The reason why bad ideas persist is that people continue to talk about them. Ideas can only be remembered and believed when they are repeated. People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them, which leads to the Clear's Law of Recurrence. Each time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you are trying to destroy. The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten, and the best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared.