Gradients of relevance

 

As a kid I was making a lot of "inventions", at least that is what I called them. My famous one was the Automatic nail polish applicator 2000. It wasted a lot of nail polish, however it worked. Despite my best efforts to convince everyone that this is the best invention in the world, it fail into oblivion. Even my best customer (my mom) seldom remembers my grand invention. 

Just a depiction (brass was unobtainable for me at that time)

I was constantly frustrated why nobody took my inventions seriously. Although I was just a kid, I had awesome ideas, most of which I have forgotten. I know I mumbled a lot about hydrogen engines, never understanding the irrelevance of it all. 

Thinking back I can't stop but wondering, what is relevance anyway, what makes something relevant, or obsolete, redundant or even undesirable. I want to argue about these five factors that determine the relevance of a given idea, invention, movement or any other disruption of the ordinary.

1. Is it shiny
2. How much it will last
3. How many people / objects will affect
4. How much effort does it take to implement
5. How much am I going to benefit of this disturbance in the force

All of the above points are gradient scales, they are not yes and no questions. So now I finally understand how people subconsciously decide for a relevance of a given new thing:

Notice I did not mention if the invention solves a problem. Problems are another gradient, for relevance this is not important, it's mostly covered under point 5.

So I assume my early inventions were not shiny enough.