📜 3 lessons learned from History

5 min read

Lindy effect. Theory vs experience. How to see the future.

I have always been fascinated by history, not the useless dates or names of colonialist conquistadors they taught us in school, but the evolving story of humankind. Several things naturally drive me.

First, by reading colored printed encyclopedia which used to feel like the google our previous lifetime, providing endless streams of interesting story minus the annoying ads.

Second, from watching various heroic war movies from the Gladiator of Rome to the Black hawk down of Mogadishu, bought in a "copyrighted" DVD stand on the 2nd floor of a dark electronic store.

And finally, by playing strategy computer game such as the Age of Empires which made feel like being part of the history itself, until they introduced cheat codes that produce cars shooting at a stone castle.

We all have heard that a lot of lessons can be learned through history. So, here are 3 concepts that I learned from the Author/tinkerer Mr. Nassim Taleb, which hopefully could benefit your life and made your 6th-grade history teacher proud.

⏱️Lindy effect

Lindy means that If something survived to exist for a long time, it will exist for more time to come. Take books, for example, If a book has been existing for more than 100 years (Seneca's meditation, Adam smith's wealth of nations, etc.), we can expect these books to exist for another 100 years regardless of how the story will be transmitted.

This also holds through to anything non-perishable, such as Pythagoras theory in math, Beethoven's 6th symphony in music, the magical invention of wine, and the list goes on and on.

However, a lot of new things are usually not Lindy, remember the overhyped tiger king series on Netflix or the flashy new vegan restaurant in town, these things are easily forgotten in several years.

As humans, especially in this digital age, we always want to see and experience newness or some called it the fear of missing out. However, we are mainly relying on things that are Lindy, such as eating with silverware similar to the one used in the victorian age and not through a smart utensil implanted in our body.

This is because we humans are not Lindy, we can only see things within our lifetime. Humans are perishable, we now know this better in times of Covid. No matter how many push-ups you can do, at a certain age limit, our organs and cells will break down and merged into the soil and be forgotten in a generation.

🧠 Theory vs experience

Theory comes and goes while experience stays. In simple terms, we survived evolution not through remembering theory but from the lessons learned from our experience, how our body remembers it, or also called muscle memory.

Such as things like a fire is hot but provides energy, water tastes good but can drown a person, and other survival experiences. Muscle memory is not just what a personal trainer would say in a gym, but it applies to anything in life.

Take a look at all the ever-changing diet trends from keto, intermittent fasting, mayo, paleo, and a hundred other theories. It seems that there is always someone trying to sell their theory to transform our beer belly into a six-pack.

But the real results are only seen if your body (and fat) experienced the shock treatment from doing miles of intense running or endless burpees. As said in an Instagram quote, six-packs are made in the kitchen and not in the bookstore.

Not just theory, but explanations change all the time, even though the experience remain constant. Remember the Chinese whisper game that we used to play in primary school, where a sentence will change its structure or wording if transmitted through a different number of people.

It's not because we are stupid, but this is an example of how theory, explanation, or pure talk, will never beat experience.

As Taleb simply said, "Suckers try to win argument, while nonsuckers try to win".

👁️ How to see the future

No one can read a crystal ball, but if you are literate enough you can read about the past, and the past is the best baseline to project the future. We all know things like a pandemic, financial crises, and wars, have happened in the past.

Not just once, but multiple times in the history of homo sapiens. However, most future projections are using the present life to imagine the future. Look at all the sci-fi movies in the last 50 years.

They all try to depict the future by adding a weird gadget to makes it looks futuristic. While in reality, we are now producing more bicycles than flying cars.

Again Lindy plays a huge role here. Technology will change things that need to be improved, but it will not disrupt things that have been doing well for hundreds of years, such as your humble clothes and shoes.

In conclusion, to understand the future, avoid the clickbait news media and read classic books. As one proverb says "He who does not have a past, has no future".

The cool thing about history is that it's constantly evolving, and always in the making. Like it or not, we all are a student of history, but no one can teach history better than the story itself.

Thanks for reading this article. Enjoy life and listen more to your grandparents!