In the 1960s, Lindy’s delicatessen in New York was renowned for its world-famous cheesecake and as an aftershow meeting place for the Broadway crowd. Here they would meet in the evenings to discuss shows and performances by peers. In doing so, they developed a theory that an actor or comedian’s previous exposure was indicative of the exposure they could expect in future. In other words, if a show had been running for two years, it would most likely stick around for at least another two.
The idea has since been refined by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and author Nassim Taleb and dubbed the Lindy Effect, i.e.:
Here “non-perishable” refers to ideas, products, technologies, books, etc. Obviously, something like human life is perishable, so it’s not Lindy compatible. Taleb gives a basic example of things that are Lindy:
“Tonight I will be meeting friends in a restaurant (tavernas have existed for at least twenty-five centuries). I will be walking there wearing shoes hardly different from those worn fifty-three hundred years ago by the mummified man discovered in a glacier in the Austrian Alps. At the restaurant, I will be using silverware, a Mesopotamian technology, which qualifies as a “killer application” given what it allows me to do to the leg of lamb, such as tear it apart while sparing my fingers from burns. I will be drinking wine, a liquid that has been in use for at least six millennia. The wine will be poured into glasses, an innovation claimed by my Lebanese compatriots to come from their Phoenician ancestors, and if you disagree about the source, we can say that glass objects have been sold by them as trinkets for at least twenty-nine hundred years. After the main course, I will have a somewhat younger technology, artisanal cheese, paying higher prices for those that have not changed in their preparation for several centuries.”
The new is usually accompanied by hype, and man, we are suckers for hype. Robustness is bred by the ability to withstand the shocks that come with running the gauntlet of time. Hence the saying, “stand the test of time”. Let whatever trending idea or new bestseller prove its worth, warranting increasing consideration each year it survives. Time is the ultimate bullshit detector. If, for example, you want to learn something worthwhile, you’re probably better off reading the 2000-year-old Meditations by Marcus Aurelius rather than whatever latest book is trending on the New York Times best sellers list.
Following a previous post, I was mildly rebuked by some readers for confidently proclaiming that “being a Luddite is of limited value”. On second thought, there may be benefits to being a Luddite after all.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks for the post, though I would disagree on the Luddites part: while it's true that there are some Luddites sticking around, it's also true that most Luddites in history haven't stuck around (and today's Luddites are very much supported by new technologies). Perhaps, the point isn't to refuse anything new (what Luddites do) but to acknowledge that what's new is likely to disappear soon *and yet* a small percentage of the new might be very important.
(p.s., if you're interested in a more generalized version of the Lindy Effect: https://luca-dellanna.com/Lindy)
This is rather thought-provoking and I need to sit with it for a while. I really like the idea and want to now apply it to everything. :)