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That is probably true. Maybe "lasting friendships" was not exactly what I meant, anyway; maybe "sustained interactions" would be more like it. I think about t
by JasonFruit 5y ago
That is probably true. Maybe "lasting friendships" was not exactly what I meant, anyway; maybe "sustained interactions" would be more like it. I think about the way people in the past, like the Wright brothers with Octave Chanute, Jefferson and Madison, Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann, corresponded over decades, bouncing ideas off each other and honing their arguments, encouraging each other and keeping each other grounded in reality, and I don't know if that happens to the same extent today, even though it would be far easier and faster. Maybe I'm generalizing from outstanding examples in the past, and it never happened on a broad scale, but I'm inclined to think it did, and we're the weaker for not carrying it on.
- solipsism 5y agoPretty sure Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are exchanging ideas in the same way Jefferson and Madison did. These people all have something in common, though, even across time -- they were all influential, successful, well known people. I don't think the average person at the end of the 18th century was having significant, long lasting, publishable correspondences. It's interesting to me that you expect to have the kinds of experiences Jefferson and Madison did, instead of those the local butcher did. Don't know who you are, but maybe Nassim Taleb just hasn't gotten around to responding to your letters yet? :) As for me, just like the local butcher of the 18th century, i mostly interact with my family and friends, have a few hobbies no one else really cares about, etc.