fringe

Betting against the fringe is an easy bet, usually a safe one, and when done in a tone of paternalistic indulgence say, or authoritarian disdain, it usually shuts down dissent. While most fringe ideas are in fact wrong, it is exactly from the fringe that progress is made. This is where the paradigm shifts happen. This is where innovation and creativity occur and yes, most of it is wrong or useless, but the most important ideas on which we now base or understanding of the world and our society came from the fringe. The sun is the centre of the solar system, species adapt to their environments over time, humans can create technology that can allow us to communicate across time and space, to fly, to create and explore virtual worlds. These were all impossible ideas, laughable at the time. Those who quickly join in and laugh at all fringe ideas now would have been laughing at those ideas at the time. A HUNTER-GATHERER'S GUIDE TO THE 21ST CENTURY.