Dude, METAFILTER could also be kinda lame ten years ago. (And I say that as a MEMBER; although, only a recent one.) Still, not cool, but someone linked you to the thread above in which the MeFites are realizing we sort of blew it.

I encountered a similar, and friendlier, take on this elsewhere -- the ideas that don't work are the "nurse logs". Sometimes when an old tree falls, seedlings later take root in the fallen tree and feed off its decaying matter. All of the ground litter in a forest is absolutely vital to everything that grows later, actually, but most of it is made up of smaller branches or leaves; these "nurse logs" are a bit hit of fertilizer all at once, and tend to attract other seedlings that take root and do well. And so -- as the argument went -- sometimes the ides tht don't work and have to be set aside aren't "worthless" -- sometimes they become nurse logs for other ideas later.

Oh -- and the caption in the TIME LIFE book goes on to say that the cat was brought back down "after a few frenzied minutes".

In all seriousness -- I've seen one of these pictures; the "Oh God what have I done" one is in Time-Life's book THE MIND from their 1960's "Science Library" books. According to the caption, this whole thing was an experiment meant to determine whether cats would a) notice or b) care if they were upside down. They absolutely do.