Oh, I am going to enjoy reading a bunch more stuff at Bostrom’s site, I can tell already:
Wisdom is distinct from cleverness or mental efficiency. Wisdom is about getting the big things right. A prerequisite is the ability to recognize what the big things are, i.e., a sense for proportion, for what is important. I am often thinking about this: What if I am overlooking something essential or getting a big thing wrong? Then whatever progress I’m making is in vain. It is worse than useless to travel fast and far if one is going in the wrong direction. How can one reduce the probability of such fundamental error? And of course, if one spends too much of ones time worrying about such questions, one never gets anywhere at all. In the ideal world, perhaps one would have two lives. In the first life, one would figure out what the right direction is. In the second life, one would set off in that direction at one’s maximum pace. As things stand, one is left to make a half-hearted compromise between recklessness and paralysis.
