Terrible Ideas from Genius People

[@Spydercyde82]

I highly disagree with your assertion that Bell’s idea on the multi nippled goat was stupid. It wasn’t a bad idea. It was science, especially back then when you didn’t have computers and the ability to see what would happen with genetics in a programable framework. Practical tests were the only way to figure something by out. hHe had a hypothesis, he tested it, The hypothesis turned out to be incorrect. That is literally the basis of science.

[@rodrigoma1350]

Completely agree. The fact that an idea doesn't pan out does not make it a terrible idea.

[@masternecro3511]

​@@rodrigoma1350like this video... 😮

[@TheArtofFugue]

I concur, very much so.

[@garymelchisky2880]

Agreed, it was a perfectly valid idea, he had evidence for it and reasons to think it would be advantageous to do it. It just turned out to not work out that way.

[@thepagan5432]

Not all experiments are an overnight success. Bell's scientific approach to the teat problem did have limited success. Bell was indeed a genius and probably his sheep with 4 - 6 working teats was used for something else, not a failure.

[@kyle857]

An experiment that gives you new information isn't a failure.

[@SafetySpooon]

Yes, this is very badly titled.

[@Wee_Langside]

Nothing is ever a waste of time, the worst result is that you know not to do it again.

[@mikitz]

@@Wee_Langside Unit 731 was a great example.

[@Pixdust77]

Agree. How do does Simon think we make scientific progress? Hypotheses. They all lead to scientific discovery. An unproven hypothesis gives the opportunity to test further. If you read ANY scientific study, 98 percent will tell you further research is needed. That's the beauty of research. That how we know where to go from there.

[@Wee_Langside]

​@Pixdust77 claiming further research is needed keeps the research grants coming in

[@kaelibw34]

So we have: 1: an underused function in an app 2: a science experiment that didn’t pan out…as most experiments do 3: an interesting idea that even the one who made it admitted they weren’t sure how to do it 4: a guy’s hobby 5: a philosophy idea (how the heck does this even remotely qualify!?) 6: a bigger ballista And these are MASSIVE failures to you?

[@RawbeardX]

Libertarians have a success rate of at least 120%, so any slight stumble from someone more competent than them is a massive failure.

[@blakemtg47]

I think these are supposed to be viewed in comparison to the other works of said geniuses

[@kaelibw34]

@ and I still think that half of these shouldn’t even be here. One is just a science experiment, one is someone’s hobby that even Simon said was popular at the time, and the other is DaVinci, a man with like a thousand projects like the one here that were also impractical.

[@priceyindividual2995]

Yeah this video was an L

[@Ciborium]

Simon is not as "Big Brained" as he purports.

[@evog35viii]

I thought Steve Jobs was a genius at " selling " you the product, while everyone else was inovating/working on it. 😮

[@j.f.christ8421]

Jobs was very good at turning great products into really great products. Basically adding a bit of polish to really push something to the top of pile. That's hard to do. Of course he was dick and don't take his medical advice (although he did eventually realise he was wrong), dunno about genius but I'd put him ahead of someone like Elon Musk.

[@rubiconnn]

@@j.f.christ8421 Except he wasn't. He was kind of like the person in the group who has no idea how things actually work and what is/isn't possible but keeps demanding that the other people add a feature or change a design. Eventually the people actually doing all the engineering manage to get that feature in at the cost of something else. Most people don't understand how things come to be and just think it's something that one person "invents" and suddenly it's a thing. It's years or decades of tiny, incremental progress by hundreds or thousands of people working on tiny parts.

[@acerimmer8338]

Apple/Jobs were great at taking someone else's idea or product and marketing it better. That's it!

[@tmoney1876]

​@@rubiconnn I think that he had a good record at conceptualizing compelling products. He couldn't design or engineer them himself though.

[@simonlb24]

@@j.f.christ8421 I'd rate a pot of yogurt ahead of Musk. At least that has some culture.😂

[@johnlewan1114]

This is the first video with Simon that I regret watching. Any experiment or idea can be good or bad, but you won't learn unless you try. Doing nothing is failure.

[@SimonMester]

Yeah, stupid video. For a terrible idea you expect stuff like using asbestos. Stuff that actuat causes damage or hurts people. That is terrible ideas. Stufff that simply doesnt work out? Par for the course, nothing terrible.

[@antonywasuna1874]

In a Simon-read list you'll get a few dodgy entries but overall it'll be anything from okay to excellent. This was pretty much irredeemable.

[@dustylong]

@johnlewan1114 Eventhough you are absolutely right from "Any experiment..." up untill the end of what you're saying, I don't regret watching the video. It was interesting.

[@Pixdust77]

Agree. How does Simon think we make scientific progress? Hypotheses. They all lead to scientific discovery. An unproven hypothesis gives the opportunity to test further. If you read ANY scientific study, 98 percent will tell you further research is needed. That's the beauty of research. That how we know where to go from there..

[@cameronhermann9400]

@@dustylong agreed. Really enjoyed this video

[@ericthompson3982]

To be fair, while Tesla was inarguably brilliant, he was also sort of banana-pants crazy.

[@Tregrense]

There's nothing crazy about banana-pants.

[@ericthompson3982]

@Tregrense Well met. So very well met.

[@mikitz]

He just went increasingly unstable the older he got.

[@Schander]

We nowadays have AI interpretating brainwaves and creating visual images from them. So, once again, Tesla was right. Look it up. Simon is really lacking in his research it seems.

[@ericthompson3982]

@Schander I'm pretty versed in my Tesla history, but thanks.

[@ftfgfghfg]

I don't feel any of these ideas were bad. They were wrong or not timely, but fundamentally good ideas worthy of exploration.

