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241 Times People Had Genius Ideas That Are So Crazy They Might Actually Work
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History is awash with examples of incredible discoveries, inventions and innovations that we take for granted today, but were widely mocked as crazy when they first came to light. Maybe, just maybe, there is future genius hidden in some of these ideas, taken from the subreddit CrazyIdeas.
I mean, who thought that injecting people with a benign form of disease to immunize them was a good idea at first? Or putting wings on a tube and attempting to fly in it? Absolute madness!
What we have here is a list a crackpot ideas that nobody could ever take seriously. Or could they? Some are undoubtedly just stupid and funny, others are actually rather insightful. There is even the odd nugget of genius where you think “hey, that could actually work!”
Scroll down to check out the latest batch of crazy ideas from the internet’s hive mind, and don’t forget to vote for your favourites!
This post may include affiliate links.
Everytime Congress gives themselves a raise, they have to raise the minimum wage by the same percentage
Salary development of Bundestagsabgeordnete (like congressmen and women) is tied to general salary development in Germany.
If someone is falsely convicted for rape, and later found not guilty and freed, the person who wrongfully testified against them should spend the same time in prison as the wrongfully convicted.
Siri and Alexia should only work if you say “please” and “thank you”. This could improve people’s manners to each other.
Poaching is only illegal if you use a weapon. If you think you can take a rhino or a lion with your bare hands, go ahead.
A 'none of the above' option in elections. If that option wins, the election is reheald with all new candidates.
Everyday, hang the Mona Lisa in a different part of the Louvre. That way people might take the time to look at the other paintings while they search for it.
I went to the louvre at opening time and went the opposite way rather than dash to the mona Lisa we saw sooo much as every room till we were near Mona Lisa was empty of people
A reality show idea with gay men.
11 gay men and 1 straight man are locked in a house. The object for the gay men is to find out who isn't gay. Once a week someone gets outvoted, until 2 are left, or the straight man is out. If the gays manage to outvote him, they win 1 million dollars. If the straight man is among the 2 last people in the house in the end, he wins 1 million dollars.
Now here's the twist: None of the men are actually gay, they just all think they are the one straight man.
Make Stevie Wonder a judge on 'The Voice' so every audition is a true blind audition.
This is a fabulous idea. He is an amazing musician, and couldn't care less what the person looks like.
Next time the United Airlines CEO has a restaurant reservation, allow him to take his seat, then shortly thereafter tell him he must give up his table for restaurant employees and take a later reservation as he has been involuntarily bumped. Film the fit he has and then call the police.
A self-driving car made by Google that has an 'I'm feeling lucky' button that would take you to a random location.
A reality TV show where billionaires try living on minimum wage for at least a month.
Make all the Anti-Vaxxers live together in one community, make them experience first hand what happens when you lose herd immunity.
Could it be like big brother but you get to vote in new people already infected with different diseases
Let's get a team of people in neon green morph suits to break into a news room an harass the weather man. No one at home will have any idea what's happening.
Allow children with stupidly-spelled common names (Errika, Stephfanie, Mahrsa, etc) to legally change their parents name to whatever they'd like when they turn 18.
Worst one I have ever seen was Airwreckah, that kid deserve a free renaming when they turn 18.
A gym membership where you pay less money the more often you go.
We have that here actually(RSA) , its a benefit offered by one of the medical aid schemes.
Since Donald Trump apparently has a serious problem distinguishing "fake" news from real news, The Onion should write a satire piece about how great he is and see if they can get him to retweet it.
Google switches entirely to the metric system (searches, maps, everything) and the world unifies to that standard in under a year.
Can we also have women clothes in one type of measurments instead of hundreds of different ones?
Pet stores should have an empty reptile cage labeled "chameleon" to see how long people will stand and look.
A microwave that goes to YouTube and finds a video the exact length of the time you just typed in and plays it on the microwave door.
Mandatory training for police: They each visit another precinct as a prisoner, can't tell those cops the truth, they experience the other side of things. Other officers never know who's a cop or perp, and the experience will remind officers that we're all human.
