Ideas Change the World

From Bokardo:

Address by Dean Kamen. Here's an excerpt:

"In a world of ideas, you all create and share those ideas and everybody has more ideas in the end, whether it's a cure for cancer, or a way to make water drinkable, or a way to make energy that's non-polluting. And whether you like it or not, you are moving for the first time into a world where ideas matter more than all the stuff there is. But those ideas have to come from educated people and they have to be used as a tool and not as a weapon. That's the biggest change that's happening."

What I find interesting is that contrary to what most people believe, ideas are usually enough to change the world. It's not necessarily about the resources or who's richer or who's more influential. Read or Die began with an idea and I'm actually surprised at how far that idea has carried them. It wasn't so long ago that I was in college with Elbert and he touted the words Grafiction or graphic fiction. It's not that popular yet but I'm seeing a term coined by a peer slowly growing into something big. And then there's Dean who's an advocate of speculative fiction and he was already talking about it back when he was still focused on his comics. Right now, people have an idea what "speculative fiction" is and they usually associate with Dean. Even Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame states that making money starts with ideas, not products or commodities.

Never underestimate the power of ideas. They change the world.