The Lindy Effect is an idea discovered by New York City actors at a coffee shop. They discovered that the longer a show has been on broadway, the longer it will continue to be on broadway.
“That which is ‘Lindy’ ages in reverse, i.e., its life expectancy lengthens with time, conditional on survival.” (Taleb, 143)
As humans age, our remaining life expectancy shrinks. Simply, when I’m 10, I expect to live another 80 years. When I’m 80, I expect to live another 10 years. Why does life expectancy change with time?
First, because humans are perishable. We have an internal clock that will kill us whether the outside world does or not.
Second, because we have more exposure to accidents. As we age, our body weakens and we’re prone to more internal (organ failure etc) and external (falling) accidents. Even worse, we don’t recover from these accidents as well.
So humans are not Lindy. What is? What ages in reverse?
Ideas. Ideas are non-perishable and the longer they survive, the more robustness they show against accidents. This means that if an idea has survived 6 months, it’s expected to live only another six months. If an idea has survived 20 years, it’s expected to live another 20 years.
That’s why old books continue to dominate the minds of the masses compared to the million New York Times Bestsellers that are forgotten as soon as their publicity show dies down.
What does this mean for you?
Value the old. It’s enticing, especially with so much scientism, to overvalue new ideas and practices. The newest books on politics and philosophy haven’t yet stood the test of time.
Time and survival are the ultimate judges but we quickly forget that. We need to be more like the Romans, “The Romans judged their political system by asking not whether it made sense but whether it worked.” (Tom Holland, not Spiderman).
We forget the goal is to have an idea be useful. Usually that means it’s true but not always. It’s more important that things work than it is that they ‘make sense’ (whatever that means").
Don’t take lightly anything that has survived a long test of time. Don’t dismiss it as ‘the old way’, ‘barbaric’ or ‘primal’. It’s survived when millions of similar ideas haven’t.
This also means to take your grandparents’s advice more seriously. Their ideas and beliefs have been tested much more than your own, if only as a function of time.
Question of The Day
What’s an old book, author or idea you could spend a few minutes today understanding better?
Your Friend,
Noah BigNerd Sochaczevski
PS. You could die today. Always remember that. Don’t put off that thing.