Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Black Swan (№ 258074)

Respect for the elderly, developed in many cultures, is perhaps an attempt to compensate for a short century of human memory. The word "Senate" comes from the Latin "senatus" - "elderly". The Arabic word "Sheikh" means not only "representative of the ruling elite", but "the elder". The memory of the old storage complex, centuries of experience, including knowledge about rare events. Old people scare us with stories - that's why we are so afraid of certain Black swans. To his surprise, I learned that this applies to the animal world: in the journal "science" wrote that old females-the leaders of the elephants play the role of "consultants for rare events".