Join David Carson on Dumbify as we dive headfirst into the gloriously peculiar mind of Benjamin Franklin, a man who believed the path to brilliance was paved with audacity and the occasional naked air bath. Everyone knows he flew a kite, but fewer know he penned a deadpan treatise suggesting science should invent pills to make farts smell like roses. This episode unpacks how Franklin's most outlandish, cringe-inducing ideas—from wrestling lightning to advocating for deliberately infecting children with smallpox—weren't just pranks. To him, they were serious experiments, tapping into what we now call "the taboo innovation law": the idea that society's greatest discomforts often hide its biggest problems, begging for delightfully counter-intuitive solutions.

Discover why Franklin, the ultimate patron saint of "thinking wrong on purpose," fearlessly leaned into the very things everyone else was too polite, too afraid, or too conventional to touch. We'll explore how his willingness to be perceived as utterly unhinged ultimately nudged humanity forward, and challenge you with "The Perpetual Squirm" to find your own hidden genius in the everyday absurdities. Prepare to laugh, squirm, and forever change how you view those unspoken moments of awkwardness.

Sign up for the Dumbify newsletter: https://www.david-carson.com/

Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.