Here’s an idea to consider: trade in trends for that which is tried and true, that is trade tit for tat.
The Lindy effect is an idea that suggests that the current age of something is a predictor of its future value. Things that have been around a while and are still held in esteem are likely to continue being held in high regard for the foreseeable future whereas things that have just come to our attention may just as quickly evaporate into the ether. The Lindy effect can be applied to ideas and things (not people).
Nassim Taleb concretized the concept describing the Lindy effect in his book, Antifragile. Taleb wrote, “If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not ‘aging’ like persons, but ‘aging’ in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness.”
The internet has been referred to as the information superhighway. The amount of available information is growing exponentially and is increasingly accessible. Stephen Covey writes in Trust and Inspire: “Scott Sorokin in CIO magazine notes that up until 1900, experts estimated that human knowledge doubled with every century. In 1982, it was estimated that knowledge doubled every thirteen months. Now, forty years later, experts suggest that human knowledge doubles every twelve hours. This explosion of knowledge has changed the way we view the past and made us think differently about the future.” The growth of knowledge has been so expansive that it begs comprehension.
If we pick a random starting point of the year 1600 and represent the collective knowledge of humanity in that year as X, according to Sorokin our knowledge was 2X in 1700, 4X in 1800, 8X in 1900, and 16X in 1982. Our steady trend line of knowledge would have crept upwards, multiplying sixteen times for those almost 400 years where it begins a steeper incline. Even those of us average at math can track this growth of knowledge without becoming overwhelmed. However, after 1982 it began to double almost every year. In less than twenty years, our knowledge went from 16x that of 1600 to exceeding one million X. Then it began to double two times every 24 hours. Our knowledge trend shifts into a sharp, almost vertical upline. This would have allowed it to grow exponentially over the next decades bringing our collective knowledge today to many trillions of X. Our calculators, let alone our brains, are incapable of keeping up with the pace. We’re deluged with data that is supposed to help but we simply can’t process things. Martin Gurri sums this up writing in Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, “Growth in information had been historically slow and additive. It was now exponential.”
Concurrent with our information eruption, the number of PhDs awarded annually has grown steadily over the past six decades. Almost 60,000 doctorates are awarded annually by US institutions now compared to less than 10,000 sixty years ago. With the growing number of PhDs, the amount of research and papers, too, explodes. Every day the news blasts breakthrough research findings of some kind. However, much of what is created today as research is garbage. With abundance doesn’t necessarily come accuracy, unfortunately. A “replication crisis” has emerged over the past ten to fifteen years related to many social science studies. Research that had been touted as offering great, new insights have not been able to be reproduced by subsequent, similar studies. A growing area of research has become seeking to replicate prior findings to either boost or bust their credibility. A meta study of over 100 replications done by the Open Science Collaboration found “successful” replications of less than 40%. Even the replications considered successful showed results half as strong as the original studies. Research into replicability has grown from social science studies to cover economics, animal behavior, and cancer biology all showing problems in replication of past work. Rapid research growth may be expanding our knowledge base, but the quality of that knowledge is suspect leading to a trust issue on behalf of consumers of this research.
To combat the influx of information coupled with the potential for inaccuracies, we should chase less the noise of now and instead seek to learn from the past. Particularly, from those things that last. “In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong. A good question to ask yourself today is, ‘What might I be wrong about?’ This is the only worry worth having.” Kevin Kelly writes in Excellent Advice for Living. As good as is this question to encourage some humility with respect to our knowledge, it’s also worth casting aside the current and investing energy learning what has lasted. What’s still the same today as twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred years ago? Lessons that have lingered through history are more likely to stick around in the future. These are bets worth taking. Spending our limited time and energy absorbing what’s stood the test of time is greater than chasing our tail while racing in circles keeping up on the latest fashion. This is what the idea of the Lindy effect is encouraging us to lean into.
Jane McGonigal has developed several computer games, once of which is called Jane the Concussion Slayer. On top of designing games, she’s also a writer. She’s written, “I’ve learned an important trick: to develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight.” Being able to make accurate assessments of where things are going are tied to having a solid understanding of what’s happened in the past. In other words, you only get that deep appreciation of what never changes when you engage with history. The late philosopher, Arthur Schopenauer, put it humorously when he noted, “The wise have always said the same things, and fools have always done just the opposite.” A knowledge of history helps. There’s wisdom from what’s come before that can help us follow a path to progress as well as stay away from bad ideas that will derail us into the ditch.
Author Morgan Housel writes in a blog post titled “Paying Attention” about his approach to reading. Housel is constantly asking himself about information he imbibes whether he will still care about it in a year, five years, or ten? If the answer is yes, he dives deeper seeking to soak up more on the subject. If he doesn’t believe he will still care about a subject, he limits the time spent on it. In the same article Housel makes a distinction between expiring and permanent knowledge. Expiring information may be interesting but has limited shelf life. Things like earnings reports and polls are expiring information. They make headlines begging for attention but are quickly shifted aside for the next blast of information. Permanent knowledge, on the other hand, are “principles and frameworks” that help form a foundation of understanding for how the world works. To embrace the Lindy effect is to prioritize frameworks over fun facts. It’s not about what’s cool or the latest trend, but what is tried and true is what is good for you. Housel is encouraging us to pay attention to things that last not things that evaporate into the ether of the 24-hour news cycle.
The bias to what’s new or the quest for what’s the latest and greatest is often a distraction or a desire to find a shortcut. It’s about avoiding the known path. Break free from breaking news. Don’t chase best seller lists for books or top new releases in the theatres. For the few of us that do read, how much of our recent reading list contains things that were written within the last five years? For most of us, the newer books would represent the majority of what we’re reading. So, too, it would be with movies and documentaries. We’re consuming what’s been recently created more often than not.
Avoid the newest knowledge. Ignore innovative insights. Run from the results of recent research. Trade in trends for that which is tried and true. Develop a craving for classics. What has stood the test of time? What has shown the same result time and again over decades and geographies? These represent insights that are and are likely to remain accurate and actionable. At the heart of wisdom lies the ability to pay attention to things that matter. It’s avoiding the noise of now and developing a deep reverence for timeless wisdom.
“People spend too much time on the last 24 hours and not enough time on the last 6,000 years.” – Will Durant –
