3 ms·
The usual explanation is that they will call impossible something which goes against their life's work because in their mind it nullifies it, while a youngster
by dist-epoch 4y ago
The usual explanation is that they will call impossible something which goes against their life's work because in their mind it nullifies it, while a youngster has less or zero "sunken cost".
A related saying: "science advances a funeral at a time", meaning the old-guard blocks new theories for the same reason, they go against their life's work.
- ska 4y agoThis is true, but misses the important part that they (the older set) are often correct. For every new idea that really changes everything there are a huge number that die on the vine or just become a ho-hum tool in a big toolbox. Most new ideas are less interesting and impactful than they seem when you are in the middle of their creation. You never really get to see what's happening until much much later. A variant of all this is that you should trust the old guard when they tell you something can be done, but not when they tell you it can't. There is a good quote about that I've forgotten. The corollary is that you shouldn't really trust the young turks on anything, but you should support their efforts and test the results. It's very human to see yourself as Planck in the early 1900s not Wolfram in the early 2000s.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoThat quote is literally what I wrote about in my OP(root of this thread) :) It's from Arthur C. Clarke.
- ska 4y agoAh, missed that somehow, thanks. It doesn't capture the main point of my comment though, which is most of the time, the young turks are also wrong :)