Galileo Gambit

When you put forth new or unpopular ideas, you often face challenges and opposition. People say "you're wrong", or "you're crazy". "It will never work".

It can be tempting to think that you're a persecuted genius like many historical figures who also faced opposition to their new ideas: Galileo, Darwin, Semelweiss, etc.

But our history books do not record the names of all those who proposed new ideas and turned out to be wrong, crazy or even dangerous. And for every genius, there were many more failures.

When people challenge your ideas, respond with logical reasons, not comparisons to geniuses from the past.

Example

Everyone says I'm crazy for believing that alien infiltrators changed the Coca Cola recipe, but everyone said Galileo was crazy and look how that turned out.

Famous Examples

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