[@ftfgfghfg]

Or at least worthy of refutation. This isn't scientific.

[@nymphrodellsalavin]

Science is literally just coming up with good idea and then trying to disprove them.

[@stevenverrall4527]

​@@nymphrodellsalavinYes, a process of trial and error. There will be many bad ideas for every genius idea.

[@tomthompson2309]

Even the one where they wanted to take pictures of ones memory? I mean really.. Impossible.. Not even an opinion,that's a fact.

[@SEAZNDragon]

@@tomthompson2309not to mention the philosopher’s stone

[@ZER0--]

Steve Jobs worst idea was getting cancer and thinking a good diet would be better than chemo and radiotherapy to cure it.

[@ThatSoddingGamer]

Not even a good diet, just a fad. He had an obsession with raw food and thought it had healing abilities and made it so his sweat didn't stink. He was quite wrong on both accounts, apparently. I mean, there is a reason why we have varied foods in our diet and cook a lot of our food, but no, supposedly he read some book pushing raw food (fruit especially, I think) and just took it as fact.

[@HavaWM]

I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed by a video made by Whistler Boi before, but this one was…not good. People were experimenting and trying things that didn’t work out. These weren’t terrible ideas. I think they were GREAT ideas. They just didn’t happen to be PRODUCTIVE ideas. The only thing I can think is: Is Simon trying to go meta here? He’s someone who has lots of great videos, but every once in a while, I guess you’re going to have a failure, and this one is his??? 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@alexandervladimirovich576]

Writer is to blame here. I stopped watching when he got to Leibniz because I almost died from second hand embarrassment. Given that the academic study of esotericism is still young and to this very day even a lot of academics think (quite incorrectly) of Newton’s obsession with alchemy as some kind of embarrassing folly, I am willing to forgive the very contested claim of alchemy being nothing more than ‘pseudoscience’. But when he came to Leibniz and presented this oversimplified caricature of his optimism, I suddenly heard the roar of a thousand souls of philosophy undergrad students screaming out in agony all at once and I decided that I have seen and heard enough.

[@magurgle]

It's the writer Dave Page. He is horrible

[@HavaWM]

@@magurgle - urgh. That’s not good. I’m not sure I know his work. I thought I had most of the Basement Dwellers’ names memorized, but he must be new to the captives’ list. I know Fact Boi is busy running half the channels on YT but I hope he sees these comments. I’d hate to see his channels go down in viewership bc he’s got less than awesome scripts that he’s working with.

[@ZlothZloth]

That would have been an excellent idea for an April 1 video - but it wasn't.

[@HavaWM]

@ - yup. 😐

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:50 - Chapter 1 - Steve jobs & itunes ping 3:20 - Chapter 2 - Alexander graham bell & the 6 nippled sheep 5:15 - Chapter 3 - Tesla & the thought camera 7:20 - Chapter 4 - Isaac newton & the philosopher stone 8:55 - Chapter 5 - Gottfired leibniz ; we live in the best of all possible worlds 11:50 - Chapter 6 - Leonard da vinci & the mega crossbow

[@Picnflip]

Noice.

[@fredparkinson1289]

Leibniz didn't just co-invent calculus, he publicized it, taught it to others and started clubs dedicated to learning it. Newton kept his version hidden and did nothing to spread understanding of it.

[@djdrack4681]

Maybe I'm forgetting my 'math origins/history'. I know a golden-age Muslim invented Algebra, but I thought another invented calculus? Geometry (and by extension Trigonometry) were well developed in ancient Greece (400-300BC), some of it prob further back to Ancient Egypt/Mesopotamia (3500BC). I thought Leibniz and co just expanded on the ancient ideas for calculus (and found practical use of the math theories)?

[@eekee6034]

@@djdrack4681 I don't know calculus as such so I'm not sure I should reply, but in the absence of other replies I'll say that what little I've learned about the history of calculus puts it in a different class to the ancient developments of geometry; a genuinely new development.

[@SkylarFTG]

You say we are no closer to being able to look at images in peoples brains but last year Meta used AI to read peoples thoughts and translate brainwaves into reaonably accurate images. I know this sounds like BS but I did fact check myself and it is indeed true, which blows my mind.

[@QueenetBowie]

Yeah he said that and I was like “I’m pretty sure that’s already a thing.”

[@At-Dawn-We-Ride]

To the writer Dave Page: Look up what "terrible" actually means. You don't seem to be using an agreed-upon definition. To Simon Whistler: You don't have to read out loud everything you are handed. Some material is simply not good enough to be turned into a video. I recommend you throw this one away.

[@OceanusHelios]

I quite enjoyed the video.

[@magurgle]

Dave needs to be fired honestly. Simon is just Ron Burgundy and will read anything put in front of him, no hate that's the job. But Dave has constantly bad takes, and inserts his politics at every chance he gets

[@deverilwallen9656]

I enjoyed this video

[@mattm7798]

Right! My favorite was the nonsensical idea that JK Rowling is campaign against LGBT rights. There's only 1 letter in that acronym that seems to fly in the face of reality and it's not the first 3.

[@CameronVine-wp8fl]

8:01 Thing is, alchemy isn’t a fantasy anymore. Mercury was changed into gold in a science experiment. While technically successful, the cost for doing this was prohibitive.

[@Bzhydack]

Yeah, and without alchemy we would not have modern chemistry.

[@ZER0--]

Have you got a link about mercury being turned into gold?

[@johntoldme]

In high school chemistry we learned that you could turn other elements into gold with a powerful enough nuclear reactor. Simply bombard chosen element with enough protons and neutrons and somehow keep it from exploding. *keeping it from exploding or being radioactive post production being the almost impossible part.

