The Crazy Ones

Before you dismiss the next technology as impossible, consider how these pitches would have sounded:

"We are going to put 400 people inside a metal tube, shoot it 35,000 feet into the air at 500 miles per hour, and serve them peanuts."

Insane. Metal does not float. And even if it could, the human body could not survive those speeds. And even if it could, who would get inside? You would have to be suicidal.

"Every person will carry a glowing rectangle that contains all human knowledge. They will use it primarily to argue with strangers and look at pictures of food."

Absurd. Why would anyone need that much knowledge? And if they had it, surely they would use it for something important.

"We will take the light from the sun, trap it in invisible waves, and send it through sand we have melted into thin threads. This is how people will watch videos of cats."

You have lost me at melted sand.

"We will cut people open, stop their hearts, replace them with hearts from dead people, restart everything, and they will live for decades."

That is not medicine. That is murder with extra steps.

"We will build a network where anyone can publish anything to everyone instantly. It will be mostly used for lies, entertainment, and selling things."

Why would we build that on purpose?

"Invisible particles are flying through your body right now. Trillions of them. From the sun. They pass through the entire Earth and out the other side without hitting anything."

Now you are just making things up.

The pattern: Every technology that exists today sounded insane before it existed. We just forgot the insanity because it worked.

So when someone tells you the next thing is impossible, ask yourself: crazier than a metal tube full of people flying through the sky?

Probably not.