Google should tell you if you're the first person to ever Google something.
They should have a TV show called "Help, I'm Wasting My Life" where relatively smart, talented people who are doing nothing useful with their skills are given life makeovers and useful jobs.
Companies such as Microsoft / Google / Facebook / LinkedIn / Apple / Netflix / Wikipedia / Twitter / etc. should throttle accounts belonging to politicians opposing Net Neutrality to 0.1KB/s for a month.
From tech standpoint - flag their accounts and move them to throttled infrastructure. This way they'll be calling the ISPs who are trying to push net neutrality aside complaining about speeds.
Instead of showing women ultrasounds before they get an abortion, show them video of children dying from polio, whooping cough, etc. before they decide not to vaccinate.
Remove the drinking age, make it so that you have to graduate highschool to legally drink. Increase graduation rates all over the country.
Make ten movies from the same script, but use ten different directors, cast and crew. Release them all on the same day.
Let's all google "Lesbians on a bicycle" just to confuse google trends.
An army of twitter bots that reply to every Trump tweet with 'shut up'
Abolish Leap Day. Instead, every 1000 years have one year with 615 days.
Calculation is correct here.. You can give your upvote to this post and slowly scroll ahead. Thanks.
A movie where Tom Cruise, Terry Crews, and Penelope Cruz stop Ted Cruz from attacking a cruise ship with cruise missles.
Put kindergardens, kennels and retirement homes in the same building
Kinda bad idea for me. Not saying that I would forget to pick up my kid because I would be in the kennels playing with the dogs but...
A TV show called String Theory where every episode has the same beginning and slowly deviates in a unique way.
Give youtube comments % of video watched next to them
Vatican City should have an untrained Olympic Team that rely solely on prayers to win.
I don't know what's the equivalence in english, but in french we have a proverb saying : "Aide toi et le ciel t'aidera", It means if you don't make any effort to reach your goals, don't expect any answer to your prayers ;)
Write a book called How to Fix a Wonky Table. All the pages are blank, except for the first one that says: put this under one of the legs. It will have perforated pages they can be ripped out to fit any table.
Get all the one hit wonder bands together for a massive concert where they each only play their one song.
Start a band named Torrent and name your subsequent albums Seed, Leech, Kickass, Client, etc, and watch people struggle to pirate your music.
Google's Self Driving Car should have an incognito mode where it tints all your windows.
Bring back The Joy of Painting, with Terry Crews as the host.
A videogame which seems like a kiddy adventure game, as long as you follow the linear path the story has set you. The more you deviate from the main storyline path, the more unsettling, creepy, and horrific the game gets.
Start a western themed bar, where the music stops randomly when the door opens, so that everyone can turn around and look at who entered and then go back to their drinks.
Buy 365 near-identical, solid color shirts that range through the entire color spectrum in a loop. It will appear as though you wear the same color shirt every day, but in photos from previous months you'll be wearing a completely different color.
There was a Bored Panda post a few weeks ago where someone claimed to have done exactly that. And this photo or one very similar was used to illustrate...
Make bathrooms pay to enter but you get your money back if you wash your hands.
If wiki needs money so badly they should shut down for a couple days and scare everyone into donating.
Donate 1000 shirts with your face on it to your Goodwill and see how long it takes to see a person wearing one in public
If you do it in your area, you'll see one pretty quick. Up the challenge. Donate them when you are traveling. A photo of you in that location. Then you'll know where it is from....also a website on the back so people can report sightings or actually owning the shirt ... sorry, I got out of control
One T.V. show that is split into two shows, that air at the same-exact-time showing the perspectives of the "Bad Guy" and the "Good Guy" - but each show portrays their characters as "The Good Guy."
Guinness World Records should create a record called "Person Who Spent The Most Money To Buy This World Record", and then let rich narcissists give them millions for the title.
As long as Guinness then gives it to a (or several) charity(ies)
an app that keeps track of songs that you skip the most and suggest that you delete them at the end of every week.