[@colewelden]

​@@ZER0--I believe this is just done in a particle accelerator. Smashing two atoms of different elements so they fuse into a new element. In any case, the gold is produced one atom at a time. It would take several million years of doing this to have a handful of gold.

[@ZlothZloth]

@@Bzhydack Without alchemy we wouldn't have modern chemistry!? Come on, that's not true at all! Just because something happened before something else doesn't mean the first thing is required to get to the second. People are still going to see chemical processes and wonder why they work like they do.

[@abnurtharn2927]

Dave obviously don´t like JK Rowling .

[@jgrenwod]

And she not trying to deprive trans people of anything. She just pointed out that they are not what they think they are.

[@CmdrShepard4Ever]

Typical lefty i guess

[@johnnycircus7463]

Being a creative writer is a far cry from being a boon to society…..

[@colt5189]

JK Rowling is trying to protect women, which is a group that Dave must not support.

[@Talisguy]

​@@colt5189 She's not. If she was, she would have spent at least as much time complaining about Steven van de Velde as Imane Khelif, to pick one example.

[@aprildawnsunshine4326]

On the thought camera, we're actually making progress and can get an admittedly very low quality image of someone's thoughts/dreams using neural networks to analyze and translate brain patterns into grainy images.

[@ZER0--]

I like the way you say "We." And I don't think what you've said is true. No dreams of anyone have ever been captured.

[@richspivey1553]

Exactly right and the images can be suprisingly good, very interestimg line of investigation.

[@mattm7798]

I could definitely see this becoming a reality where you have a bunch of people think of simple objects, collect the brain data, and see where there are similarities. That said, since I fully believe in a meta physical world, if part of our mind's eye is in fact non physical(i.e. wouldn't generate a reproducible brain scan), this would be doomed to failure.

[@aceundead4750]

That's a testament to Davinci's genius that a giant crossbow siege weapon is considered a terrible idea.

[@sydhenderson6753]

And a few centuries earlier, it could have been devastating. Except the ballista existed then and had similar capability.

[@twowheelRoz]

Always have to have a back up for dragons

[@DanHarkins-jk9mi]

Here,here!

[@1003JustinLaw]

China has a LOT of very big crossbows (more ballistae by that point) and several of them can be found in a lot of museums. Their designs are out in the public domain as well so if someone wants to build one they can very well do just that. I and a bunch of classmates back during my university days made one as a physics project under the pretence of demonstrating the tensile strength of various materials which we were using as the giant crossbow’s arms. We had started with launching watermelons but eventually the sheer strength was so powerful it was exploding the watermelons as they were being launched, so we moved to launching sandbags instead. We did run a few tests with a bowling ball to our great enjoyment, though when we accidentally clipped the side of a shed with the last launch and ended up ripping an entire wall of the thing off, we decided to stop doing that before we exploded a cow or something.

[@dmitriminer435]

That Rowling shot was cheap. It's like saying using Excalibur in your story makes you a hack. The writer really has to stop trying to use these videos as his own soapbox.

[@piperjaycie]

Yeah, loads of writers draw from existing lore for all sorts of things. It’s how we keep things consistent and somewhat believable.

[@rg807]

💯

[@chandleryoung9515]

Yes and I always hear about JK Rowling being “transphobic” or “fighting against LGBTQ rights” then I go look at her statements and I genuinely don’t see how any of her statements on the issue are transphobic. She’s just advocating for things like trans women to not be allowed to compete against biological women in sports because of the very clear advantage a person born biologically male (even one on hormones) has over a biological woman.

[@653j521]

What this video needs are definitions of terms. Terrible idea, failure. genius, for starters.

[@uraniumcranium2613]

Its not an english lesson lol

[@Yupppi]

People have the habit of thinking that if you strike gold once, you know where every single gold vein is in the world, they don't count that you tried a thousand times and failed before striking gold.

[@steveleinwand890]

By far the worst, most insane idea of Nicola Tesla was to transmit electrical power wirelessly. Imagine permanent lightning between two towers, instantly electrocuting any bird that flew in it's path. A heavy rainstorm would provide an electrical path of droplets to ground, electrocuting anyone getting rained on nearby. Not to mention permanent extreme generation of ozone, a designated air pollutant, and lung irritant. At concentrations generated by a permanent wireless electrical AC power connection using tens of thousands of volts (required for it to work in the first place), it could become a serious health hazard, possibly a fatal one. The amount of power lost over distance would make transmission over more than a few hundred feet impossible unless ridiculous voltages are employed (millions of volts). Not only is that impractical, it's all the more deadly and polluting. Millivolt radio, TV, cell phone and wi-fi signals are one thing. Useful AC power transmitted wirelessly is ridiculous and stupid.

[@YoutubeBorkedMyOldHandle_why]

Simon making this video should have been on the list. I'm at a loss as to what Leibniz's terrible idea was supposed to have been. Perhaps just saying "religion is a bad idea" would have sufficed, rather than rattling on about it at length. As for Jobs and Bell, these weren't so much bad ideas, as simple failed experiments. Not everything in marketing and science raises humanity to a new plain, but it's not a terrible idea to at least try them. And you knock Newton for his alchemy, and Tesla for his mind images, because they couldn't make these things work. Although, had they been artsmen writing science fiction novels, these might have been considered brilliant. I'd have reacted better, for example, to a story about someone suggesting that we take horse medication or inject bleach to cure covid. These things really were terrible ideas, although they definitely didn't involve a genius, just someone who thinks he is.

