What is your wisdom

Panzer of the Lake Meme

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Panzer of the Lake

About

Panzer of the Lake is an image macro series featuring a photograph of a soldier who receives wisdom from a Panzer tank that is submerged in a lake. The images are typically captioned with variations of a phrasal template that begins with the soldier asking, «O panzer of the lake, what is your wisdom?» to which the panzer replies with a variety of humorous statements.

Origin

On February 22nd, 2017, military history website Feldgrau [6] posted a collection of archive tank photographs, including a photograph of a man looking down at a semi-sunken tank (photograph shown below, left).

On March 21st, 2018, an anonymous 4chan [7] user posted the photograph to /k/ board, with another user replying «O panzer of the lake, what is your wisdom?» (screenshot shown below, right). On the same day, Tumblr [8] user condor-blues posted a screenshot of the 4chan thread, with the post gaining over 1,000 likes and reblogs in five months.

On July 30th, 2018, Redditor Leakyz-Beakyz posted an image to the /r/animemes subreddit. The image features a soldier asking the submerged Panzer «O Panzer of the lake, what is your wisdom?» to which it replied, «Traps are gay.» [1] The post gained 2,000 points (96% upvoted) within four days.

Spread

On the same day, other variants of the image spread to other subreddits. Redditor SpaceMun posted an image to the /r/DayOfInfamy [2] subreddit with the caption «throw smoke grenades,» gaining 108 upvotes in four days (shown below, left). On July 31st, 2018, Redditor WastlandPioneer posted the image to the /r/HalfLife [3] subreddit in which the tank answers «There will never be half-life 3. Move on with your life» (shown below, right). The posted gained 779 points (97% upvoted) within three days.

On July 30th, 2018, Twitter user @VickMenon_MK [4] posted a variant to twitter with «communism will win» as the tank’s reply. (shown below, left). On July 31st, @sonicsledge [5] posted another variant with «paint the models you already have before buying new ones» as the tank’s reply (shown below, right).

Tank Location

On March 19th, 2021, YouTuber ConeOfArc published the video «WE FOUND Panzer of the Lake!» In the video, the narrator states that the tank’s location was discovered. According to a report, the Panzer of the Lake’s location is likely in the Meuse River. The post received more than 356,000 views in less than one week.

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What is your wisdom

wisdom in this context means the ability to make good judgements based on what you have learnt from your experience

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What Is Wisdom?

What can evolution and democracy tell us about wisdom in our own personal lives? Hint: It starts with ducks.

This is a Mindf*ck Monthly newsletter from September 6, 2021. Every month, I send out big ideas I’ve been chewing on and stuff I’ve enjoyed reading that month in the hopes that it makes you less of a shitty person.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

What Is Wisdom?

1. What Evolution Tells Us

When most people think of evolution, they assume that it’s an all-or-nothing affair. Ducks with a big beak are able to eat more than ducks with little beaks, therefore big-beaked ducks survive and reproduce and the little-beaked Spoonbill Ducks die off. This is how evolution is generally taught in high school.

But most of the time, evolution is not this simple. For example, imagine a species that could be either violent or non-violent. What usually happens is that instead of it being optimal for every member of a species to be either 100% violent or 100% non-violent, it’s optimal for like 40% of a population to be violent and 60% to be non-violent. This is because the balance and interplay between the violent and non-violent members of the same species actually produces better outcomes than if the species was all one way or the other.

In biology, this is known as evolutionary stable strategies and you see them everywhere. Having too many violent organisms creates chaos. Having too many non-violent organisms invites predators. But a nice mixture of both ends up making everybody better off. It’s by having a diversity of traits within the population that the whole species survives and thrives.

As Temple Grandin says, “The world needs all kinds of minds.”

2. The Genius of Democracy

This, in a nutshell, is the genius of democracy: it’s built to accentuate rather than suppress diversity. And not just diversity of race, gender, or religion, but diversity of personality, interests, philosophies, and worldly pursuits. Democratic systems let the wisdom of evolutionary processes play out in the social realm. This is why democratic societies tend to be more economically innovative, culturally dynamic, and physically safer than the alternatives.

