The Half-life of Us

tarazkp (84)in #philosophy • 6 years ago

Half-life (symbol t1⁄2) is the time required for a quantity to reduce to half its initial value.

I figure that I am now middle aged, the point where the probability of me living another period of life as long as the one that I have is relatively high. Of course, disease and busses can have an impact on likelihoods.

So far in this life, I have squandered a lot of time doing nothing of consequence but over the last few years, I have been upping my game by putting in effort levels that I should have put in much, much earlier in my past. I am trying to make up for lost ground.

It hasn't all been wasted though as a lot of my history has provided a huge amount of mental material that I am able to utilise for all kinds of purposes to support me going forward. You read a lot of it here.

There is a concept that the longer something has lived, the longer it will live in the future but, this really only applies to concepts themselves. Things like the wheel where the longer it has been around in one of its numerous forms, the longer it will be around. Living things do not have this luxury.

But, I was thinking about some of these little musings today and considering them in a relationship with skills, even though the maths is irrelevant. When it comes to learning, there is a massive asymmetry as some things can be learned very quickly but will never be forgotten.

It took me fifteen minutes to learn to ride a bike and even though I haven't owned a bike in twenty five years, I can still ride one if needs be. But, I am never going to be an Olympic athlete riding for a chance at gold. That is for the professionals.

When it comes to valuable skills, it is those that are difficult to get that will hold their worth the longest and to be competitive in them with others, it is the people who continually grind away until they outperform competitors. There is an attrition rate when it comes to talent which means there is a decaying rate on those unable to survive the grind.

I am not much of a competitor in relationship to others, I am more of a facilitator of others skills but, perhaps this is a competition in and of itself. For me to have value, I need to be able to add value and that means the development of facets of my skillset that allow for this to happen. I need to keep pushing at the boundaries to find new ways to improve.

There are some skills that will become harder and harder to maintain moving forward, like the physical aspects but, there are others that can continually develop until the end, like the mental parts. At the point one stops developing, the decay starts. When it comes to the information required to be able to adapt to the changing environment, the decay rate is very fast indeed for things that are technological in nature as the rate of development makes a lot of past learning obsolete.

What I mean by this is that some things learned are more valuable than others on the time scale as some are kinds of meta concepts that cover the minor. For example, having the process of being a lifelong learner is meta but, what is learned is minor. One can learn anything under the umbrella of the lifelong learning tag. Are there people still trying to improve the capacity of 5 1⁄4 inch floppy disks or have they moved on?

People often forget this when learning and instead spend their time focusing on the milestones of their learning even if the reasons to continue have decayed. There may be personal value in learning something but expecting value return on that from the environment is insensitive if it has no value to the environment itself. This doesn't mean that it won't garner support but, expecting it to gather support is naive.

But, in the long-term view of things, the skills that have the most value in the environment are those that are both difficult to get and provide growth value for the greater organism. Remember though, value is not necessarily financial.

Bill Gates has and has added a massive amount of material value to this world and Gandhi added a huge amount of intangible value. Is one better than the other? Not really until you look at it through the filter of individual opinion based on personal experience. One might value the material, one might value the social, it is not for me to really judge your values as you are you and I cannot be you. This probably won't stop me though.

This decay is also for services too and in a rapidly expanding market like cryptocurrency and all supporting aspects, what has value today might be valueless almost tomorrow and, I don't just mean like Bitconnect.

The speed of development means that much of what is commonplace will be quickly replaced by technologies that are in or have not even started development yet. Volatility and uncertainty is high in all aspects of the market and those who are continually pushing the boundaries of their learning and offerings, are the ones who are most likely going to survive the grind.

When it comes to people's blogs here I have noticed some people complaining about a drop in support. Some didn't realise Streemian and Autovoter type things were having issues. But, what was most interesting was that their content hadn't really developed much in the time they had been here, they seem to have become reliant on the auto-votes and 'trusted' support and complacent in their offering without an evolution that considers the changing environment.

I see this as failing in the grind as their comfort level has reached a point where they no longer try to improve. The decay has started and at some point in the not too distant future, their irrelevancy will be complete and they will be replaced by more current flavours of information.

Some people here offer may give Trade Analysis and enjoy massive support but at some point, they will get caught out and replaced by technology that is more accurate or proves them false. Others may offer fiction stories or lessons on life, science, entertainment, humor or any number of things but, no matter how successful now, they will all eventually be replaced as those that support them find higher quality content as the site develops and attracts the Olympians in their fields.

What this indicates to me is that for me to continue to be relevant and useful, I need to provide two core types of information in the short term. Firstly, things of practical value that can be applied now for improved results in the short-term and secondly, things that are of long-term value that can be built upon.

The feedback loop for each is very different though and for an attention starved society, the short-term often takes precedents. This means that shortsightedness is prevalent without a bigger long-term goal to direct it. From a community perspective, I see this as small gains not at the cost of future stability, spending every cent without thinking of retirement.

For those that are looking only short, the attrition rate is going to be very high indeed as the ups and downs and swings of the grinder will destroy many. For those who are not community orientated, eventually the grinder will get to them too as the track record will be immutable and at some point, the just desserts will come to crush them to mince.

They say that the person who will live to 150 has already been born and no, it isn't likely to be me or anyone reading this but, the same concept is true here. It is possible that the ones who will really empower Steem and push it to its maximum potential, are minnow or not even onboarded yet. But, just like that child who will live close to two centuries, we should be thinking about what environment we are creating for them and what opportunities will maximise their potential.

For those on the platform looking long, we need to think about this and develop it into a garden where many can survive and thrive. For those looking short and polluting the space, we need to limit the damage they can do and flush them from the system to stop their decay from spreading.

Is this harsh, is the unforgiving grinder of experience unfair? What kind of doctor do you want operating on you or your child, one who has invested themselves to keep learning and improving or one who decided that the information they learned thirty years ago was good enough?

What services do you want to use, what cars do you want to drive, what books do you want to read? The evolution of the marketplace is prone to market forces, especially at a place like Steemit and at some point, what was popular is gone and replaced by the next version. How long until what you offer is replaced? Are you looking to increase its life or has the decay already started and is unrecoverable?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]

This is a whole range of ideas grouped together and many parts need to be expanded upon. This is kind of how my mind works as it skips from point to point, one idea to the next and I struggle to control the skips and beats and hold on to what I had clearly in mind just a moment ago. But, there is often value that can be extracted from spilled thoughts when they are later reflected upon, so I take notes and revisit often to see if there is something I can use now, or build upon for the future. Hopefully, there is something of value in here for you to do the same too.

#steemit #service #future #life

6 years ago in #philosophy by tarazkp (84)

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lifenbeauty (60) 6 years ago

I believe that most of the people aged over 25 are trying to make up for lost ground, myself included.

It took me a couple of days to learn to ride a bike and I haven't owned a bike in ten years. I think I would fall of the one very quickly after trying to ride again. Learning is a very individual process. : )

The need to improve on Steemit in order to keep the same position is double:

As with everything else with in the world, the average quality is increasing, and you need to (at least) keep up with this increase.
Unlike some traditional occupations and hobbies, Steemit is also growing exponentially in quantity, thus you also have to put in more efforts to stand out.

Cheers! : )