We can try and tell ourselves that we’re going to do all the projects that we like, but that’s just not what’s going to happen. What’s really going to happen is we’ll probably have way more projects we like than resources. Making ourselves do projects because of an arbitrary number (spending years and thousands of dollars because ten people pressed a thumb up button) will most likely spread people thin, and that would make projects more likely to fail. People, being intelligent, will sense this, and they will pick a limited number of projects that look like they have enough resources to get somewhere and they’ll stick to them. Then, while those projects are being done, new projects will be thought of. By the time the people are free to work on a new project, there might be a hundred ideas that are better than our first batch. Neither you or I have the power to make these people do all the good projects. We just have to see whether enough of them are inspired by any of the ideas for there to be the right amount of momentum to get started. What we should really do is keep talking about ideas until something sparks them. Once we’ve got a fire big enough that we couldn’t put it out if we wanted to, THEN we know an idea is going to happen. Our goal here should be to make a lot of sparks and let inspiration decide which ideas will be chosen.
Idea: Do everything on the final list that gets more than 10 upvotes
We can try and tell ourselves that we’re going to do all the projects that we like, but that’s just not what’s going to happen. What’s really going to happen is we’ll probably have way more projects we like than resources. Making ourselves do projects because of an arbitrary number (spending years and thousands of dollars because ten people pressed a thumb up button) will most likely spread people thin, and that would make projects more likely to fail. People, being intelligent, will sense this, and they will pick a limited number of projects that look like they have enough resources to get somewhere and they’ll stick to them. Then, while those projects are being done, new projects will be thought of. By the time the people are free to work on a new project, there might be a hundred ideas that are better than our first batch. Neither you or I have the power to make these people do all the good projects. We just have to see whether enough of them are inspired by any of the ideas for there to be the right amount of momentum to get started. What we should really do is keep talking about ideas until something sparks them. Once we’ve got a fire big enough that we couldn’t put it out if we wanted to, THEN we know an idea is going to happen. Our goal here should be to make a lot of sparks and let inspiration decide which ideas will be chosen.
I doubt that even one of these ideas will be pursued to the point the effort pays out (if I had to give you a probability, I’d say p=30%).