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Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

nautil.us

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Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#91

Post by tremon »

coldtea wrote: post #51
dijit wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a british citizen, I had heard nothing about the EU outside of what british media told me. Had I not left the UK and actually seen the EU I would only have their opinion and that opinion is mostly controlled by one person.

> As a british citizen, I had heard nothing about the EU outside of what british media told me. A lot of the journalists in those media where wined and dined courtesy of Brussels, and there are several EU and state sponsored campaigns to promote EU across member states. This is just an example: "The spending is part of a near €3 million war chest this year funding 84 projects across Britain and the EU with the aim to…

So you're complaining about a spend of 10% of €3 million, i.e. 250k GBP? That's peanuts even for a society the size of Nothern Ireland, let alone all of Britain.

Please take a look at [0], and take a sample of how much of the misinformation listed there originated in English "newspapers". Then again tell us how you think that 250k GBP is unjustified?

[0] http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#92

Post by oblio »

pavlov wrote: post #88
oblio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, but that's assuming that the shadowy "Eurogroup" decides everything. Which is not true. The European Parliament is democratically elected, the European Council is (indirectly) democratically elected, the European Council is literally the heads of states elected, again, democratically, by member countries. The European Commission is not democratically elected, because guess what, no public administratio…

No state could ever function if its "plumbers" are changed 100% every 4 years. To be fair, the United States tries to do mostly that -- and the utter dysfunction of 2017 has demonstrated the dangers of that approach.

Not even Trump does that. Imagine replacing all librarians or doctors or lawyers or whatever, down to the lowest levels of state administration. And then do that every 4 years. Insanity! :)

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#93

Post by sametmax »

jondubois wrote: post #74
iamNumber4 wrote: post #64

Age != Wisdom. Wisdom comes from Experience and living life. If you sit on a couch all day watching t.v. your experiences do not equal someone who goes out of the house, builds things, etc... Wisdom is earned by doing, not by aging.

Doing different things in different situations. Contrasting experiences are important. In my view, you can't be wise if you haven't experienced the full spectrum of basic emotions and situations: Major failure, major success, poverty, wealth, insecurity, confidence, naivety, scepticism, laziness, ambition, pessimism, optimism, extremely bad luck, extremely good luck... If your life experiences lean too much in one di…

Funnily, that's one of the goals of some meditation technicals (vipassana comes to mind). Where it will help you to notice when you experience things, so that you don't blindly go through and gain wisdom from it.

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#94

Post by sametmax »

smrtinsert wrote: post #77
iamNumber4 wrote: post #64

Age != Wisdom. Wisdom comes from Experience and living life. If you sit on a couch all day watching t.v. your experiences do not equal someone who goes out of the house, builds things, etc... Wisdom is earned by doing, not by aging.

Whataboutism at its best. Given the average person (and people are remarkably average) I would bet on an older person being wiser than a younger person.

Not sure. I see most people acting safer as being older, but in no way less destructive. They just manage to keep destruction far way from them. That's not being wise, that's just the survival instinct kicking in, boosted by experience.

Actually I tend to see people getting more scared with age. And living in fear is as far from wisdom as ignoring danger is.

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#96

Post by knrz »

tw1010 wrote: post #46
ksec wrote: post #34

Recently I have been thinking about this; a lot. How do we get wiser, not smarter or cleverer much quicker then we could go with age. I dont know if we could quantitatively measure how wise you are. So it is hard to tell if a person is wise or not. And a lot of times, you dont need to read 1000s of books, have a few DR degree or thesis to be wise. It seems wise and Intellect dont necessarily have a linear relationshi…

Unasked for advice, but maybe use fewer commas in your future writing.

I actually quite like their flow ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#97

Post by iamNumber4 »

tremon wrote: post #87
iamNumber4 wrote: post #64

Age != Wisdom. Wisdom comes from Experience and living life. If you sit on a couch all day watching t.v. your experiences do not equal someone who goes out of the house, builds things, etc... Wisdom is earned by doing, not by aging.

In my view, wisdom is gained by reflecting on what has been done, not by doing. Reflection is not a given at any age, but in my experience older people tend to afford more of their time to it.

if you don't do something, you haven't done anything to reflect on.

Reflection is something you do. so by doing the action of reflection you can gain insight on what to do next time around.

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#98

Post by mikestew »

tw1010 wrote: post #46
ksec wrote: post #34

Recently I have been thinking about this; a lot. How do we get wiser, not smarter or cleverer much quicker then we could go with age. I dont know if we could quantitatively measure how wise you are. So it is hard to tell if a person is wise or not. And a lot of times, you dont need to read 1000s of books, have a few DR degree or thesis to be wise. It seems wise and Intellect dont necessarily have a linear relationshi…

Unasked for advice, but maybe use fewer commas in your future writing.

The use of commas was just fine.

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#99

Post by ZenoArrow »

oblio wrote: post #84
ZenoArrow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Indirect democracy is still democracy" How about an oligarchy, is that still a democracy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

Of course not, but that's assuming that the shadowy "Eurogroup" decides everything. Which is not true. The European Parliament is democratically elected, the European Council is (indirectly) democratically elected, the European Council is literally the heads of states elected, again, democratically, by member countries. The European Commission is not democratically elected, because guess what, no public administratio…

> "No state could ever function if its "plumbers" are changed 100% every 4 years."

We're not talking about the "plumbers", we're talking about the "bosses", and I'd suggest to you it's a bit of a stretch to call an institution where corporations have a very strong influence on the selection of bosses as something that is truly democratic. Representative or direct democracy is required to counteract the influence of the rich and powerful.

Re: Yes, We Get Wiser with Age

#100

Post by scbrg »

olfox wrote: post #36
scbrg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that "control over emotions" equals "not displaying emotions". I'd say it rather equals "not acting on emotions". Situation: You are angry at a person. - Control over emotion: You tell them you're angry and why. - Lack of control: You punch them in the face. Situation: You see a person in need of help. - Control over emotion: You allocate reasonable amounts of resources to help the…

I didn't find anything about the story of the lawyer when searching. Could you tell me where to look? The story fits my preconceived notions too well to not question it...

Thank you for forcing me to look for reference. It turns out that I got the story a wrong in pretty much all the details, but - I'd argue - correct in the conclusion. The event did not happen a month or two ago, that was apparently the point at which I heard about it. And it didn't involve Afghani refuges. It involved Syrian refuges, and it happened in 2015.

The lawyer, Viktor Banke, raised around 15,000 SEK (slightly less than $2000) to help Syrian refugees who were living temporarily in the Mosque at Medborgarplatsen in central Stockholm. He had raised this money with the promise that they'd be given to the people who were running the shelters, to help them finance the operation. When he arrives, he meets a Syrian woman with children who, while travelling from Syria through Europe, had been registered as a refugee in Hungary. Since EU policy at the time was (and maybe still is?) that refugees should be handled by the first country they register in, it looked very likely that she and her children would be sent back to Hungary. Notably in this story is that at the time Hungary was considered a "less attractive" country for refugees than Sweden. Viktor then decides to hand the raised money (not a huge sum of money, but still) to this woman, rather than to the people operating the shelter.

I don't have any international references for this at all - apparently Viktor wrote about it in his new book Andrum, in which he discusses Swedish politics w/r to the refugee situation in Europe (I have not read the book).

Brief source in Swedish: https://bjornostbring.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/recension-av-...

My apologies for my misleading previous post. That's what happens when you tell a story from memory. Anecdotes indeed.

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