An original idea is an idea that nobody else has ever thought of before. Often people think they have an original idea, but someone else usually has already thought of it. Sometimes other people may have thought about your idea before, but they never bothered to document it, and therefore your idea is probably just as good as an original idea. It costs a lot of money to patent an original idea, so unless it's a highly profitable, you could just share it with everybody here.

Sometimes I feel that with so many people on the planet, I just can't come up with an original idea anymore becuase statistically someone else will probably have already beat me to it (and they have).

Here's a possible example: When your boss asks you for documentation, give it to him or her in paper airplane form.

I used to think that no new ideas could be thought up.

Then I had one, about 1991 or so, completely by accident:

Humans are the sex organs of the planet

It's a simple idea really - if Gaia is really a life-form or an individual organism (as per The Gaia Hypothesis), then she must be able to reproduce, since that is the one function of life-forms she has yet to display. (The others are nutrition, growth, decay and evolution.)

I, like you, thought "someone else must have thought of this before me" but after years of looking, I can't find the evidence. As far as I know, it was completely original with me.

Of course, it will only prove true if humans start buidling ecologies in space or on other planets...at which point, Gaia will have reproduced...becuase of us (hopefully).

BTW - it's a well-established fact (in the business-major community) that world-changing ideas occur about once every century per 100,000 people. With our current population, humanity sees a new one about twice per day. That's why the future seems closer now than it used to, and society seems to evolve so fast.

So, don't give up - you might be the next person to have one, and new ideas are the life-blood of our civilization, even if some of them are bullshit...for a while.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.