It seems to me the best way to market any idea is to associate with people who support the idea and enhance their success. It is NOT to stay in an environment where that idea is rejected as evil and you risk your life. So for example, the west has primarily promulgated its brands of economic freedom and intellectual freedom by being an example to the rest of the world. It may be that a Saudi does more to liberalize Saudi Arabia by moving to the west and just simply having regular contacts with her family and friends back in Saudi Arabia than she could actually manage by taking off her niqab and carrying a placard in Riyadh.
I see this same result in other intellectual areas that are not so much life and death. In a company with one R&D group, many ideas are rejected because “John did a little study of that 4 years ago and said it won’t work.” LOTS of times John didn’t really get it right, and it is a lot easier to do something wrong and have it not work than it is to do it right and have it work. In a company with a few competing R&D organizations, if org. A drops an idea because it won’t work, there is a good chance someone in org. B will give it a try. This not only improves the result for the company, which misses fewer good ideas, it actually causes org. A to be a lot more careful about dropping ideas permanently on insufficient evidence.
I realize as I write this that I am talking about a version of market competition in ideas. As long as a country punishes people who think outside the orthodoxy, they will have a drain of such people. I am sure when Chinese officials saw Chinese people making a great success in the U.S. it was part of the information they needed to relax their restrictions. The same thing can happen (and probably already does to some extent) in other countries.
It seems to me the best way to market any idea is to associate with people who support the idea and enhance their success. It is NOT to stay in an environment where that idea is rejected as evil and you risk your life. So for example, the west has primarily promulgated its brands of economic freedom and intellectual freedom by being an example to the rest of the world. It may be that a Saudi does more to liberalize Saudi Arabia by moving to the west and just simply having regular contacts with her family and friends back in Saudi Arabia than she could actually manage by taking off her niqab and carrying a placard in Riyadh.
I see this same result in other intellectual areas that are not so much life and death. In a company with one R&D group, many ideas are rejected because “John did a little study of that 4 years ago and said it won’t work.” LOTS of times John didn’t really get it right, and it is a lot easier to do something wrong and have it not work than it is to do it right and have it work. In a company with a few competing R&D organizations, if org. A drops an idea because it won’t work, there is a good chance someone in org. B will give it a try. This not only improves the result for the company, which misses fewer good ideas, it actually causes org. A to be a lot more careful about dropping ideas permanently on insufficient evidence.
I realize as I write this that I am talking about a version of market competition in ideas. As long as a country punishes people who think outside the orthodoxy, they will have a drain of such people. I am sure when Chinese officials saw Chinese people making a great success in the U.S. it was part of the information they needed to relax their restrictions. The same thing can happen (and probably already does to some extent) in other countries.