[@ldg1414]

People constantly misinterpret luck as genius and skill. Amazing discoveries require a ton of luck and a decent amount of genius.

[@youmaycallmeken]

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label." - James Branch Cabell

[@roycsinclair]

I take exception to the idea that J.K. Rowling is fighting against the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people as stated in the script. She is fighting FOR the rights of Women, not fighting against the rights of others. The fact that your writer is blind to that is a personal problem and not a fact.

[@nuudelz3711]

You cannot raise someone up by burying someone else. Your take is hotdog water

[@roycsinclair]

​@@nuudelz3711 It's EXACTLY what the critics of J.K. Rowling are pretending they are doing. They think they are lifting others up by tearing her down.

[@JohnDoe-tx8lq]

Dumb video!! Glad to see lot's of comments saying what I was going to say!🤔 These are not all terrible or even bad ideas just because they weren't successful. Developing new technology only happens by trying out things never done before. This video was a good idea but the result is a really stupid video. 🤨

[@colpul2103]

These were not terrible ideas. They were incorrect, they were to some degree ignorant, but they weren't stupid or ridiculous given the common knowledge of their times. What I consider a 'terrible idea' are things like Elon Musk thinking you could terraform Mars by using nuclear bombs to evaporate the ice caps, Elon Musk saying he could reduce the data transmission time to Mars using a string of satellites between the Earth and Mars,.... just totally stupid ideas like those.

[@uraniumcranium2613]

Elon did buy X, a brilliant idea. The woke tears were glorious, nearly as good as the election meltdown.

[@eekee6034]

string... of... satelites 🤣🤣🤣I wanted to be fair to Elon Musk by pointing out the _nuclear meltcap_ thing isn't his idea, it's one of many ideas seriously considered before he was even born, but the string of satelites idea was definitely not one of them! I'm almost the same age as Musky, we both have Commonwealth backgrounds and I'm pretty sure I grew up with very much the same science and sci-fi reading material so I can recall where he's coming from on most points, but he dropped a clanger there.

[@tbbk201]

Steve Jobs was good at business, he was by no means a genius.

[@thehomeschoolinglibrarian]

Steve Jobs was probably suffered from Psycopathy and had no ability to feel empathy which probably why he was so go at business.

[@FordPrefect23]

He didn't wash for one. He thought that if he ate the right foods that personal hygiene wasn't required. Apparently he stank so badly that he'd be told to have a shower before big meetings or people wouldn't attend. Definitely not genius

[@antiisocial]

He was indeed good at business and a smart guy who hired even smarter people, but he definitely had some pretty big personal issues.

[@AaronLitz]

@@thehomeschoolinglibrarian People with empathy and morals don't tend to become rich. It usually requires a willingness (or _eagerness)_ to screw other people over.

[@Indyofthedead]

He was a bullsh*ter, a good one at that.

[@JamesSmith-bg6vo]

lost me at the random JK Rowling dig. This is not a video of terrible ideas but mainly ideas that just didn't pan out. I was expecting "Einstein believed you could force feed a hamster to encourage nuclear war."

[@matthewfinkenbinder5846]

I was thinking the same things. I was already questioning how these were terrible ideas rather than just normal results often encountered. Then, when he did the dig a JK Rowling (a debunked one at that given I've seen several articles where people set out to PROVE she really was anti-LGBTQ but found that when taken in context she has never actually said anything against them), I stopped watching. Simon, I've watched your various channels for years but have been watching you less and less for these reasons. Your videos have been increasingly off-target with clickbait titles. They lately very regularly have missing, flawed, or flat-out incorrect information. You are more and more stating out of context, disproven, debunked, or otherwise incorrect statements about people or groups. The latter is especially grievous considering one of the things that previously drew a lot of people to your channels was the research done to give accurate information.

[@BigGahmBoss]

Were they debunked? I'm pretty sure she's said some pretty offensive things with her own words

[@BaronVonQuiply]

... a video about me? No, you shouldn't have. Really, I don't want this evidence at my trial. You know what to do, ETA.

[@timgchannel3328]

Liebnitz‘s ideas have been misrepresented to the point of creating an entire mythos. To put it in more modern language, he said that God is doing the best He could, but this is as good as He can do. Trying to do better would create contradictions that would actually make things worse.

[@DarrenEggleston]

these aren't terrible ideas, just failures. Failure is how we learn.

[@Rich-fr2yv]

Normal people: the telephone is great Alexander G Bell: THERE'S SO MANY NIPPLES. WHY!? WE MUST FIND A USE FOR THE EXTRA NIPPLES

[@_Hodgepodge]

Man, Simon, I love your videos, but this isn't it chief. You need to make sure your writers aren't having you read slop like this as it tarnished your reputation.

[@rhov-anion]

What Davinci really invented was the Rule of Cool.

[@thedarkknight1971]

07:36 - ALLEGEDLY !!!

[@RaginMunchkin]

Not only do I agree with many other comments on Graham Bell's experiment not being a bad idea, but I also must say that iTunes ping wasn't necessarily a stupid idea. To be clear, I hate Steve Jobs, I despise Apple and Apple related products (for philosophical reason, the tech itself is... fine) and I never got convinced at all by iTunes. But calling a first draft at a social network a bad stupid idea is really stretching it. It didn't work, they didn't fully hack the code, but what would follow years later proves that the concept wasn't all bad

[@davidj.thompson]

Albert Einstein said that his "Cosmological Constant" theory was the biggest mistake of his career.

[@newprophet2011]

This video is just a commentary on how you have issues with the Scientific Method. The way science works is that you have an idea, you test it, you refine your idea, you test it again, and you keep going until you have a proveable theory. By its nature, for every good idea, there must be hundreds or thousands of bad or incomplete ones. This video makes it seem like that's a bad thing and not just learning and discovering. No one hits it out of the park the first time they pick up the bat.

