The Someonelse Effect
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
How many times have you had a good idea, or come up with an invention, and then thought "I expect someone else has already thought of that" and not thought about it? Has it ever occurred to you that the other people who thought of it also thought that? This is The Someonelse Effect.
It is in fact a kind of reverse egotism: "I'm bound to be the last one to think of this", and even "I'm not clever enough to work out why it can't be done"! Often, people assume that since nobody has carried through the idea, it is impossible for some reason to carry through. There are two problems with this: 1, they might not have tried, like you're not going to; and 2, the reason it was impossible for them might now be possible due to some leap of technology, or your personal circumstances.
And lets not forget the fact that there's a fair chance that nobody has thought of it! After all, if everything had already been thought of, no development would be possible in the whole world, and no inventions would be able to be invented! This mistake is often made by people who believe in the Law of Averages. This is not actually a law, it is simply a rule of thumb, and the Law of Averages states that there is quite a big chance that the Law of Averages will not apply in any given case. These people often also believe that 60 Million people can't be wrong. Unfortunately, they can - just because you're the only one to think something, doesnt necessarily mean you're wrong.
Someonelse is like Them. We tend to assume that big business, government, and the rest of the world always do the right thing, or the wrong thing for very sensible reasons, and it would take too long to explain why our ideas wouldn't work. This attitude, if left unchecked, would mean a very boring life. If everyone did it, it would mean a very boring world. Think of someone with an interesting life: I bet they did something which you would have assumed wouldn't have worked. If all else fails, think of Dyson: he realised that someonelse hadn't thought of making a miniature version of an industrial cyclone for use as a vacuum cleaner, so he did it!
In short: Don't rely on someonelse - Follow It Through!*
