How To Murder People's (Intellectual) Darlings

Microsoft alumnus Scott Berkun, author of a forthcoming book on technological progress, notes that people spend a lot of time trying to suppress new ideas. He's compiled a list of common rhetorical techniques used to kill innovation, and posted them to his blog.

Mostly these (techniques) are used as thought inhibitors: they don’t require any thought to say. They’re used as flinch negative responses, dismissing without explanation. Unlike real critical thinking, which offers a path (e.g if you can overcome x, y and z we’ll consider it) idea killers are lazy dead ends.

"That never works," and "It will be too expensive," are classics, but my favorite is "Do you want a pony?"

This reminds me of a tradition in creative writing called "murdering your darlings," wherein authors methodically excise the much-loved but questionable turns of phrase they become blind to during the process of creation. While this works for purple prose, the world of ideas demands a more liberal attitude to that which, on first look, appears "obviously" wrongheaded.

Idea killers: ways to stop ideas [Berkun Blog]