[@ScrypKat56]

Tell me you abhor JK Rowling without telling me you abhor JK Rowling. Or didn’t anyone catch that opening snipe? And no, I’ve never read anything written by her.

[@avs813]

Comparing it to the contemporary cannons actually makes da Vinci's giant crossbow *more* reasonable, not less. Early cannon were finicky things; they were expensive, prone to bursting during firing due to the era's lower capabilities in metallurgy, and easily rendered inoperative by the powder getting wet. Not to mention that the powder itself was dangerous and expensive to produce. Compared to all that, scaling up the already well-tested technology of the crossbow to a size where it could take down a wall was a completely plausible idea to pursue.

[@anyawillowfan]

The best way to have genius ideas is to have hundreds of idea, and work through which ones are feasible, then which ones might be good. If someone claims to never have a bad idea they are lying either to you or themselves.

[@keithrobinson5752]

Jobs worst indeed was he could treat his cancer through ' natural means' rather than medical. So bad was that idea it cost him his life 😮

[@some_random_loser]

I'm surprised you didn't actually mention Voltaire's _Candide_ as a satire and a response to Leibnitzian optimism. Like, literally the plot was basically mocking the crap out of Leibnitz's position by subjecting the character in the story that holds Leibnitz's position with the most hilarious of misfortunes.

[@alexandervladimirovich576]

The writer actually dodged a bullet there because Candide is in no way a good criticism of Leibniz' optimism. Still, Voltaire made a much better straw man of Leibniz than the writer did here; this video was really embarrassing to watch.

[@elealion1469]

You know, it's really ironic for the writer to be accused of doing something what basically all writers need to do. Show me one book where all concepts, tropes and ideas are original. Also, there would be no chemistry without alchemy, so it was not a complete waste of time.

[@wmffmw]

Genius and DeGrassee in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

[@ManuTheGreat79]

Those are not terrible ideas. Some of them bet on the wrong horse, but that's still an interesting experiment

[@namelesscare7982]

Even if the idea is bad, it's always worth trying. Giving it up is the worst thing to do than putting it to the test.

[@BluePlanetMedia]

JK Rowling did WHAT @ 7:35? Your bias is showing.

[@ZexMaxwell]

You write the script based on the general knowledge of the public. Harry potter is quite common now since most people grew up with it. Not sure how that's a bias?

[@BluePlanetMedia]

@@ZexMaxwell saying she campaigned against the rights of anyone is absurd, that was the point of my post. Sorry if I was not clear.

[@ZexMaxwell]

​​@@BluePlanetMediaher motives are also public. But take it from the creator's point of view. He is damned for saying something or nothing. If that is a bais, then you proved the point.

[@piperjaycie]

@@ZexMaxwellThe general knowledge of the public can be wildly incorrect and at times disturbingly ignorant. It literally takes two minutes and basically reading comprehension to discover JKR is not against LGBTQ+ people and never was!

[@jameslake7775]

@@piperjaycie JK Rowling has been extremely public that she supports gays and lesbians but NOT transgender rights, which she sees as being fundamentally incompatible with woman’s rights. She has repeated misinformation put out by groups funded by conservative organizations who are anti-LGBT because it aligned with her personal anti-trans bias, which has complicated her relationship with the community.

[@ZER0--]

This guy needs to define genius. Half these folk were lucky, and got rich, and nothing more.

[@mr88cet]

What is arguably A.G. Bell’s least-well-known invention (or at least co-invention), some might suggest was almost as valuable as the telephone: The aileron!

[@angelaeads4802]

When I hear philosopher stone, Fullmetal Alchemist comes to mind first.

[@Ciborium]

"The father of the technology which would eventually become the device that you are most likely watching this video...." Um, you mean the toilet?

[@Lopfff]

As a genius myself, I can confidently say, it ain’t easy being us

[@spencerwiltse2855]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought this episode was horrible

[@mangogo44]

Alchemy was considered a legit science back then, Philosopher's stone was like Higgs boson of chemistry. Something that was perceived 100% true but hard to actually prove in life

[@dave1234aust]

The philosphers stone in the first Harry Potter film was able to produce the elixer for eternal life, the reason Voldermort wanted it. I do not recall any other usage explained for it. Cheap shot on JK Rowling, and I believe even worse research on the Stone.

[@tcortez]

Thank you for the post, it shows that I was not alone in my impression on the rhetoric.

[@djdrack4681]

A good set of kids/young adult books...but they don't hold up to adult criticism/critique well. Even from a 'fictional critique': Ripley Scroll is centuries old...snake-face couldn't figure out way to steal the recipe and make his own stone? But he can read ppl's minds? 1star review.

[@QBCPerdition]

I just finished reading this book to my daughter. It did say it could create gold and the elixir of life. Voldemort wanted it for the latter reason, but the former was mentioned as well.

[@LauraParker36]

That JK Rowling joke was so out of pocket 😭

[@sophdog1678]

Thomas Edison pushing for DC for electricity transmission was a dud horse to back.

[@pirobot668beta]

Edison proposed a way around the 'transmission problem': modestly sized generating stations in every neighborhood. If your longest cable-run is under a mile, losses aren't too bad. Then again, having 100's of coal-burning 'mini-powerhouses' all across town would dirty up the air in no time.

