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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
stop school shooters and other criminals,
such as rapists, robbers, home invaders,
and shoplifters. I also created ways to block
airborne germ transmission. Read more >

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life.

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“What I would like to see more often in this nation is an open and intelligent conversation, not people just casting aspersions at each other … it's unbelievable to me the way people act like third graders. And if somebody doesn't agree with them, they're this and they're that … it comes from both sides. And it's just so infantile.”
— Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

Proof that the rags-to-riches American Dream is still possible, and how YOU can achieve it

The American Dream means different things to different people. For some, it is home ownership. For others, it is starting a successful business. However, the ultimate American Dream is rising from rags to riches. As many Americans grapple with deflated expectations for success, I recently had an experience which proved that rising from rags to riches is still possible. The CEO of an investment firm contacted me out of the blue, wondering if I—as a doctor and inventor—had any new medical inventions her group might be interested in funding. Yes, I explained, but I also have something even more valuable. When she learned of it, she offered to send me a check for millions of dollars—more than I've made in my entire life—in return for a small percentage of the future profits generated by that invention.

“I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.”
— Thomas Edison

How can you achieve comparable success? You can do as I did, which was to dream up an idea that is bound to be wildly popular with consumers. Or, if you want a head start, I'm willing to help you and others by seeding you with ideas because I have far more inventions than time to develop them.

“An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.”
— Henry Ford

Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Indeed, thinking of a great idea is usually much easier than turning it into a practical reality. If you have the ability to transform an idea into a product or service and are willing to work hard, give me some proof that you have what it takes. If your field of interest is a suitable match for one of my ideas, I'll give it to you, if you promise to help others when you become successful.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
— Thomas Edison

Edison also said, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” Most people have good ideas but never develop them, leaving us at the mercy of corporations who churn out many inventions but few noteworthy ones. I'm convinced that we can do better, generating ideas that fundamentally improve our lives.

An advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 brilliantly explained how “the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently” who are “crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

While we need to get our creative juices flowing, our politicians do, too. Yesterday's solutions are not always the best way of solving today's problems. As our leaders struggle for ways to invigorate our economy, they are missing a golden opportunity I wrote about years ago. That idea—not the one mentioned at the beginning of this article—would transform our nation, rocketing it well into the 21^st century, and doing just as much for the physical world as the Internet did for the information world. If we did this, in the end we'd have USA 2.0—a country far ahead of the world in terms of productivity, efficiency, energy efficiency, convenience, and modernization. Or we can continue to stagnate and rely on hidebound people to define what our future will bring.

To get the exciting breakthroughs we need, we must realize that our corporations and leaders are often bereft of great ideas. That's where you and I come in. Let's put our thinking caps on, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.

“Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.”
— M. C. Escher

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
— Albert Einstein

“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
— Albert Einstein

“There's a way to do it better — find it.”
— Thomas Edison

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
— Mark Twain

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.”
— Henry Ford

“Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.”
— Anonymous

Contact Dr. Kevin Pezzi

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Notes:

Another point of view: Why the American dream is a 'myth' Bottom line: the system has a “baked-in inequality.”
“Early Gallup research reports that about five in 1,000 working-age adults in the U.S. possess the rare talents of entrepreneurship …” (source)
Comment: Only one in 200? Yikes!
Book by Columbia Professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz: The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
The Big Idea show on hold … until the economy improves? That was one of the greatest shows, ever. If more Americans watched it instead of frittering away their time watching Dancing With The Stars and sports, along with the other 500 channels of idiocy that appeal to folks with vacant minds and no desire to fill them, the United States economy would not be in need of resuscitation, and we would have plenty of time and money to have fun. The lesson? Work before play makes play possible; play before work is the path to failure and misery.

The views expressed on this page may or may not reflect my current opinions, nor do they necessarily represent my past ones. After reading a slice of what I wrote in my various websites and books, you may conclude that I am a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. Wrong; there is a better alternative. Just as the primary benefit from debate classes results when students present and defend opinions contrary to their own, I use a similar strategy as a creative writing tool to expand my brainpower—and yours. Mystified? Stay tuned for an explanation. PS: The wheels in your head are already turning a bit faster, aren't they?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”

Kevin Pezzi, MD

Proof that the rags-to-riches American Dream is still possible, and how YOU can achieve it

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Notes:

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