The longer an idea has survived, the longer it's likely to last

For perishable things, age predicts death. For ideas, books and technologies, it's the reverse: something that has been around 2,000 years is a better bet to last another century than last year's breakthrough. Time is the only honest filter for fragility.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder — 2012, Chapter 20 (the 'Lindy effect')
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