I think that a lot of people in all walks of life have the impression, of course, that, 'I specialize in something. I can't - I don't have the time to read other things. I'll just go to pure entertainment when I'm relaxing, and then I'll come back to my pure specialty.' That produces - that attitude produces idiot savants, unfortunately.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of broadening one's knowledge beyond a specific area of expertise.
Robert J. Shiller warns against the narrow-minded approach of only focusing on one's specialty while neglecting other fields of knowledge. He suggests that this reliance on specialization can lead to a lack of well-rounded understanding and critical thinking, likening those who adopt such a mindset to 'idiot savants' who excel in one area but lack broader wisdom or insight.
In practice
In a talk about personal development, one might use this quote to encourage the audience to explore new subjects.
Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.
Speculative markets have always been vulnerable to illusion. But seeing the folly in markets provides no clear advantage in forecasting outcomes, because changes in the force of the illusion are difficult to predict.
That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics.
Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.
We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters - that is, the outlier events that matter the most.
If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.
If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.
All books are doors; and some of them are wardrobes.
Learning always involves self-transcendence. Learning calls forth what is in us, helping us to move toward authenticity and wholeness.
Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.
To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.