What is Lindy?

You might have seen the word "Lindy" floating around the internet for awhile now not knowing quite what it means. Well, 'Lindy' is the new viral term being used a great deal on Based Twitter.

What does it mean, and what are its origins?

In a nutshell, Lindy refers to old or ancient practices that have retained their usefulness throughout the centuries and have tons of practical benefits in modern society. If something is lindy, it means there's probably a very good reason as to why it has lasted so long.

For example, walking is Lindy. Ancient thinkers and philosophers (especially the Greeks) used to walk a lot - not just from Point A to Point B or to a specific destination, but simply to walk for walking's own sake. It helped them with clarity of thought, and they would ponder and think about all sorts of issues while out on a stroll. This is still practically useful to us in the modern world especially since life is so fast-paced now. It's healthy for cardiovascular reasons; it's good for your mental health; and it provides much-needed visual stimuli that cannot be simulated between the four walls of your pod.. I mean room.

Ever notice how drinking a cold glass of Coca Cola is an entirely different experience from drinking cold Coca Cola in a plastic cup? You're essentially drinking the same thing, but the one poured into the glass tastes better every time. Why? Glass is lindy material. There’s a nice tactile feel to it. Ancient people used glass a lot and that’s something that kind of got evolutionarily coded into our consciousness. Another example that hits closer to home here in Asia is the culture of eating with one’s hand, particularly for Indian and Malay people. This is because their ancestors mostly ate with their hands. Ancestral practices makes one feel part of something sublime and wholesome - no matter how trivial. You always hear Indian and Malay people talk about how the experience of eating Naan with Curry or Nasi Lemak is elevated by eating with one’s hand.

Conversely, something that’s not Lindy would be using mouthwash. This is an example given by the man who helped to popularise the whole concept of Lindy - Paul Skallas (Skallas basically took the term and applied it to daily life with all its occurrences and idiosyncrasies and turned it into a meme). According to Skallas, mouthwash isn’t lindy because our ancestors didn’t use it, and therefore no one really knows what the long-term effects of using mouthwash are because it’s a relatively new invention. The ingredients in mouthwash kills all bacteria in the mouth, even good bacteria. We know today through science that many parts of our body (e.g. mouth, gut) are entire microbiomes in their own right that shouldn't unnecessarily be trifled with unless absolutely necessary.

Another aspect of "Lindy" that Skallas talks about is the dichotomy of Grandmother and Academic Researcher (or as more aptly formulated - Grandmother VS Academic Researcher). Advice given by Grandmothers can be best described as balm to the soul - especially when compared to advice given by a certified professional. A psychologist's advice will always feel clinically and professionally detached as opposed to your Grandma's. Grandparents also carry with them decades of experience and wisdom so it's not like what they say is worth squat. It's something about advice coming from a close family member, or someone with close familial ties, that carries with it a much greater effect on one's psyche; it's psychologically and emotionally tactile.

I remember little nuggets of wisdom from my own Grandma - drink warm water when you feel crappy, sweating out a fever works and eating ice chips doesn't, eating sweet potatoes is good for you, just to name a few. She also transmitted the habit of washing rice 3 times before cooking it to me. I never understood the reason why it had to be 3 times, but I do it nevertheless. It's lindy.

I recently spoke with a friend who described a conversation between his wife and mother. His mother had called her daughter-in-law a "Google Ma" (much to her chagrin, of course) because she would constantly google questions on how to take care of her child. I found this whole exchange quite humorous. Google gives a person different advice each time you hit the "Search" button - a whole range of contradicting information that makes the reader even more confused than before.

Our mothers, on the other hand, mostly did things that were transmitted to them through generations. Of course, this isn't always the case. It also depends on whether one's Grandma is a crackpot in the first place, but often-times they aren't. And while such information being transmitted down through generations may not always be the optimal solution, it was a solution that always got the job done. If not at a 100 percent, at least at a 90 percent effectiveness rate - which is a high pass, or A+. Heck, even 75 percent wouldn't be so bad to be frank (that would be a B), but still way better than the inertia and confusion brought about by a multitude of answers on Quora instead.

This reminds me of a brlliant quote I came across some time ago by Alex Kaschuta, that "Tradition is not the optimal solution to everything, and not a guarantee of happiness in your life; but adhering to tradition is akin to insuring yourself against misery" (Paraphrasing).