Tyranny fails because it attempts to crush diversity—it removes the opportunity for evolutionary stable strategies. The same way every organism in a species being non-violent is evolutionarily suboptimal, forcing every person in a society to adopt a specific ideology, religion, or goal is socially suboptimal. It makes a society rigid and fragile. Tyranny’s desire for harmony and uniformity ultimately leads to its downfall.

3. The Price for Diversity

Paradoxically, the price for diversity is constant stress and anxiety. Diversity means differences and differences mean conflict. Highly extraverted people annoy highly introverted people and vice versa. Highly religious people offend highly non-religious people and vice versa. People from rural and urban areas have different life experiences and different values. People with differing beliefs yell at each other, fight, and complain about how awful everyone else is.

Yet this perception that everyone else is awful is evidence that everything is alright.

The fact that we’re exposed to enough diversity of thought and lifestyle to be so annoyed by everyone demonstrates that the system is working. In a sense, democracy requires constant dissatisfaction. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

But these first three points are merely a preamble to what I really want to talk about: wisdom.

4. The Internal Discord

The same way having a diversity of traits within a population is optimal (yet uncomfortable) in nature, and having a diversity of personalities/beliefs/backgrounds is optimal (yet uncomfortable) in society, I would argue that possessing a diversity of values, perspectives, and inclinations as an individual is optimal (yet uncomfortable) for our psychology.

For example, let’s say you’re walking down the street and you see a homeless guy acting erratically. On the one hand, you value compassion to some extent. You want to help people who are suffering. Yet, you also kind of value personal accountability—i.e., you have some sense that people ought to be responsible for their own problems. On top of that, you also value your personal safety—i.e., you don’t want to get attacked by a homeless man in the midst of a psychotic episode.

You also have various thoughts and impulses like the fact that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, that you’re a bad/selfish person for ignoring this man’s plight, that you’re busy and late to something important and don’t have time for this, that your mayor is a piece of shit for letting this happen in the first place, etc.

As you pass the homeless man, these values and thoughts tug at each other within your mind. You feel bad and want to stop and help but you’re also scared. You pity the man but you’re also a bit angry and indignant that such a prosperous society could let this sort of thing happen. You simultaneously feel that acknowledging this man’s struggle is both something worth doing and something not worth doing.

As you walk on, that discord within you continues to bother you for much of the afternoon. No matter which perspective you take, none feel completely right.

5. Resolving the Tension

Now, there are two ways to resolve this internal tension. The first way is a sort of fanaticism: you pick one perspective and double down on it to the expense of all others.

The second way is to acknowledge the contradictory nature of your own thoughts and feelings, and to choose a course of action in full awareness of that tension—to make your choices not based on zealotry or faith, but by merely understanding trade-offs.

And this is what wisdom is:

It’s the ability to allow a diversity of values and thoughts to emerge within your own mind, yet still be able to act despite them.

6. A Wise Mind

In this way, a wise person’s mind is like a democracy. You have political parties going on within your own mind—you have the “help everyone in need” party, and they’re constantly arguing with the “it’s not my problem” party.

And, of course, there’s the always-present “but what about our safety?” and “leave it to the authorities” interest groups that must be placated. These various factions within the government of our psyche argue and bargain and act as checks and balances against one another until a course of action is eventually chosen.

People email me all the time to complain that they want to make a major life decision but they don’t have complete unerring confidence in their choices.

Good. This is wisdom. This is understanding trade-offs and consequences and accountability. This is allowing the various aspects of yourself to vote on the outcomes of your identity.

The opposite is fanaticism. Fanaticism may produce confidence and relieve anxiety. But fanaticism is a tyranny of our internal mental order. It is when one belief or value pushes all other competing factions out of our consciousness.

