Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas

Posted by Zonk on from the smart-does-not-mean-sensible dept.

CHESTER COPPERPOT writes "Scott Berkun writes an interesting essay on 'Why smart people defend bad ideas'. He states a number of interesting highlights on smart people and dumb ideas. From the article: 'In the software industry, the common example of thinking at the wrong level is a team of rock star programmers who can make anything, but don't really know what to make: so they tend to build whatever things come to mind, never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied.'."

11 of 828 comments (clear)

  1. I Will Defend my Bad First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tom Smykowski: It's a "Jump to Conclusions Mat". You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.
    Michael Bolton: That is the worst idea I've ever heard.
    Samir: Yes, this is horrible, this idea.

  2. Jukebox guy by AntiPasto · · Score: 4, Funny

    I knew a guy that programmed a music "jukebox" ... didn't have the heart to tell him that at most parties I went to the people just had a winamp and a folder open.

  3. Case in Point by Kipsaysso · · Score: 3, Funny

    Slashdot

    --
    This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
    1. Re:Case in Point by HardCase · · Score: 3, Funny

      Are you sure that the Slashdot case involves smart people defending stupid ideas?

  4. No they don't. by halcyon1234 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Us smart folk have great ideas! Wonderful ideas!

    Like that time everyone wanted to give a multi-billion dollar corporation hundreds of millions of dollars to make another season of a mediocre TV show. That was a great idea, wasn't it?

    Oh, and then there was the tens of thousands of dallars they gave to that guy who ran a copyright-material-file-trading-site. That turned out smashingly well.

    And-- umm--- hrm.

    {pause}

    ............ good article.

    --
    UTF-8: There and Back Again
  5. Re:This extends to the rest of life by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Funny

    There are a lot of people who can literally do ANYTHING, and partly because of this they end up doing NOTHING.

    Well, I feel less guilty about my slackerism now, thanks! : )

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  6. Because we CAN! by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's simple. Everyone can have dumb ideas. It's our god given right. And if you think that you are going to pry them from our cold dead fingers, you have another think coming. We can come up with all the bad ideas that we want, and we STILL have more good ideas than the less fortunate. So I say LEAVE US ALONE!

  7. Re:Thomas Edison and DC current by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thomas Edison was violently opposed to AC

    With all the stupid comments coming from AC's, I strongly agree with him.
    Oh, wait...

  8. Re:China: Smart != Number Doodling by damsa · · Score: 3, Funny

    Damn it, the average score of average American's taking Calculus exams score is mean. We need to do something about it so at least half of those taking the test will score above the median.

  9. Re:China: Smart != Number Doodling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://img210.echo.cx/my.php?image=steps9gg.png Sorry, it just sprung to mind.

  10. Re:Why Do Smart People Defend Bad Ideas? by Frogbert · · Score: 4, Funny

    Asshat!