Cellmold
Wake, See, Sing, Dance
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2012
- Messages
- 6,266
I think it depends on how you define "originality" here. I think developing a totally novel idea is rare, but it is possible to find novel applications for existing ideas. I think that's what innovation is about, and that matters. I mean, why would anyone sit around lamenting how little difference there is between a chariot and a Model T?
Real and successful originality is recognizable as an idea that doesn't just introduce one single thing, but rather has a system-wide effect. Effective original ideas shift paradigms, and create facets to society that hadn't existed previously. Society hasn't stagnated, so people somewhere must be trying and implementing new ideas. There's still an avant garde, but it's hard to be a lay person and know about these kinds of things. It takes expertise and a little obsession to recognize these ideas as game changers before they percolate outwards and become standard.
That's really encouraging and in fact you're first part about developing something new from something existing ties in with what [MENTION=8444]Mad Hatter[/MENTION] was trying to tell me.
So would you say such ideas are more difficult to get across now than before? In the sense that many might resist them by seeing them as just a rehash?