The US must have two Presidents at all times (one democrat, one republican). They share a bunk bed in the white house.
Write into your will that you want to be cremated. Before you die, swallow as many popcorn kernals as you can.
Let people donate blood instead of paying small fines like parking tickets.
After a government shutdown all active members of congress should be ineligible for reelection.
Slip a resignation letter on Donald Trump's desk with the words "Executive Order" at the top; see his response when he signs it.
An app that shows you what your body will look like in two months time of working out. Every time you skip a workout the image of you gets less and less fit.
Set your wifi password to 2444666668888888 so that when someone asks for password you can just tell them it's 12345678.
"Password invalid. It must contain no more than 8 characters, include at least one upper case letter, one lower case letter, one symbol, one number, no more than two consecutive characters, nothing that you've used before, and you have to do this whilst solving this textbook of algebra challenges and standing on your head."
Hire a group of attractive males and females to roam individually around the city. Their job is to smile, make eye contact with, and complement strangers in order to increase morale and general mental well being.
Seeing as the 1% have nearly everything, lets just give them all the money, and start a new currency and they're not allowed any.
101 Dalmatians, but its in binary so there's really only 5.
Make a new law that says if after the pizza man tells you, "Enjoy the pizza" you respond with "you too" the pizza man can grab a slice of your pizza.
Happened to a friend of mine,she was so embarased after she told the pizza guy "you too " that she offered him a slice xD
I should install switches on my car's dash that don't do anything. When someone gets in my car I'll look them dead in the eye and say "Buckle up." I'll start flipping switches in what appears to be a purposeful order, then I'll drive like a grandma while avoiding any conversation about the switches.
And you could use them as something to distract yourself with of you're in traffic and your phone's dead and you forgot your charger
Power wash the Statue of Liberty to return it back to it's original copper color
Create an app called Bros Worldwide. It's like a dating site but for finding some bros to chill with when you travel. If you are at home and bored you fire up the app and see if any foreign tourists are in your town that want to get drunk and party with the locals.
Can't think of the title of a song? Perform the song yourself and release it as your own. Wait a few weeks until you get sued by the artist; they'll say the name of the song in the lawsuit.
Ask a stranger to watch your bag for you but never actually leave, just sit there and watch your bag together with your new friend.
Start a peanut butter company named Gif, wait for the inevitable lawsuit, let a court of law decide the pronunciation once and for all.
According to the person who invented the GIF format (Steve Wilhite), it is pronounced Jif.
Increase the legal cigarette purchasing age by 1 each year. Current smokers would be able to continue, but in 100 years time, there will be no more smokers.
Make a Batman movie but don't announce the name of the actor playing Bruce Wayne. Then the audience will be exactly like the people of Gotham.
So, the credits would say, "Bruce Wayne/Batman: That one guy who plays Bruce Wayne/Batman in this movie"?
Everyone should search on Whitehouse.gov for 'tiny hands' so that it shows up as the top rated search.
A place called The "Coffee" Shop that serves alcohol in coffee cups, and everyone just pretends it's a normal coffee shop even though they're totally wasted.
Taken 3. Set in a Buddhist monastery. Having found his daughter and wife in the previous movies, Liam Neeson embarks on an existential journey... to find himself.
We all join ISIS so there isn't anyone left for them to attack. Then we dismantle it from the inside.
A bed that gradually angles itself so that by the time you have to be awake, you're already standing. Sleep any longer and it makes you fall on your face.
Reverse Breaking Bad. A TV show where a ruthless drug dealer slowly becomes a mild mannered school teacher over the course of 5 seasons.
The US should invade the US, setup a framework for Democracy, and rebuild infrastructure.
Netflix should make a show called "your life" and when I click on it I can watch all the footage that the government has taken of me through my webcam and cellphone
An app that runs in the background and plays ever increasing Jaws music the closer you get to a registered sex offender.
Every four years elect an actor to play the president in all movies and TV shows.