[@DrD0000M]

Though now, it turns out long-distance HVDC is superior in a lot of ways. Though Edison didn't have the tech back then. Edison was right about AC being a lot more dangerous though, hundreds of thousands have been killed by AC when a DC setup wouldn't have shocked them in the first place (touching 1 wire vs two, etc.) Wikipedia excerpt: "A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating current (AC) transmission systems.[1] Most HVDC links use voltages between 100 kV and 800 kV. HVDC lines are commonly used for long-distance power transmission, since they require fewer conductors and incur less power loss than equivalent AC lines. HVDC also allows power transmission between AC transmission systems that are not synchronized. Since the power flow through an HVDC link can be controlled independently of the phase angle between source and load, it can stabilize a network against disturbances due to rapid changes in power. HVDC also allows the transfer of power between grid systems running at different frequencies, such as 50 and 60 Hz. This improves the stability and economy of each grid, by allowing the exchange of power between previously incompatible networks. The modern form of HVDC transmission uses technology developed extensively in the 1930s in Sweden (ASEA) and in Germany. Early commercial installations included one in the Soviet Union in 1951 between Moscow and Kashira, and a 100 kV, 20 MW system between Gotland and mainland Sweden in 1954.[2] Before the Chinese project of 2019, the longest HVDC link in the world was the Rio Madeira link in Brazil, which consists of two bipoles of ±600 kV, 3150 MW each, connecting Porto Velho in the state of Rondônia to the São Paulo area with a length of more than 2,500 km (1,600 mi).[3]..."

[@FireMageLayn]

Nah, Leibniz's theory can be tolerated, because it inspired Voltaire to write Candide. And Candide is possibly one of the best stories ever written. I'll take ridiculous philosophical theory if it means we also get excellent literature skewering that theory.

[@CerebralOrigami]

As a kid I had wanted to build a "super crossbow" using a truck's leaf spring as a bow.

[@exrezcnm]

If one is afraid to fail progress into the unknown will never happen

[@ManiacEx]

A bad idea, to me, is one that a reasonable person would already expect to fail, or at least to not work as expected. By that measure, this video is a bit of a flop, since it's largely about historical figures learning about things no one really knew about at the time. Sure it looks bad in hindsight, but that's because we know it didn't work (thanks to them).

[@johnaweiss]

Judging idea based on what the average person thinks of it is a terrible idea.

[@ManiacEx]

@johnaweiss Totally agree, as the average person isn't reasonable at all.

[@johnaweiss]

@@ManiacEx I'm not saying they're unreasonable, i'm just saying they're not educated in engineering or science. They judge based on "common sense" or first-hand observation. Science has shown that first-hand observation is an unreliable way to measure or explain nature.

[@heyyou5189]

The locksmith in me appreciates that edge view of that door.

[@oliviermarion5938]

For a follow up video, you should talk about Linus Pauling, winner of 2 Nobel prizes. At the end of his life, he was advocating for a controversial megavitamin therapy…

[@slappomatthew]

iTunes in general is probably one of the worst pieces of software ever made

[@jamesdavis54]

Genuine geniuses along side hard nosed business men who’s only skill is owning the company

[@SeeingBackward]

It speaks volumes about our modern society that starting from about the 1980s the word "genius" no longer refers to a person who is smart enough to make possible what used to be impossible to make life better for everyone, but now refers to a finance-bro who trick people into making life better for the finance-bro in return for not making everyone else lives worse. Edison may have put his name on patents he employed people to create, but at least he had inventions to his name before doing so. Elonus Muscidae, the Lord of the Flies, cosplays as a genius engineer but all of his 'ideas' need to be fixed by his staff to work their way up to crappy, and our culture celebrates him for it while making excuses for his terrible products.

[@tcortez]

I must agree that we overuse the term genius. The access to Mensa is only restricted to the top 2% of the population's IQ. If anyone has read through the notes of a Mensa "gathering" or colloquium they would know that the 2% threshold let's in a lot of marginal minds. The actual measure should be nearer to 0.5% or less, but then no one would attend. It was totally frustrating dealing with such ridiculousness that I let my membership lapse and just deal with the 2-3 people that are compatible.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

@@tcortez IQ simply isn't all that relevant. It's like measuring the mass of someone's hair. Yes, you will get a number out of it and you can rank people based on it, and it is even somewhat related to reality, but in the end it isn't all that useful to judge people by.

[@SeeingBackward]

@@tcortez For sure! The idea that 2% of the global population would be "geniuses" is SO bananas. 2% is 1 in 50. You might interact with 50 people during a day out in a city. It's 2 classrooms of kids, so according to that metric, if your class didn't have a genius, the next one probably did? No way... Indeed, the idea of an "organization of geniuses" seems impossible on it's face. The closest thing to it that I think I've ever seen evidence for is that picture from the Fifth Solvay Conference on Quantum Mechanics where about every third person in it is someone whose name that is still well-known to any first-year physics major a century later. Quantum Mechanics was the new-shiny that attracted a lot of the world's minds at the time, so I might estimate an equal number of similar-level minds in other fields like engineering or math put together, and maybe adding some buffer, I'd still estimate the global number of people I'd truly call "genius" at THAT time to only be in the double-digits. And that was right about when we started pumping the lead into the air, only causing that number to drop since...

[@SeeingBackward]

@@bramvanduijn8086 There are a lot of issues with IQ examination that feed into certain confirmation biases, and many forms of "genius" which can't be measured that way. But with so-called "savants" being the outlier, people who find the reasoning skills measured by an IQ test to be a challenge aren't going to be known as "geniuses" by people being honest with themselves. The real issue is the idea that IQ is a single integer value, when it should really be thought of as a spectrum of fuzzy values, each of which a true 'genius' would score highly on

[@insaincaldo]

So.. Da Vinci forgot ballista existed, dating back to at least ancient Greece.

