Earth, Wind and Fire; The Wisdom of the Ancients and Modern Society.
I remember when I was told of the ancient concepts of the elements; earth, wind, water, and fire. It was presented in a bemused way as a primitive, childlike attempt at science. The concept made a little more sense once it was explained that "earth" meant anything that came from the earth: wood, dirt, rocks, minerals, even plants and animals. So basically, what they were calling elements were actually states of matter - earth was all solids, water meant liquid, air for gases of course, and fire. The analogy kinda broke down at that point, since modern science for most of the 20th century recognized only solid, liquid, and gas. But I remember thinking the ancients were kind of on to something classifying fire as a state of matter. It had to be something, right? One of the students even asked this. If it's not it's own state of matter, what exactly is it? The answer, at the time, was that fire is an effect of the solid becoming a gas...one state going to another, instead of it's own state of matter. And, now, post-millennium, I find that the kids are being taught more than just three states of matter. Lo, and behold, it is taught that fire (and lightning) is a fourth state of existence called "plasma". Some societies honor their seniors for their wisdom and exploits. The foundations, upon which the society rests, for good or for worse, were laid by those that came before. China will hear appeals in it’s legal system to expunge convictions of long dead ancestors for the honor of their memory. Renaissance Europe had teenagers and young adults wearing grey wigs, dyeing or shaving their eyebrows, and taking other extreme measures, all to look as seasoned and wise as possible. But such a principle could have made a real difference during the dot com bubble. Internet startups were a dime a dozen, none of them making any money, but all of them needing (and getting) millions more of cash. A few voices chided that you can’t survive as a company without making a profit, and shouldn’t invest in a company that’s not making or going to be making a profit. The fact that these voices were experienced, and had rubbed shoulders with previous generations that had actually founded the exchanges, meant nothing. “This is the new economy, a new era, where technology rules, and the old rules don’t apply.” The upstarts would reply. That some of the young refused this wise counsel is not surprising, of course. Adults and seniors have complained of the young’s disrespect to their seniors for
centuries; -even in the time of the ancient Greeks. The surprising part is that the upstarts got away with it. The market kept going up, the alarm bells and warnings kept going up, and the tired old man warning of disaster was ignored. Even if the tired old man was a millionaire from making smart trades, ignoring emotion, and had been doing so for decades, -no matter. And then, of course, the tech bubble burst, ruining 401k’s everywhere. Companies that could not make a profit, surprise, went bankrupt. Just like our grandfathers told us. Those that listened, thanked God they listened, and scooped up all the low priced bargains of the losers. And the losers had been taught a lesson of dismissing wise and venerable teaching. (That’s also a phenomenon that been going on for centuries –even since the time of the Greeks…)