This is sort of what I mean by being against lifelong learning. What most people actually end up with is a kind of limited life training. A finite bag of tricks that stabilizes by ~35 and backstops you under the mounting pressure of a median life. https://twitter.com/deltastatesb/status/1227352699248750592?s=21 …https://twitter.com/DeltaStateSB/status/1227352699248750592 …
-
-
Some replies asking me what definition of learning I’m using. You’re welcome to your own, but if you’re not changing in ways that alter your adaptive fit into your environment, you’re not learning by my definition. You’re larping learning or seeking stimulation.
Show this thread -
It’s odd that it’s okay to be a champion of excellence as “meritorious” or a champion of the left-behind/oppressed as “unfortunate”, but noticing the conditions and adaptations of the vast middle is taboo. Mediocrity, self-delusion, finite learning... modalities of the middle.
Show this thread -
Societal grand narratives are driven by a wishful hobbesian false Darwinism. A world of absolute winners and utter losers. No hanging on, treading water, sinking to training, surviving, good-enoughing, wing-and-prayering. The great 1-sigma blindspot in societal self-images.
Show this thread -
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” — Edward Abbey. Original context was an environmentalist critique of the logic of capitalism. “Lifelong learning” is actually the same ideology at a personal life level.
Show this thread -
It’s even a contradiction in terms. Immortalist learning would be a better term. By definition “life” is finite, with non-learning boundary conditions. Lifelong learning implies a sawtooth wave discontinuity at the end of life. As in my joke a few tweets up.
Show this thread -
The arguments against endless-growth capitalism are different (resource limits, mounting externalities) but that too is endless learning. But at least there it’s kinda well-posed since the economy might be immortal for all we know. The market might really be an eternal learner.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
I don’t know if I’m learning anything important but I do try to jump headlong into a brand new hobby every 3 years or so and that at least staves off the boredom, though a lot of it is functionally yak-shaving in terms of its usefulness as product periodic
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
I do think some people, like for instance
@ID_AA_Carmack is doing "lifelong learning" in a meaningful sense - games/graphics, then rockets, now AI. But it could also be that the core knowledge like math, physics, programming is widely applicable across different fields. -
A lot of experts do something that comes close, yes. There’s like a handful at the top of every field.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Trying to learn chinese right now. Learning is pretty crappy in reality. No one really wants to be in this state continuously.
-
If you had enough money you could hire a permanent Chinese translator. Money solves learning if it’s only a means rather than an end in itself.
- Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.