But by quieting our internal discord, fanaticism makes ourselves more fragile and vulnerable to external discord. The same way democracy works because—not in spite—of its conflict, a wise person is wise because—not in spite—of their internal discord.

7. Living With Internal Discord

Therefore, the goal isn’t to quieten or relieve yourself of your internal discord, it’s to learn to live with it. It’s not to rid yourself of anxiety or second-guessing, but to become comfortable with it. It’s not to develop full confidence in everything you do, but to become confident in the fact that you probably don’t know what you’re doing.

This is an internal democracy, the allowance of evolutionary stable strategies of the mind.

Stuff Worth Reading

1. A few months ago, I wrote a long piece explaining why social media is not as evil as everyone seems to think it is. Basically no one read it, probably because it didn’t support their prior assumptions (which kinda just supports my argument that social media isn’t the problem, we are).

Well, maybe I wasn’t the right person to make the argument. Maybe someone else can do it better. Here’s another article written around the same time, making similar arguments, many of them better. Check out: You and the Algorithm: It Takes Two to Tango.

2. The best and most realistic COVID-related article I read this month was this one: Why COVID-19 Is Here to Stay and Why You Shouldn’t Worry About It. I highly recommend it.

If I may make one teensy comment about the pandemic: People’s entrenched views about such a controversial topic have not surprised me the past 18 months. What has surprised me is most people’s inability to update their beliefs given new evidence. It’s shocking how many people (and governments) are still operating on assumptions from, like, May 2020.

(Bonus pandemic thingy: Evidence has surfaced that the “Russian Flu” pandemic of 1889 was actually likely a Coronavirus. So, I guess we’re partying like it’s 1889.)

3. I found this article detailing the life of a professional surrogate mother to be fascinating (and somewhat moving). I spend a lot of my time writing about purpose, relationships, and technology, and this story awkwardly lies at the intersection of all three.

Until next month,

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What is your wisdom

Humanity is too clever to survive without wisdom. — E.F Schumacher

What is wisdom? We hear the word a lot these days—the need for wisdom, the wisdom traditions, wisdom schools. We each would like to have more wisdom. And for others to have it as well. Too much human hurt and suffering comes from lack of wisdom. But what is this quality that we hold in such high regard?

One way of looking at wisdom is the progression from data to information to knowledge:

Wisdom concerns how we use our knowledge. Its essence is discernment. Discernment of right from wrong. Helpful from harmful. Truth from delusion.

We may, for example, come to understand that deep down each of us wants to be loved and appreciated. But do we then use that knowledge to manipulate others for our own ends? Or do we use it for the benefit of all, considering how to respond to a situation in ways that are truly caring?

At present, humanity has vast amounts of knowledge, but still very little wisdom. Buckminster Fuller called this time our final evolutionary exam. Is our species fit to survive? Do we have the wisdom that will allow us to use our prodigious powers for our own good, and for that of many generations to come?

It is a common perception that wisdom comes with age. The wise ones have learned from experience that there is more to life than acquiring wealth and fame. They know that love and friendship count for more than what others think of them. They are generally kind, content in themselves. able to discern their true self-interest.

But why wait until old age? In an ideal world we would finish school not only with sufficient knowledge for the life ahead, but also with the wisdom of how to use that knowledge.

The question then naturally arises: How can we develop wisdom? It turns out that the wisdom we seek is already there, at the heart of our being. Deep inside, we know right from wrong; this discernment is an intrinsic part of being human. But the quiet voice of this inner knowing is usually obscured by our busy thinking minds, forever trying to help us get the things we believe will bring us peace and happiness and avoid those that will bring pain and suffering.

So the real question is: How to quieten the mind so that we can hear the wisdom of that quiet inner voice untainted by our fears and needs.

As many have discovered, this comes from letting go of our attachments as to how things should be, and returning to the untrammeled state of mind, to the peace and love that are our true essence.

These are the wise ones that we honor; the founders of many of world’s spiritual traditions—or what today are often called the «wisdom traditions.»