Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianEdgar
In a nutshell, this is why I really dislike "thought experiments" on web discussion groups. (Not just this thread - all of them.)
Anyone - anyone at all - can come up with ideas that might possibly work. But does an idea alone have any value? I'd suggest that in the field of modifying cars, no, it doesn't.
What has value is coming up with the idea then proving (through actual testing) that it works.
Maybe I have a different perspective because, as a magazine editor, I used to get maybe one or two of these a week sent to me for my thoughts. Someone, dreamily looking into space, said "But what if we did...? Wouldn't that be great? I know, I'll send it to that bloke Julian Edgar for his thoughts." I have one in my in-box right now.
Is it a good idea? Who knows? Who cares? I don't, much. Unproven ideas are easy. I'd go so far as to say: trivial. Only two of those hundreds of ideas that I have been presented with over the last 30 years, have, to my knowledge, ever been commercially successful. And not serendipitously, both had been well tested before being presented to me.
But the real reason I dislike thought experiments is this: they spread likely falsehoods. The idea may have been a mere postulation, but soon it takes root. The idea initiator has plausible deniability ("I didn't say it was true or would work!"), but they're the one who initially promoted it. Just look at US politics for many classic examples.
Suggesting that lift is a good idea in road cars - and 99 per cent of this website is about modification of road cars - is an especially bad idea to spread... there is literally truckloads of evidence against it.
|
* those who dislike them are in no way obligated to participate.
* personally, I've never heard a stupid question.
* the world's being destroyed by people who don't ask any.
* the value of a question could only be quantified 'after' the exploration was complete.
* the job of the engineer is to solve the idea on paper or in a computer, without testing, using theory, and all extant data available.
* some commercial successes of ideas have ruined the world.
* I'm quite confident that commercial failures of the past are what will save us from the successes.
* bad ideas will not survive the light of day. They're not a threat.
* In the United States of America, citizens are free to believe all the bad ideas they can contain.
* politics would be a poor analogy. There's no such thing as political 'science.'
* 'good' and 'bad' are subjective terms. They cannot be quantified. There's no acid test for them. There never will be.
* perhaps, the data which emerges after a full investigation, will be enough for an interested participant to draw their own conclusions.
* I for one, am not interested in thought police. I don't need EcoModder.com to be sanitized for my own protection.
* the only stupid question is, the one that was never asked.