The only difference between genius and madman

[Rishabh R]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Most mentally ill people are not geniuses, they are homeless drug addicts living on the streets mumbling to themselves.

But I despite being mentally ill don't live on street but rather in my hostel and sometimes I go home to meet my parents. I don't do drugs but am on medication prescribed by my doctor. 😁

[Aaron p]

I think Leo means like extreme cases when he says the word insane. No doubt there are people who are completely mentally lost to such a degree that no amount of love or empathy could change them. They probably are violent 2

[trenton]

I agreed with that idea for a long time. I had that experience in high school. I was talking about scientific advances that could help humanity survive despite climate change. I talked about colonizing other planets like Mars. Everybody around me started talking to me like I was stupid.

Later that day, Stephen Hawking came out with the same idea of colonizing other planets in response to climate change. The message was well received and the message was considered genius because it came from him. The scientific community does this all the time with technological utopianism like when all the big name scientists subscribed to simulation theory, and it's treated like genius because people like the messenger. This is the problem of authority in science. Someone with less reputation would be branded a complete dumbass for saying the same thing as a famous scientist.

If you are looking for counter examples, there are many ways to go about it. In science you can the radical scientists who had epic breakthroughs only to be rejected by the scientific community. This happened all the time like in the theory of evolution, germ theory, or the telescope. There were brilliant scientists who were ostracized and in my experience there are are stupid scientists who are loved and their ideas are accepted blindly.

Obviously this issue goes way beyond science. This issue is prevalent across all fields. For example if I like myself then I might tend to think my ideas are genius.