority, this is why success is rare.

You cannot know which solution will succeed, there are many stupid solutions with commerical success while many brilliant solutions without success.

Thinking you can guess what is going to succeed or not going to succeed is dunning kruger.

Predicting success is tough.

Some failures are not hard to predict. Politics is full of bad ideas that should’ve been shot down early.

Well, you can help nurture it. Prehaps instead of speaking how about how it couldn't work think about what you'd need to do to make it work or where it could work. Tend to the garden!

> think about what you'd need to do to make it work

"This idea will probably work once we can develop just a few new basic technologies that it depends on (time travel, antigravity, unlimited free energy, faster-than-light communication, ...)"

This guy shoots down ideas.

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