I think the Taleb aphorism about wisdom being unattractive in the young doesn’t apply anymore.
The elders of modernity have mostly grown old in vain, to use Buddha’s expression, and lived their long lives without reflection that could have cultivated wisdom.
Conversation
Replying to
Many young people fill this void by contemplating philosophy and exploring into matters directly themselves, and no tool is as apt for this purpose the internet along which they have grown up
1
1
The wealth of wisdom of all recorded history is at our fingertips, translated to languages we speak; no longer need we rely on the wisdom of the elderly (where it frankly no longer resides as it used to) to understand basic patterns of reality; we can reach them on our own.
1
1
Thus, though I kind of understand what he meant with it, I don’t agree with it. Perhaps in ages past, youths seeking wisdom were treading on undeserved territory; but these times are hardly comparable.
1
1
Just figuring out who one really is through navigating this novel exocortex is akin to a shamanic journey of self-realization, which, if one is to keep one’s sanity, one must finish; and if one succeeds in being all one piece throughout, one has accumulated much wisdom indeed,
1
2
far more than most old people having reached old age through the relative easiness, cushy lives and lives of enslavement to dull and linear tasks pertinent to modernity.
1
2
Replying to
Quote Tweet
"Wisdom in the young is as unattractive as frivolity in the elderly." - @nntaleb
1
Replying to
it's a strange idea anyway because when studying history you get the sense that people are attracted to wisdom & to wise people, they have and always will be.
Some of those "wise people" would be charlatans, ofc, but others genuinely so. People flock from afar to see both
1
1
Great observation
1