Make a handy guide of Democratic and Republican talking points so instead of having a big argument, you could just say, "#4" and the other person could say, "#8 contradicts that" and we'd save time because no one is going to change their f*cking mind anyway.
We should start using "digital penetration" as a term for hacking until it becomes so popular that Fox News and CNN are saying it on-air.
If your last name is Mann, name all your kids Spider, Super, Bat, Iron, etc. Name the youngest Hugh.
Punjabi ppl do have this Last name. But the pronunciation of it is like a Caribbean guy saying "Man".
Deadpool should appear in all future Marvel movies that are rated PG-13 and use their one allotted "f*ck" in a brief cameo.
Get a bumper sticker that says "Honk if you think I am doing an excellent job driving." Then you can cut people off and they won't know what to do.
Ha ha!! What kind of a brilliant mind could think up something so hilarious? I don't have that gene.
A porn video where a woman orders a pizza, pays with money. Then She has a plumber come, fix her faucet, get paid with money, then leaves. After many such psych-outs, she finally goes to bed and has sex with her loving husband.
Plot twist: her husband is a responsable multi jobs guy,(pizza guy and plumber and the others) who first gets the jobs done and after that he gets the JOB done.
Technically Correct: the game show. contestants will give the answer as further away from the legit answer as possible yet still technically correct.
Everyone just ignore Donald Trump for the next four years. Like he's not even there. Ignore him and wait it out.
Make texting vibration patterns be morse code of the contact's initials, so you learn morse code over time and have an immediate idea of who texted you
Iphones actually have something like this where you can set a custom vibrate pattern for each contact.
The price of movies should be variable based on demand (like stock). e.g.: King Arthur is flopping? Tickets are $2.99.
It could actually help movies who are doing badly. Better get a lot of people to watch for less than nobody go because it's too expensive. And for the theaters it's definitely better, since they earn more by selling popcorn and soda than actual tickets.
A Matrix Prequel where Neo keeps choosing the blue pill over and over again and Morpheus keeps going back with a new argument for the red pill.
Until he gets tired and makes him choose the red pill and the red pill. Plot twist: one is cherry flavored and one is strawberry.
Make a beer callled "Responsibly" and market it with the slogan "Drink Responsibly"
Call a pest control place and say your attic is filled with bats, but instead fill your attic with Baseball Bats. also im drunk.
TGFbro made this on youtube. They called a plumber for a leak in the kitchen, on the floor. The plumber got there, only to discover a vegetable on the kitchen floor. Guess what it was.
Create a gym for only fat people. It's a safe space and they can feel comfortable there. When thy lose enough weight or their BMI drops to a certain level their membership is canceled.
Domino's should sell rectangular pizzas that look like dominoes
We should all start using Myspace again, out of nowhere.
Let’s get real: Facebook kinda sucks.
Why not MySpace?
It has retro nostalgia value.
It’s owned by Justin Timberlake, the pop prince of the 2000s.
It could function as a much-needed alternative to Facebook (eww).
And wouldn’t it be hilarious if all of a sudden, out of nowhere, in 2017, people were suddenly using Myspace again?
No one would ever see it coming.
Now that our search history is for sale we should crowd fund and buy politicians web histories and post them publicly.
My thought is they always claim they have nothing to hide so let's post everything.
This whole idea that you have nothing to hide unless you did something wrong is just silly, though. Having an embarrassing fetish and rather questionable taste in music isn't wrong, but you still wouldn't want everybody you meet to know. Would you be comfortable with your coworkers all knowing what kind of things you Google at 3am?
mystery plane tickets where everyone boards the plane and then theres rounds of voting as to what the destination will be
Hire a female prostitute, tell her to meet you at a fancy restaurant, and ask her to pretend to be your colleague from the bank. Hire a male prostitute, and tell him the same thing. Reserve the table next to theirs and listen to them trying to improvise sexy bank-themed dialogue at each other.
Sexy bank themed dialogues... Hmmm... "Are you a fixed deposit because I have interest in you"... "Are you a locker because I want to put MY VALUABLES in there".
