Yet sometimes, the most far-fetched, cartoonish ideas are the ones that work best. All it takes is the right idea and the ability to convince somebody to spend lots of money trying it.

The ability to think outside the box is a valuable skill that tends to bring its possessor fame and fortune. But there's a fine line to be balanced -- if you think too far outside the box, the best you can hope for is that your padded cell is somewhat clean.

5 Tokyo Decides to Prevent Crime With Mood Lighting

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The Plan:

Nearly every city in the world wishes it could flip a magic switch that would cut down on crime, and only one city has a switch that turns on the Bat Signal. The city of Tokyo, however, had heard a rumor that you could cut down on crime with a little bit of mood lighting -- specifically, by turning the street lights blue.

psychcentral

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That's the sign for robot prostitutes.

Yeah, right. As if the sight of the color blue is going to make some guy who's about to mug an old lady suddenly change his mind ...

How It Worked:

Oh, wait, it totally did. The Tokyo prefectures where the blue lights were installed saw a 9 percent decrease in crime. You can write that off to a statistical anomaly if you want (maybe that was the same month they also brought on the RoboCops), but Glasgow, Scotland, saw the exact same result. Glasgow wasn't trying to bring down crime when they installed theirs, they just thought it would make the city look better. Then somebody noticed that crime had gone down right after, and the only thing they had changed was the stupid blue lights.

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And piped in some smooth jazz.

Next, the Tokyo railroad decided to get in on the blue-light action, though the problem they wanted to solve wasn't so much the crime. Their main concern was the train-assisted suicides that were taking place in their stations. The result after the blue lights were installed? Suicides dropped down to zero.

Seriously? What the hell?