In nature we never repeat the same motion. In captivity (office, gym, commute, sports), life is just repetitive stress injury. No randomness.
Common minds find similarities in stories (& situations), finer minds detect differences [Essay on the Universal & the Particular]
Dubai borrowed to put vanity buildings on postcards; America and W. Europe need to borrow to just survive.
We unwittingly amplify commonalities with friends, dissimilarities with strangers, & contrasts with enemies.
The mark of a mediocre mind is the subdued and passive reaction in front of the truly exceptional.
How superb to become wise without being boring; how sad to be boring without being wise [like that Bernanke].
Corollary to Moore's laws: every ten years, collective wisdom degrades by half.
I wonder whether a bitter enemy would be jealous if he discovered that I hated someone else.
Academics are only useful when they try to be useless, and dangerous when they try to be useful.
Success is to be in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood. The rest comes from loss of control.
Don't cross a river because it is on average 4 f deep". The average of expectations is typically > than the expectation of averages.
Medieval man was a cog in a wheel he did not understand; modern man is a cog in a more complicated system he thinks he understands.
They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status --but rarely for your wisdom
Modernity: We created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.
"It is much easier to scam people for billions than for just millions". [on Madoff & US gov-1st Lesson in the Epistemology of Fat Tony]
Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but makes the fool vastly more dangerous.
We worry about "too big", but the biggest error-prone centralized top-down institution in the world is the US Gov. It is getting bigger.
No comments:
Post a Comment