Make a documentary series called "The War, on Drugs" where college professors of 20th century history discuss WWI while smoking weed, dropping acid, and eating shrooms.
Don't put party affiliation on voting ballots, that way people have to actually pay the minimum amount of attention when deciding who to vote for.
Kanye should host a event to raise Dyslexia awareness in Kenya
Have a football game announced by a man whose entire life savings is riding on the game.
Netflix should buy a large movie theater chain. Rename it Netflix. Free admission for Netflix subscribers, otherwise tickets are $5. Popcorn and Soda sold at cost.
Allow men to donate their nipples to women who've damaged theirs. Male nipples now have a purpose.
Release a breakthrough "autism free" vaccine and market it to anti-vaxxers. Make them exactly the same as current vaccines of course, because it's not like anti-vaxxers would know the difference. Everyone else just shuts up and goes with it, and the whole world gets vaccinated.
Andrew Wakefield should be charged with crime against humanity. And those anti-vaxxers... beside the obvious stupidity of their position, they should try another excuse. Each time they use the "autisme card" what they trully say is "I'd rather have a dead kid than a living kid with autism". This is an insult to every person living with autism.
Every year, the richest person in America is declared the "Winner of Capitalism." They get a badge. Then all of their wealth is donated to charity and they have to start over at $0.
Joggr. An Uber like app that allows joggers to drive you home from the bar, then jog home.
Think about it, If you're plastered and you want to get home in your car. Order a Joggr to drive you home who can then get a night time jog in as they run home, or back to the bar for another job that night. It's a win win situation.
Announce Ryan Reynolds has dropped out of the "Deadpool" sequel (following the director), 3 days later announce the new actor cast in his place, Brian Ronalds (Ryan Reynolds with a cheap fake mustache). Keep up the charade for the entirety of the marketing, and have the mustache appear in the movie.
Show a newborn duckling a mirror so that it thinks it is it's own mother and proceeds to take over the world because it knows no limits
the ducks will rule. the ducks will overcome. the ducks will take over the world.
Attach sensors to every car that determine the exact weight of bugs killed while driving. Add up the score at years end and announce the winner on TV. Since bats also kill an impressive amount of bugs, the winner is dubbed Batman and can legally conduct vigilante justice until the next year.
A waterpark for adults only. More extreme slides. A wave pool that has huge waves. Alcohol everywhere. And a normal lazy river.
Oh, my companion had the same idea about the amusement park we soemtimes get our kids. You know big slides, inflatable castles, trampolines, huge plastic bricks to build walls to hide behind while throwing foam ball to the other players, mazes made of nets, scales and foam rolls...
Real life "community challenges". Ex. Plant 500 million trees by next Sunday and everyone pays 2% less in taxes.
A museum for dogs featuring rare and fascinating odors from around the world.
Jimmy Johns should randomly deliver a sub once in a while to someone and say "We're so fast, we got your sandwich here before you even knew you wanted one!"
Make Mewtwo available in Pokemon Go for one hour only, at Wal-Mart, on the morning of Black Friday
Gordon Ramsay should do a series in which he cooks recipes from the Internet, and tries them.
I would watch it. Or just have him watch the how to videos and he judges the techniques.
Hire two hit men to kill each other. Hire the winner and another hit man to kill each other. Repeat until you have found the world's greatest hit man.
A hamster ball filled with water so your pet octopus can walk around the house
Overpay your last student loan payment by $25 so that you have an excuse to call the student loan office and demand they give YOUR money back every day for the next 5 years.
Yes, because I have not had enough of them for the last 5 years, I would punish myself to hear them for another 5, from my own will.
A dryer that uses your lindt to make wool (like) socks. Once it has enough material it'll just add a sock to your load
I'm just going to "knit-pick" and point out that if Lindt is used, it would turn out a chocolatey mess...
Challenge all White Nationalists and Neo Nazis to fight each other to the death for title of Whitest, Neoest Nazi
Publish your browsing data as a book, so ISPs would be infringing your copyright by selling your browsing data.
