We need more ignorant people

Many great ideas have come to life because the people that thought of them were ignorant of the beliefs of others.

I recorded a podcast one time talking about this, but I will like to share it here.

Contrary to what we have been groomed to believe that ignorant is a very bad thing and even many scholars put it this way “If you say education is expensive try ignorance.”

I get it, and this is not to shit on all those ideologies but rather to expand on the possibilities embedded therein in ignorance.

Yes, many people might have had great losses because they were ignorant and didn’t have enough knowledge about something.

But then…

Some people have also made great inventions and achieved exceptional results even without knowing about something in the first place.

And just to give you a common example that should ring a bell.

How many times have you heard people especially someone successful during interviews say something in the light of “I didn’t know what I was doing back then” or “We were just trying a bunch of things” or even “If I know what I know now I wouldn’t have to take that route” and many more phrases too much to pen down.

NB: Just to put things in context; this argument is well geared towards business, creating something and the like, and not directly aimed at highly precision fields like Medicine, and the like.

Ok, let’s continue.

Of course, I believe you’ve heard these phrases hundreds of times from many business founders and creators.

And that does not necessarily mean that they were dumb at the time, but that they weren’t well informed on the path they were towing at the time, however, they still ended up making it.

And to put in a different perspective, I will say this;

Many things… be it technology, nutrition, and the likes that we enjoy today were founded or at least say discovered by people who didn’t know what they were doing at the unset.

However, because they didn’t know what they were doing it also means that they didn’t have knowledge on the said field they were dabbling into.

And because they didn’t have good knowledge about the field, they also didn’t have the limitations that have been discovered in those fields.

And because they didn’t know about the existing limitations in the field, they were able to come into the field with new thinking and ultimately create their own magic.

Come to think of it, Elon Musk went from creating PayPal which is a fintech to running Tesla. Two different worlds

Of course, I understand that it’s more about the codes and understanding the first principle and all of that, but if he had the same knowledge and experiences the big car makes had, don’t you think that he would also have biases about making an electric car?

You bet he would!

Because these big automakers have tried electric cars in the past and found them to be unsuccessful and so they abandoned the chase, but Elon Musk came with fresh think devoid of their experiences and limiting beliefs, and many years later Tesla has expanded its factories to Germany and China.

The same also goes for his knowledge of making reusable rockets (more on that in a later post)

So, just to say;

Being ignorant isn’t necessarily a bad thing “all the time” because it has the capacity to lead one into creating magic that they hitherto would have not created if they were plagued with the knowledge and experiences of the past by people who may have failed.

Thank you for stopping by.

If you found any value in this, consider reading other posts.