The Brilliant Idiot and the Wise Fool
Aphorisms on two ways of life
What difference is there, really, between the brilliant idiots that run our world and the wise fools who seem so relatively powerless?
The brilliant idiot believes AI-generated art is humanity’s greatest artistic achievement.
The wise fool sees more beauty in a kindergarten’s first art project.
The wise fool reads the same story to his kids every night at bedtime—and loves it just as much as they do.
The brilliant idiot—well, he doesn’t want kids, but if he did, he’d sign them up for an app that read them a different story every night so they’d never be bored.
The brilliant idiot believes that all that matters is what you can measure, and therefore manage.
The wise fool knows that only the least important things in life can be measured.
The wise fool isn’t the world’s greatest businessman—but does know that his business should make money.
The brilliant idiot has raised billions of dollars in venture capital, but has never made a dollar in profit.
The wise fool listens an hour of music each week, when he’s sitting around the fire with his pals. The only musicians he knows are his friends.
The brilliant idiot listens to 13 hours of music each day, ensuring that the frequency of each beat is perfectly calibrated to help him achieve his objective at that minute. The only musicians he knows are celebrities.
The brilliant idiot believes that since voting is the most important political responsibility, only the smartest people should be allowed to vote.
The wise fool believes that voting is his least important political responsibility.
The wise fool, though he’s poor, feels grateful nearly every day.
The brilliant idiot, though he’s rich, thinks gratitude is only for people at least 10 times richer.
The brilliant idiot eats according to the best ratio of macronutrients to achieve the optimal body fat percentage based on a careful study of his genetics—and never goes near McDonalds.
The wise fool lives for feasts, but eats at McDonalds pretty regularly—whenever his path crosses with somebody who’s hungry and needs a meal.
The wise fool knows that the smallest bug and the thorniest bush have something no AI will ever have—life.
The brilliant idiot assumes even humans are just broken, buggy machines—so AI, which can exist in the cloud forever, is already superior to us.
The brilliant idiot knows more information is always better, so he reads at least 15 wikipedia articles every night before bed, making sure to feed the highlights to his AI learning companion for his morning review.
The wise fool tries to avoid any information unless it pertains to something he already loves.
The wise fool won’t do anything unless he enjoys it or knows it’s good in itself.
The brilliant idiot will do anything, no matter how boring, if it gets him a credential or some acclaim.
The brilliant idiot is trying to live forever, whatever the cost.
The wise fool embraces his mortality, knowing that an early death after a life of courage, honesty, & integrity is preferable to a long life of deceit & loneliness.
The wise fool isn’t offended when you call him a fool.
The brilliant idiot thinks it’s an act of violence to call him an idiot.
This is a follow-up to my previous Enduring Retreat post:
Brilliant, yet wise!