Offend to innovate

New things shouldn't be comfortable

Top of the whatever it is where you’re reading this. Fun news - you can now access this newsletter by going to LateralThink.in. For now it redirects to the Substack homepage - but this’ll change in the near future.

Stay curious!

Our quick piece of wisdom/lateral thinking today comes from a Zen story I read a long time ago.

A reporter hears about an old monk who has lived to 110 years and is still in perfect health. He sets out to interview the old man, who lived in a monastery.

After a long and tiring journey, the reporter is sitting face to face with the 110 year old Zen master.

“You look in perfect health, Master. What is your secret?”

“The secret is that I have never disagreed with anyone in my life” immediately says the old master.

“You must be joking, that can’t be right. Everyone disagrees with someone at some point in their life. It’s absurd, that can’t be the secret!” quickly replies the reporter.

What do you think the Zen Master replied? The answer, as usual, at the end.

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When everyone agrees, someone isn’t thinking.

Time for a bit of a 🌶️ spicy take.

I’ve recently gone down quite a YouTube commentary rabbit hole. Going through all these, it suddenly hit me. The majority of them can be split in two categories.

• Comfortable opinions - things you can say and immediately find support for. Rather than actual opinions, these are often closer to virtue signaling than an actual matter worth debating (“everyone deserves an opportunity” isn’t an opinion, it’s a basic moral code)

• Tougher takes - ideas or opinions that will divide people, will spark a conversation or even anger some. These are not always right, just to be clear. But they are often more productive than the first category. Even by sparking a debate, they end up producing more real change than the comfortable opinions.

Let me share the example that started all this. A while back, this fun idea from Cluj Napoca went viral: do 20 squats and get a free bus ticket. It was meant to promote a healthy lifestyle and get people to be more active.

The idea is exciting, new and simply enjoyable, right?

I recently saw this shared on LinkedIn - but I unfortunately didn’t save the link - and looked at the comments. While most were celebratory, a significant amount of them were criticizing the idea. The arguments were faulty, and that’s me trying to be nice.

Some were saying this is discriminatory towards people with mobility issues. Someone pointed out they would get a free fare anyway.

Others mentioned it’s discriminatory towards old people. Same response.

An argument appeared between people saying it’s discriminatory towards fat people, while others saying it’s actually beneficial to them.

Funny enough, the “haters” were gaining significant support. A lot of people were liking their comments and commenting the same thing - they weren’t bringing any new arguments in the conversation, but merely showed off that they are also defending “the disadvantaged”.

While some might say this is progressive, I’ll argue this is mostly oppressive.

This is not how you incite innovations and new ideas.

Not by attacking people who create. Not by making them fearful of a mob effect. People need to be excited to share their creations, not horrified of the public reaction. Yes, some ideas are not good, but if the status quo is that people will always find things to attack in new (or old) ideas, then people will stop sharing their ideas as often.

And that leads to less ideas being discussed, which is never a good step for society.

So please have the courage to share your ideas and don’t only share those that you feel will be accepted.

It’s how we build.

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Answer: The Zen Master ponders the reporter’s retort and replies: “You know what? You’re perfectly right!”.