[@ZlothZloth]

Looks like this one is WAY bigger - but that should have been mentioned in the video.

[@genkibob]

He probably knew about them. He just wanted to build one the size of a house instead of the size of a small car.

[@josephhargrove4319]

Forget human heaven. When I die I want to go to cat heaven, which is to cats as the big rock candy mountain is to humans. richard -- “No silicon heaven?! Of course there is a silicon heaven! If there weren’t, where would the calculators go when they die?” - Kryten, in “Red Dwarf”

[@MrAlexandermartis]

I disagree about the mouse. In an era that every mouse looks and feels like a miniature cybertruck, I found the round transparent apple mouse a welcome change. And yes, I used it and it's very ergonomical.

[@MichaelCouvillion]

A strange video in this series. None of these are bad ideas, they just didn't work out to be practical.

[@kellyerwin3558]

The original design was without suffering. Adam and Eve didn't follow through with G'd's plan for existence.

[@AwakeAtTheWheel]

Einstein’s unified theory should have definitely been on this list. He wasted so much of his life on it.

[@coweatsman]

Leonardo's giant crossbow sounds like a dangerous weapon for those using it thinking of the enormous pent up energy it would have to store and if it started creaking and splintering all men operating it would have to prepare to meet their maker. A failure would be like the splintering of a tree struck by lightning.

[@TwiddleFingersDB]

Well... I don't fault Newton for thinking gold could be created... alchemy was a huge deal and a legitimate science for hundreds of years.

[@OceanusHelios]

Except science hadn't been invented yet. Derp. It was burgeoning at the time. Alchemy doesn't fit the category of being a science at all.

[@TwiddleFingersDB]

@@OceanusHelios "science hadn't been invented"?! ffs science was "invented" already by the ancient greeks. It's just that science was different then from now.

[@OceanusHelios]

@@TwiddleFingersDB Sorry sweetheart. Philosophy was invented by ancient Greeks. They stood around and did some thinking. Sometimes they did some invention. One of these days you might learn the difference between science, invention, and philosophy. You should try going to school sometime. It's great.

[@TrafficCamWatch]

Steve didn't create jack shit. He told people what to make and left it to them to figure out how to make it work and funded it. Anybody with enough money can spew ideas.

[@genkibob]

The Edsel says otherwise. You can't just spew an idea. You have to spew an idea that millions of others haven't thought of before and agree that it is also a good idea.

[@makinapacal]

The Optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds. The Pessimist fears that that is true!

[@lazytommy0]

Listen... Every genius knows that if the world thinks you are an idiot, you will fade into obscurity and they will leave you alone. Tactical stupidity 🤣

[@AnotherPointOfView944]

Elon Musk, and Hyperloop springs to mind.

[@nymphrodellsalavin]

That implies Musk is a genius, which he isn't

[@eliteiel9747]

@@nymphrodellsalavinI mean, cant deny the man knows how to play his cards really well.. He built himself up to be one of the richest men and put his money to good use, creating companies and hiring talented people and putting them together and leading them, which in term has brought humanity forward quite a bit. Idk I definitely have respect for the dude.

[@frtzkng]

@@eliteiel9747 Respect which is just _slightly_ destroyed by Musk behaving like the world's richest four year old

[@Talisguy]

@@eliteiel9747 Yeah, he built himself up to "insanely rich" from the humble starting position of "already rich".

[@isotopefeeney]

5:07 I beg to differ! Just because something doesn't work doesn't mean it was a bad idea. The idea was to find out whether or not it WOULD work. After all, you had the idea to upload this video, and here are the majority of 500 commenters telling you it ain't workin'.

[@Br33zeKooL]

Elon is not a genius, he's a rich kid who made good investments.

[@-elijahriggs-]

Who sucks at the teet of the US taxpayers.

[@burieddreamer]

Ehrm... he did do some pretty impressive stuff.

[@Br33zeKooL]

@burieddreamer which are? Thomas John Mueller is the brain behind space X, Martin Eberhard and JB Straubel are the ones that did Tesla. Which is the same for neuralink and other companies. He positions himself in their circles and invest in their projects, who doesn't create anything other than Twitter drama and social divide.

[@stephennicol9549]

0:07 oh! I had no idea we were still pretending EM isn't a Buffoon

[@TheUtube666]

Newton lived in the twilight of alchemy and rise of pure science. All things being equal, had he lived say 50 or 100 years later, his interest in alchemy might not have taken as much of his time as it did in the life that he had.

[@venomous7321]

I couldn’t imagine being so stupid I actually believe the philosopher stone was created by the author of Harry Potter…. God save us 😅

[@AngryCanine]

Don't forget that apple is still designing a mouse that is extremely useless when charging it, because it is impossible to use when charging as the idiots put the charging out on the bottom, which I thought maybe they would have learned or at least copied someone else as they commonly do and move the charger to the side, front or rear of the mouse, then they released a new mouse somewhat recently and it too is completely useless when charging as like the old one, the charger is on the bottom...

[@renmcmanus]

While modern Crossbows can be more powerful than a modern longbow. The medieval Crossbow was a good deal weaker. As for accuracy. This is purely down to the quality of the Crossbow and the person aiming it. A basic medieval Crossbow can be made to be vary accurate within its effective range.

[@sgt.grambo7364]

Steve Jobs was a bully.

[@burieddreamer]

True. And he admited it. He actually said that he thought that disagreement was the secret to have great things done. It doesn't make his achievements - or rather, his staff's achievements - less impressive though.