Subway should create a subsidiary called Domway where they tell you what kind of sandwich you're going to eat.
In four years when Tokyo has the Olympics, they should have Godzilla light the final Olympic Flame.
Randomly message old friends on Facebook, not because you want to sell them a pyramid scheme, but because you actually care about how they're doing.
Netflix should have a "Least Popular" category, so that people can either A: watch movies nobody's seen, or B. watch movies that they kinda feel sorry for.
Have a medieval-fantasy tv show (like Game of Thrones), but everyone in that fantasy world has smartphones and texting. There should be no explanation why the technology exists, and it won't be a comedy. Just a serious dramatic story with knights and kings and everything, but with smartphones.
Have the current president attempt to pass the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.
Walk around in public wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and a "Black Lives Matter" T-Shirt and just see what happens.
get beaten by the people wrongfully called "imigrants " by trump and by neonazists?
An airhorn that looks like a Febreze can do you'll always know when someone poops at your house.
PM the constitution to each other so the NSA will read it.
A TV show called "Pilot", where every episode is a different setting and plot with the same actors every time.
Delete any post that gets more than 2000 upvotes on /r/mildlyinteresting, since it is too interesting.
Prank people who have just come out of a coma. Get the doctors to dress like confederate soldiers. Dress an old lady in American 1862 garb and have her claim to be the patients wife. Explain- "you were hit by cannon fire in March 1861"
A new video game where you play someone with no skills and no weapons. The object is to get killed as fast as possible while a heavily armed badass tries to protect you. Call it "Escort Mission"
Shut down the /r/conspiracy sub. Give no explanation.
To Disney - Don’t release any trailers or details for Star Wars episode 9, just have blank posters that say Star Wars episode 9 on posters and have 30 second long silent commercials that only say Star Wars episode 9, nothing else.
A jalapeño-shaped piñata, called a jalapiñata, that douses partygoers with mace when it's busted open.
"Topless & Wet", a smoothie bar where none of the blenders have lids.
Bad driver laser tagging: if a driver gets tagged by more than 5 other drivers in an hour, their car is slowed down and morphed into a penis themed PT Cruiser for the rest of the day. Also, car morphing. That needs to be a thing first.
A website to match up your upvotes with other people to find your closest match based on similar votes
Netflix should cast Danny DeVito as Frank Underwood in season 5 of House of Cards and not acknowledge the change
You know how "Christian rock" is a genre? We should totally make Muslim rap into its own genre and have a music festival called "I-Slam".
How to win the war on drugs: Legalize all drugs then require that all drugs be purchased through Comcast customer service.
Your drug order will be delivered on January 5, 2028 between the hours of 2 AM and 10 PM
Make Betsy DeVos go through every grade of public school, Billy Madison style.
Go to a gloryhole and push carrots and cucumbers through the opening. Refuse to leave saying, "no dessert until you finish your vegetables".
Find a Bible, replace all instances of the word 'Father' with 'Daddy'
If you are ever going to be drafted for a war, get “f*ck you” tattooed on the outside of your right pinky. You won’t be able to salute without showing your superior your tattoo and they’ll refuse your draft.
Do you wanna get your finger cut? 'cause that's how you get your finger cut.
Put a "The Art of the Deal" sleeve on a "Fire and Fury" book. Take the book to a Trump event and get it autographed by Trump.
Give inner city gang members free paintball guns and paintballs and see if they'll agree to use them for a month instead of real guns, and respect the results as if they were real.
Have Kevin Bacon represent ham and John Hamm represent bacon in a debate on which is the better preserved meat.
A house buying show where the buyers are millennials and they can't afford any of the houses
An app where whenever you come into proximity with another user of the app it plays the Seinfeld theme and you both just pretend you're in a sitcom.
Turn the concept of 'ELI5' into a game-show: contestants attempt to explain complex ideas to an actual five-year-old, then the kid attempts to explain those concept to a panel of judges, who eliminate contestants based on how well their kid explained the concept that they were taught.
Bill Gates should create a political party