gloom

Talking *@! In /extracurriculars reminiscing in /gen-x and curating in /trish

Grim thought: past a certain age, thinking is maladaptive and rigidity of comportment is rational. You rely increasingly on others for leveraged impact as your individual powers wane, and younger people who sign up to play lever rely on you for for providing a Schelling point of fixity to rally around. Your job is to stop thinking, as a computational kindness to others who can therefore think better than they otherwise would. Your job is add more net collective thinking output rather than individual.

If you disagree, GET OFF MY LAWN

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

See also:

https://scholars-stage.org/public-intellectuals-have-short-shelf-lives-but-why/

He has… a very specific shtick/appeal thought-genre though. Narrow enough it feels nearly frozen to me, since I’m not in that bubble (found him hard to chat with in the couple of passing exchanges we’ve had). 

The comparable there might be Clint Eastwood. Into his 90s, but still makes a very particular genre of movie I don’t particularly like so from a distance it just looks like a static landmark. But for those in the fandom of that type of movie I guess it might seem very alive.

Main counterexample I can think of is Robin Hanson.

He's continued generating new insights in new directions all the way into  his 60s.

(Not saying there aren't many others, rather he's one from the bubble I follow)

(Though I'm sure there are some who would have preferred he remain as the totem pole of predictionmarketism and not start talking about fertililty)