Child, what distinguishes Eaker from you is wisdom.
There is all kinds of process knowledge, institutional knowledge, painfully accumulated heuristics which look merely antiquated until they are violated, but by then everything is in flame and ruins, beyond the point of repair.
Like the strictures about 20% LTV and mortgage payments of 28% of income at most.
Anybody who says they know anything today is an idiot. Nobody knows nothing today because it’s obsolete tomorrow. If it isn’t then your industry isn’t one of consequence. Change is the only constant.
You must be wanking off over Fast Company again.
There's such a thing a knowledge base: for most purposes, calculus and differential equations haven't changed since the 1800s. Computers still exist to add, subtract, divide, multiply, and store results in a form which is compact and enables rapid retrieval. You still have to get the oil out of the ground, refine it, and ship it to market. The IRS still has its hand out. And there's STILL no such thing as a free lunch.
On the other hand, a lot of the breathlessly proclaimed "new knowledge" is lies and propaganda.
Doonesbury was once cutting-edge and hip and thought to be intellectual.
All the leading aurhorities were agreed that eating fat made you fat, and that margarine was healthier than butter.
People thought it would be good for the U.S. to "move up the value chain" and work on financial services rather than the pedestrian work of manufacturing consumer goods.
And mantras like 'smart growth' and 'green jobs' and 'hip homosexual enclaves to attract tomorrow's knowledge worker' were the very cutting edge of business leadership.
Funny how all the youngsters come in proclaiming "THIS time it's different, because I'M in charge!"
You know, like too-cool-for-mortal-comprehension, the-oceans-will-rise-and-the-planet-will-begin-to-heal Obama.
How's that Hopey-Changey working out for your generation, there, sonny?
As one wag has said, the history of the human race can be summarized by the following two questions:
1) "What could possibly go wrong?"
to be followed shortly by
2) "But how was *I* supposed to know?"
Keep shooting off your mouth.
If you're lucky, you'll learn.
As P.J. O'Rourke said, Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut.
Until then, kneel before your betters, dog.
(Eaker, your ball.)
Cheers!
No, you made a touchdown!
‘Wisdom’ What does that mean? Sitting around, scratching your beard and waxing philosophically?
Wisdom is great if the chess board isn’t constantly changing shape, size, number and color of squares, and the pieces aren’t different every game. Knowledge and technology are making wisdom obsolete. The principals might not change, but the application does. Radically, as new discoveries and technology come ever and ever faster. Computers, medecine, mechanics farming...pick your industry. Technology is changing everything.
I talk to older guys in the game, the real deals are always saying ‘there’s so much more to know and it’s changing all the time’. I know mechanics who worked on cars for decades, and tell me they won’t even touch the cars of today, even their own.
Knowledge and wisdom don’t mean anything if it’s defunct tomorrow. The new wisdom is to take what exists and apply what you can to the new situation, and identify as well as possible of those basic principles that still can be retained. Well you hope anyway till tomorrow comes.