[@Pixdust77]

As long as scientific hypotheses are tested ethically, it's not an automatic failure. I disagree with some of your assumptions. How do you think we make scientific progress? Hypotheses. They all lead to scientific discovery. An unproven hypothesis gives the opportunity to test further. If you read ANY scientific study, 98 percent will tell you further research is needed. That's the beauty of research. That how we know where to go from there. Take the advice other scientists are giving you on this video.

[@me3333]

To paraphrase the great George Carlin "I have lots of great ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck" 😀

[@brucemitchell5637]

Since when was Neil Degrasse Tyson a " Genuis"? He can't even figure out what a woman is!

[@DrD0000M]

Man destroys one planet and everyone starts calling him a genius.

[@Talisguy]

You define a woman for me. Define a woman in a way that includes all women and excludes everyone else.

[@paraworldblue]

Yeah, it's so tragic that the police can't take a snapshot of your entire mind if they suspect you of a crime... WTF Simon how could that possibly be a good thing?! I mean sure, he doesn't live in the US and has likely never dealt with US cops, but still... Come on, man. Mind-reading cops. Wtf.

[@Talisguy]

You'd need very strict rules governing this technology for it not to be a nightmare - like, say, it's only admissible in court if the person volunteered to have their mind scanned and there's objective proof that this was not coerced.

[@rakuengrowlithe4654]

There's far worse countries to be in if that were a thing.

[@genkibob]

He lives as a happy citizen of AirStripOne, so of course he thinks Big Brother needs these tools.

[@theoffbeatarchive9225]

Oooh, what an edgy, sweeping statement from the writer about Rowling there.

[@rodziegman]

Yeah, Simon and his team are become bigots pretty fast. Granted most of his viewers are males, but most of dont want women hurt.

[@maryanne6569]

Yes. She stands up for women's rights, so she gets a not so subtle slap. An aside of snark.

[@magurgle]

Simon has hired a writer with Reddit level understanding of politics, and can't help but putting in a barb about Elon Musk, Rowling, or Trump. I watch far less of good videos because of it

[@gavkavOnUtube]

@@magurgle Yeah, he's got a writer or two with serious derangement syndrome issues. He needs to vet their work more closely especially as Rowling is so litigious. I mean, not even an "allegedly" in there when he says "LGB..." when, I'm sure, Rowling merely has a problem with women losing rights due to demands for special privileges from the 'T' mob and has never campaigned against anyone's actual rights.

[@Talisguy]

​@@maryanne6569 She does nothing of the sort. She has openly allied with people who are extremely hostile to women's rights because of their shared transphobia and she was too busy bullying Imane Khelif to notice that the Dutch volleyball team had...someone on it whose crimes KZbin won't let me name, Steven van de Velde, who actually has a history of being a danger to women (well... specifically girls. Young girls.) If any Olympian's inclusion deserved to be protested, it was his, not hers.

[@soggycracker5934]

Some geniuses didn't steal their only known work from a patent application in the 30s...

[@lisar3944]

Tesla had the most amazing ideas - if he could have executed even half of them...can you imagine?! I really don't understand the criticism about this brain snapshot idea though. During his lifetime computers (let alone those new ones that fit in your pocket), space travel, video conferencing, and a whole slew of other modern tech would have been written off as absolutely preposterous and basically insane. So? Who is so smart here? No one knows what is coming next. If people who have kooky ideas are consistently ridiculed enough, those groundbreaking developments are less likely to happen. So lighten up! Is it unlikely his idea would ever pan out? Sure! SO WHAT?!

[@abcde_fz]

"I've never heard of it." You say that as if we should be surprised. As well traveled as you are compared to [astoundingly below average] me, I'm nonetheless constantly amazed at how many days of school you must have missed. Then again, I should probably blame the UK school system for skipping things like our school systems do. "If it didn't happen here, or because of us, we'll just ignore it."

[@competitionglen]

Though Bell failed to increase the number of sheep bearing twins, the 6 nipple sheep gave a generation of Welsh and kiwi shepards a libido rush.

[@OceanusHelios]

It was kind of too little too late though. If they would have been given to the sheep loving sand people of the bronze age, everybody's favorite superstition would look much different today.

[@mog0]

Can't believe you included Musk as a genius at the start! He's someone with money, who invests in other people's ideas and claims they're his. He insists on having founder as his title at companies that existed before he invested.

[@G74]

Tesla had a lot of good ideas but he had a lot of crazy ones too, such as a lightning gun and earthquake machine. The second one they built from his blueprints on Mythbusters and tried it out, it didn't work.

[@DJF1947]

Tesla was a moron; he claimed that the Moon does not rotate. Meanwhile, his good ideas were not original and his original ideas were not good. He desperately tried to maintain his 'genius' image by telling lies about antigravity, perpetual motion and death-rays.

[@captainspaulding5963]

Lightning gun, you say...... sounds kinda like a taser gun to me..... and they seem to work perfectly well.

[@G74]

@captainspaulding5963 Sort of but not quite, what Tesla was suggesting was a weapon that could shoot actual lightning bolts that could shoot down airplanes sink ships and even level cities, real mad scientist stuff. I read about it in a book about him I borrowed from the library once.

[@DJF1947]

@@captainspaulding5963 When electricity began to be supplied to ordinary homes, fire-fighters began to worry that the current would travel down their water streams and electrocute them. Edison suggested that the situation could be reversed and that streams of water could be used to electrocute enemies. Water doesn't work very well, but people have tried to use beams of ultra-violet light to ionise a 'tube' of air and pass a current down the resultant conductive path.

[@DJF1947]

@@G74 One day, a physicist will write a proper book about Tesla, and destroy that crackpot's reputation for good. So far, all of the books about Tesla have been written by journalists, non-scientists and downright cranks.