As for origins of the term, 'Lindy' is derived from a book written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called 'Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder'. Taleb discusses a phenomenon in the book he calls the ‘Lindy Effect’ which is the idea that the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, it is likely to have a longer remaining life expectancy. The Lindy Effect is therefore a pretty good barometer for risk-taking. It’s named after Lindy’s, a restaurant in New York where comedians used to hang out to talk about the industry, particularly who’s likely to make it career-wise and who isn’t, and they largely based this around the volume of content & material and amount of appearances each comedian they gossiped about made - the general rule being that the more appearances comedians make at shows, the more future appearances they are predicted to make.

Additional Resources:

https://newsazi.com/the-lindy-way-of-living/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/style/lindy.html

Hierarchy vs Equality

"Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days." - Thomas Sowell

"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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I recently came across the following couple of Tweets from Mike Cernovich that got me thinking about the nature of 'Right' vs 'Left' in political discourse:

I know what smarter than me looks like and don't have an issue with it, because I believe hierarchies are real, natural, and healthy.

But I've never read something from a corporate media person and been blown away or thought, "This is scary smart."

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) September 16, 2021

In one of many podcast episodes between Dave Smith and Michael Malice that I listened to some time ago, a discussion emerged about the meaning of "Right" vs "Left".

In sum, Malice's view is that the Right stands for "Hierarchy" while the Left stands for "Equality". Smith was a little less charitable when it came to defining the Left and said something to the effect of "Order" vs "Chaos". Both essentially hit the nail on the head because Hierarchy = Order and Equality = Chaos. Allow me to explain further.

Equality is synonymous with Chaos because to make all people equal by power/force of law (which is what the Lefties want) is to bring about economic and legal turmoil. The ramifications are monstrous and an inversion of all things natural. This attempt to enforce equality was tried all over the world in the 20th century, and it obviously didn't work. Thomas Sowell said it best, that "If you cannot achieve equality of performance among people born to the same parents and raised under the same roof, how realistic is it to expect to achieve it across broader and deeper social divisions?". From a legal standpoint, to force every person to be equal would mean introducing laws that are so malleable that any semblance of certainty and clarity would be melted away. Equality is predicated upon the application of brute force.

While the above touches upon practical and real world consequences, attempting to force equality upon all people also subverts the natural order of humanity. Conversely, Hierarchy denotes Order because Hierarchy is fundamentally embedded into our being and the world that we live in. Hierarchy is innately part of life. We have a hiearchy of needs, hierarchy of values, hierarchy of skills; we prioritize a particular task over another at any given time. Likewise - hierarchies exist among people as well. Some people are smarter than others; some people are happier than others; some people are stronger than others - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with this fact. Heck, all institutions have some sort of hierarchy built into them.

As acknowledged by Cernovich's tweets above, he considers Moldbug and some others to be much more intelligent than him. Is he being a cuck for publicly acknowledging this? No. I'm pretty sure if Moldbug and Cernovich were accosted in an alley way by a gang of thugs, Cernovich is more likely to defend himself successfully than Moldbug. What makes this world so interesting to live in is that everyone is unique and has a different set of views or skills to offer. Unfortunately, this seems to be changing as the Cathedral seeks to turn the majority of people into NPCs.

Some decry the notion of Hierarchy as ultimately accepting the idea that one class of people is innately superior over another thus perpetuating the idea of master and slave, but this is simply looking at things from an extremely myopic perspective.

John has an IQ of 142. Tom only has an IQ of 92. Despite this, Tom is way more athletic than John and represents his school in sports competitions. Will has a higher aptitude for making money due to his extroverted nature which allows him to generate more sales than Dave. On the other hand, Dave is a simple man who prioritizes spending time with his family and imparting camping skills to his kids. Dave is superior to Will in cultivating relationships and maintaining them while Will prefers to spend his time socializing with potential clients at high-end restaurants in order to close more deals. Meanwhile, John either spends most of his time poring over books in the library or playing board games with his equally nerdy friends and finds happiness in doing so while Tom is getting frisky with all the cheerleaders. Everyone here has a different priority and is superior to one another in his own different way.

Thus, as Cernovich correctly points out: "Hierarchies are real, natural and healthy", and we should embrace it. We are better than some people in certain things, and we are worse than some people in others.

This is akin to playing a racing or fighting game on your video game console. You have to select a character or car, and on the 'Select Menu' you will see that every fighter or car has a different set of attributes or stats. A fighter who ranks highly in attack/offensive attributes, or a car that ranks highly in terms of speed, will conversely lack in defensive abilities or traction.

This is what makes life and the people around you interesting doesn't it? Do we really want everyone to be equal and the same? I sure don't.